Accommodating landscape-scale shocks: Lessons on transition from Cape Town and Puerto Rico. Issue 102 (June 2019)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Accommodating landscape-scale shocks: Lessons on transition from Cape Town and Puerto Rico. Issue 102 (June 2019)
- Main Title:
- Accommodating landscape-scale shocks: Lessons on transition from Cape Town and Puerto Rico
- Authors:
- Simpson, Nicholas Philip
- Abstract:
- Highlights: Public planning failed to anticipate the severity of unprecedented environmental disruptions. Private actors explore alternative pathways to water and energy security. Utility scale providers of public goods push back against off-grid behaviours and technologies. Environmental shocks open disruptive niches for new technologies to cascade. Abstract: Landscape-scale shocks, in the forms of Hurricane Maria and an unprecedented drought, have provided significant disruptions to the respective centrally designed water and energy networks of Puerto Rico and Cape Town. Despite a number of contextual differences, this article considers what can be learnt from the two cases as they present significant similarities in off-grid responses and adaptation endeavours by a range of key actors. The cases illustrate how these large and centrally planned utility providers were ill-equipped to perceive and appropriately respond to both the landscape-scale shocks and the associated social and technological disruptions which they brought about. The cases illustrate similarities in how back-burner technologies can cascade, at unprecedented speeds, to fill polycentric niches created by failure of centralised service delivery. A fundamental lesson, which illustrates the challenges to transition to decentralised and off-grid systems, is the push-back from a disrupted regime. The cases demonstrate centralising endeavours by utilities to reconfigure and recover from both the environmentalHighlights: Public planning failed to anticipate the severity of unprecedented environmental disruptions. Private actors explore alternative pathways to water and energy security. Utility scale providers of public goods push back against off-grid behaviours and technologies. Environmental shocks open disruptive niches for new technologies to cascade. Abstract: Landscape-scale shocks, in the forms of Hurricane Maria and an unprecedented drought, have provided significant disruptions to the respective centrally designed water and energy networks of Puerto Rico and Cape Town. Despite a number of contextual differences, this article considers what can be learnt from the two cases as they present significant similarities in off-grid responses and adaptation endeavours by a range of key actors. The cases illustrate how these large and centrally planned utility providers were ill-equipped to perceive and appropriately respond to both the landscape-scale shocks and the associated social and technological disruptions which they brought about. The cases illustrate similarities in how back-burner technologies can cascade, at unprecedented speeds, to fill polycentric niches created by failure of centralised service delivery. A fundamental lesson, which illustrates the challenges to transition to decentralised and off-grid systems, is the push-back from a disrupted regime. The cases demonstrate centralising endeavours by utilities to reconfigure and recover from both the environmental shock as well as the novel governance arrangements of economic, social and technological shifts which occurred. … (more)
- Is Part Of:
- Geoforum. Issue 102(2019)
- Journal:
- Geoforum
- Issue:
- Issue 102(2019)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 102, Issue 102 (2019)
- Year:
- 2019
- Volume:
- 102
- Issue:
- 102
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2019-0102-0102-0000
- Page Start:
- 226
- Page End:
- 229
- Publication Date:
- 2019-06
- Subjects:
- Cape Town -- Puerto Rico -- Resilience -- Back-burner technologies -- Off-grid technologies -- Transitions
Geography -- Periodicals
Human geography -- Periodicals
Regional planning -- Periodicals
Sciences de la terre -- Périodiques
Géographie -- Périodiques
Géographie humaine -- Périodiques
Aménagement du territoire -- Périodiques
Earth sciences
Geography
Human geography
Regional planning
Periodicals
Electronic journals
304.205 - Journal URLs:
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00167185 ↗
http://www.elsevier.com/journals ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.12.005 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0016-7185
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 4121.450000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 12840.xml