Call for Essays
Kunlé Adeyemi (NLÉ Principle, Lecturer)
Editors:
Suzanne Lettieri (Jefferson Lettieri Office co-principle, Cornell University)
Berend Strijland ( (NLÉ Partner, Architect)
African Water Cities is the first book of its kind presenting research and documentation on how African cities and communities situated by water bodies such as coasts, rivers, lagoons, lakes and floodplains are dealing with two of the most significant trends of our time: urbanization and climate change.
On the African continent, the impact of climate change marked by significant loss and damage is now a day-to-day reality. Coastal and waterfront cities, in particular, experience the effects of significant increases in rainfall, sea levels and flooding. At the same time, Africa is the second most rapidly urbanizing continent after Asia with over seventy percent (70%) of its major cities and capitals by waterfronts.
Cities such as Lagos, Abidjan, Conakry, Kinshasa, Luanda, Dar-e-Salaam, Dakar, Cotonou, and Mogadishu as well as communities such as Makoko, Ganvie, and Nzulezu, amongst others are experiencing and learning to adapt to the convergence of these trends. The intersections of water and cities are therefore critical to understanding the future of urban and rural developments in Africa.
We recognise that rapid urbanisation is putting increased pressure on water as a domestic resource for drinking and sanitation but we want to steer away from that well-covered subject in this book and focus on water as a territorial, geographical and environmental asset, shaping the physical developments of cities and communities in Africa.