Working in Kathmandu

The Himalayan Climate Data Field Lab is a month-long, participant-led unconference that gathers scholars, practitioners, activists, and storytellers to collaboratively examine and remake the ways climate change data is used in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region. Held in Kathmandu between May 13th to June 7, 2024, this event will include over 120 participants who join from 19 different countries and a wide variety of different backgrounds.Organizing their work around a set of key themes, Field Lab participants will co-design, test and produce new ideas, analytic tools, maps and models, sensing technologies, syllabi and training materials, data protocols, artistic pieces and communication products that address climate change and its impacts. Our overall goals are to develop new and effective ways of working with climate change data, while also working to create a more equitable and pluralistic data landscape in the Himalayan region.

The overall goals of this Field Lab are:

• Design and co-create new approaches to data and information management that improve processes of decision-making and policy formation in the region
• Share knowledge about the diverse ways people make, use, and mobilize climate change data in the Himalayan region
• Create resources, curricula, and training materials that will help create more space for critical and pluralistic studies of data within institutions across the Himalayan region
• Encourage new forms of collaboration across disciplines, sectors, and geographies focused on exploring new practices and processes of working with climate change data
• Develop and test new methods for engaging differently-positioned groups in the co-production of climate change data and knowledge
• Build an international interdisciplinary network of scholars and practitioners that can facilitate long-term dialogue, knowledge exchange, and collaboration to support future climate change-oriented projects, research, or advocacy efforts.

   

Why Himalayan Climate Data? 

The Himalayan Climate Data Field Lab offers participants the opportunity to experiment with new approaches for creating, sharing, and using climate change data in the Himalayan region.

The impacts of climate change are intensifying across the Himalayan region, creating new patterns of risk and vulnerability that intersect with other chronic socio-environmental problems and injustices. In recent years, increasing scientific and policy attention has prompted a surge of climate-related research and analysis, which has led to a variety of new data sets, models, toolkits, information portals, and knowledge products. This expansion of available data is encouraging given chronic struggles with data scarcity in the Himalayan, and can support new forms of evidence-based decision making and policy. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear that, by themselves, more data and better models will not resolve the social, political, and epistemological challenges at the core of climate change. What kinds of climate change data might support new efforts to build more just climate futures? The design of data systems and information infrastructures shape the ways climate change problems are understood and prioritized, as well as whose stories get told. Uneven and unjust patterns of climate change vulnerability are also a product of historical and intersecting patterns of social and political inequality which have excluded certain groups from processes of knowledge production and decision making. How can we develop more equitable and inclusive ways of producing and interpreting climate change data? What lessons can we learn in the Himalayan region that can inspire and inform climate data management and climate action in other parts of the world?  

An Unconventional Format:

The “unconference” format we are using was developed during the first Understanding Risk Field Lab, held in Chiang Mai, Thailand in 2019. Designed as an alternative to standard conference structures, this format generates more opportunities for co-working, allows participants to co-create the program, and creates time and space to adapt workflows to accommodate emergent topics and ideas. The core principles of the unconference format are:

• Fluid time-frame – Come when you can and stay for as long as you can over a month-long period.
• Emergent schedule – A few organizers will lead a set of workshops and trainings, but most of the schedule will be created by participants (bring your own project, host a workshop, run an activity).
• Production oriented – There will be presentations and discussion sessions, but we will focus on opportunities to make, write, design, code, question, and experiment.
• Improvisation: Participants are welcome to join any session or conversation, to try new things and change interests, and to initiate and pursue new projects and ideas.
• A diverse group of participants and stakeholders – the Field Lab will bring together a variety of different people from across the Himalayan region and beyond.
• A focus on equity: we will create an inclusive space where alternative ways of knowing and working with climate change data can flourish.
• Simple rules:
  • Rule 1: Make something. Produce something while you are there: an art piece, policy brief, music, map, digital app, risk model, etc.
  • Rule 2: Document your work.
  • Rule 3: Contribute to the unconference community.

Why a month? First, because organizing the Field Lab over a month-long period creates more time and space for different people to engage—for different approaches, workflows, needs, and contributions. Second, because interdisciplinary collaboration is hard, and it takes time to co-develop new ideas, gain momentum, and build meaningful relations.

If you are interested to learn more about the unconference structure and the kinds of work it can enable, please visit https://urfieldlab.com/ and review the website for the 2019 Field Labor or read this paper on the 2019 Field Lab called  “Becoming Interdisciplinary.”

An Overview of Programming

The broad structure for the four weeks are:

• Week 1: Big ideas. We’ll dig into some core concepts related to our overarching themes, such as climate information and equity, and organize a series of events designed to help build community and generate new ideas. We’ll also begin talking about urban climate challenges and engaging with the city of Kathmandu.
• Week 2: Designing approaches. Week two is all about designing new ways and innovative methods for tackling climate-related challenges, whether it be through sensing and sensors, recognizing local and indigenous knowledge, utilizing AI and machine learning tools, analyzing energy transitions in the region, or new approaches to visualization and mapping.
• Week 3: Applying it. Our third week will move towards applying designs and methodological innovations to key issues: like reimagining resilience and vulnerability data, supporting climate activism, enabling early warning and anticipatory action, or analyzing biodiversity and ecological change.
• Week 4: Bringing it all together. The final week will be devoted to bringing all of our work together, synthesizing projects and methods, and creating outcomes we can share with the world. Leading to a series of outward-facing products and our final public showcase!

The overarching themes for the entire Field Lab are Climate Data & Information; Disaster Risk; and Justice & Equity. In addition, we have created 15 Thematic Working Groups that focus on specific issues and topics – and we ask that participants sign up for up to 5 of these groups, which will facilitate internal organization (see below).

• Climate Information & User Needs
• Urban Climate Challenges
• Sensing & Sensors
• Local & Indigenous Climate Knowledge
• AI & Machine Learning
• Energy Transitions
• Reimagining Resilience & Vulnerability
• Biodiversity & Ecological Change
• Migration & Mobility
• Methods for Data and Knowledge Co-Production
• Climate Activism
• Climate Change Communication & Storytelling
• Making with Data: Art, Design, Media

Each week will focus on several themes – which helps participants in synchronizing their participation and coordinating their travel. At the same time, participants are able to begin or continue work on any of these themes (and find like-minded collaborators) in any given week. Over the course of the Field Lab, participants will be able to choose among a variety of different activities and projects – some will be pre-organized around central themes and others will be created during the Field Lab itself. On any given day, participants will be able to work on things like: creating and sharing datasets, making maps, coding,  joining storytelling workshops, developing new analytical tools, writing (papers, policy briefs, creative reflections), geeking out on research methods, or conducting field work around the Kathmandu Valley. Participants can propose and organize activities however they like: to develop datasets or technologies to address a particular issue, to gather resources, to experiment with new processes and workflows, or to create a new work product. Critically, the schedule is meant to be flexible, and participants are invited and expected to reshape the program by co-organizing projects or work sessions that center around themes, questions, or data-oriented problems that interest them. The unconference model is all about shaping the event together, so the program will continue to change and evolve as we go along!

 

Working in Kathmandu

The urban environment of the Kathmandu Valley is an excellent place to gather and share knowledge from across the Himalayan region and to reflect on the layered challenges climate change poses within the Himalayan region. Home to over 1.5 million people and the capital city of Nepal, Kathmandu is a city struggling to navigate intersecting environmental and public health problems, such as air pollution and water insecurity, which are further complicated by climate change. It is a site where participants can examine the situated and uneven impacts of climate change and an institutional hub where they can engage a variety of institutions working on issues of climate adaptation, climate governance, and climate knowledge management. Working from the Kathmandu Valley will provide participants with an applied context that can help sharpen their own work, ideas, critiques, and innovations.

Throughout the Field Lab, participants will have opportunities to work with and learn from many Kathmandu-based partners and institutions working on climate change issues. At the same time, a variety of other activities—participant projects, site visits for data collection, group field trips, and a handful of special events—will encourage participants to explore the Kathmandu Valley. Field Lab participants will also be encouraged to propose and organize projects that take them beyond the city to other parts of Nepal.

Event Organizers 

The organizing team for the Field Lab includes researchers and practitioners affiliated with the Toronto Climate Observatory at the University of Toronto, the University of Michigan, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, the World Bank, the United Nations University, and Arup working in coordination with collaborators from the Himalayan University Consortium (HUC).and Social Sciences Baha based in Kathmandu.

The Field Lab is made possible with support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), the World Bank Disaster Risk Financing Initiative (DRFI), the World Bank’s Understanding Risk (UR) program and the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) of the Government of Nepal.

Organizing Team:

                 

With Financial support from: