Responding to Root Causes of Displacement and to climate emergencies in Cities and Territories through Predictive Spatial Data

Urbanisation has always been significantly shaped by patterns of population movement, whether in response to economic pull factors or to push factors including climate events, natural disasters and conflict causing displacement. Between 2020-2050 it is estimated that the global urban population will increase by 2.5 billion people, mostly in Africa and Asia, with around half of this number attributable to various forms of migration and displacement.
Cities are frequently and increasingly responding to climate related shocks and to the needs of displaced communities. When this is not anticipated -as is often the case - cities can at best implement strategies to cope. However, with the benefit of anticipatory spatial data, cities and territories are better placed to respond to root causes of displacement and build resilience, and to anticipate and plan for population growth in a way that leverages its economic benefits.
Over the last 20 years, the European Union has stood out as UN-Habitat’s strongest funding partner and an important ally on data and research work. The partnership has seen the successful implementation of diverse projects on urban crisis and displacement response in Africa, Asia, Arab States, and Latin America, to responding to climate impacts in cities, to normative work on urban data alignment and knowledge creation on sustainable urbanization. Recently, through the Urban 2030 initiative, the European Union, UN-Habitat and partners have been exploring how to match population and urbanization projections and how to better measure urban development through the finetuning of indicators and improved data collection.
The UN-Habitat Arena Event will showcase a new generation of urban and territorial interventions that mitigate climate risks and leverage positive impacts of population movement into and between cities, with the benefit of predictive spatial data analysis. The event will share some of the key outcomes of the Urban 2030 initiative and take stock of progress in spatial data science as applicable to urban development. This will be followed with a diverse range of case studies that demonstrate how predictive data and spatial data can inform urban and territorial development solutions and identify critical infrastructure investments.
Case studies will include the analysis and response to anticipated heat islands in Madrid and Vienna in Europe, territorial analysis on the root causes of migration and disaplcement in the Sahel, and a corresponding regional spatial development strategy; and, spatial data informed “tactical urbanism” interventions in Colombia to support refugee hosting urban communities.