The Manchester Ship Canal project: a pathway towards smart sustainable urban futures
Sara Biscaya, Claudia Trillo and Athena Moustaka
The Manchester Ship Canal (MSC) research project
Today, across the world there are more people living in cities than rural areas. Cities and conurbations increasingly play a major role in driving economic growth and improving the overall quality of human settlements. A large population sharing infrastructure allows sustainable growth and concentrated governance permitting for more organised planning. The ever-evolving condition of what constitutes a city and its relationship with the rural is continuously in flux, forming a territory in between the urban and the rural, facing challenges of rapid urbanisation, changing demography, deprivation, inequality, and climate change.
These overlaying patches of rural and urban areas are increasingly complex and require different approaches and ways of thinking. Trends in city development are now established around economics, nature, the search for a new urban lifestyle and new approaches to governance serving a multitude of variables and everyday disruptions faced by fringes of cities.
With the fast pace of cities’ growth and the societal and ecological challenges posed, a steep change is required. The recently published Dasgupta review (2021) on the economics of biodiversity stresses the importance of an ecosystem approach to tackle both the fight to climate change and societal challenges. Implications on health and wellbeing, housing, future jobs and connectedness need to be addressed in a different way that includes a bottom up community engagement approach to achieve Sustainable Development Goals.
Green and blue corridors present major challenges due to their historic and environmental role but also present opportunities to explore smart urban futures that embrace societal and environmental challenges through the application of technological solutions that promote healthier living for communities. Furthermore, intertwined issues such as pursuing collaborative governance and overcoming a silo-approach in environmental management are typical of socio-economic and environmental challenges in green and blue corridors.
The Manchester Ship Canal (MSC) serves as case study to explore the potential of developing a smart ecological urban corridor in waterways promoting the connection between environmental infrastructure and scientific and economic development for these areas, while nurturing biodiversity and providing quality urban spaces.
The focus is to maintain integration of human and natural systems, in line with a number of Sustainable Development Goals set by UN Agenda 2030 and the New Urban Agenda. Utilising the Delphi Technique, a series of cross-boundary multi-disciplinary meetings and workshops with key experts and stakeholders were designed to identify consensus on potential future scenarios for the MSC. The research mobilised a multi-disciplinary participatory workshop to develop a number of ecologically based scenarios; a blue-sky approach was used in the workshops underpinned by data analysis of a number of pre-determined catalysts for the MSC (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264275120313901?via%3Dihub). It identified key drivers in regenerating urban corridors, including economic, connection with nature and resilience, healthier population and culture and lifestyle.
Innovation in research-lead teaching MArch @UoS
Drawing from knowledge generated during the course of this research project, the Manchester Ship Canal serves as the locus of investigation for the two-year thesis project of the Masters in Architecture at the University of Salford.
The research-led graduation project provides students with the opportunity to explore theoretically and practically the potential of the canal to act in-between local cities and identify appropriate modes of intervention. Reading the MSC as infrastructure and identifying various locations afflicted by poor socioeconomic conditions, the students propose interventions that create alternative networks and promote connectivity between towns on the canal.
Building further on the research network established by Salford researchers, students are linked with key experts in the fields of urbanism, waterways and environmental challenges. They reproduce a similar methodology to the one applied to the project with the aim of making them aware of the nature of the currently environmental challenges faced and the key role they play in the climate change planning and actions.
Being part of this extensive network of researchers has allowed Salford Masters students to work closely with peers from other universities: in 2020 a twining was established with L’Ecole Nationale Superior D’Architecture Clermont-Ferrand” — ENSA, France (outcomes can be seen https://evan-ensacf.com) when students visited the MSC from France, participating with Salford Masters of Architecture students in a workshop with local and international stakeholders. The research-led Masters project has allowed students to familiarise themselves with research methodologies when interrogating an area and to develop a deeper understanding of research by critically discussing their findings with international key actors.
Although the current COVID-19 pandemic has prevented the International workshop to take place in person, the UK MArch students twined virtually this year with Università di Chieti-Pescara, with the Italian partners working on the Ferrara canal in Italy (outcomes can be seen https://urbanwaterways.wixsite.com/unich).
Way forward
The research project and the partnerships have yielded positive and innovative results both in research and teaching with key international stakeholders in urban waterways involved in the MSC case study. We aim to continue with the twining and expand the network on urban/rural disused waterways in Europe and overseas. We would welcome new partnerships from different stakeholders to enrich the discussion and engage in an intercultural dialogue on environmental challenges.
Learn more about this research via the Climate Exp0 media library.
Climate Exp0 is the first virtual conference from the COP26 Universities Network and the Italian University Network for Sustainable Development (RUS), sponsored by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Cambridge University Press, the Conference of Italian University Rectors (CRUI), and the 2021 UN Climate Change Summit (COP26).
Running from 17–21 May 2021, it takes place at a critical juncture in the COP26 pre-meetings and negotiations, and is part of the All4Climate Italy 2021 official pre-COP26 initiatives. Learn more and register your place via https://www.climateexp0.org.
