Events

The Center for Sustainable Systems would like you to join us for a seminar with visiting scholar Dr. Genevieve Metson. Lunch will be provided.

Seminar Summary: In sustainability circles, green spaces in cities are praised for their multifunctionality. However, without intentionality, win-wins are not a given across functions, especially with changing climate conditions. London, Ontario, a rapidly growing mid-sized Canadian city, is no exception. Increasing Indigenous food sovereignty, for instance, via urban agriculture, foraging, and fishing, is heavily curtailed by land ownership, and at times, potential contamination from previous land uses. The current size of green spaces is also unlikely to keep up with urban flooding risks associated with increasing extreme events. And similarly, urban agricultural spaces may be hotspots of nutrient losses to waterways even when focusing on nutrient recycling via compost. Translating academic findings into concrete management strategies is not only challenging, but perhaps counterproductive — we need a paradigm shift for deep sustainability. This presentation discusses how community partnership, living labs, and art can be used as ways to bridge the gap between current knowledge and more uncertain futures in urban green spaces.

Biography: Dr. Geneviève Metson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environment, at Western University in Canada, where she runs the Sustainable Resource Management Lab. She uses social science, natural science, and arts methods to investigate how we can better manage phosphorus, and other resources, across scales. Her research uses a systems perspective and views nutrients as a useful lens to examine how societies engage with the provision of food, clean water, and waste treatment. This broad lens has afforded her the privilege to work in the USA, Australia, Sweden, South Africa, Malawi, and Vietnam, in addition to her ongoing work in Canada.