2024 Awards: Sustainable GeoCommunities Seed Grants

The following are brief descriptions of the projects (taken directly from the original proposals) selected for Sustainable GeoCommunities Seed Grants in 2024. These awards are designed to support research projects aligned with the University of Minnesota's Sustainable GeoCommunities initiative, a global program launched in April 2024 that includes partners at University at Buffalo, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK), IIT Bombay (IITB), IIT Delhi (IITD), IIT Goa (IITG), and Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, a multicampus Indian university. The program aims to leverage geodesign thinking, geospatial technologies, and other research tools to help local communities around the world grow and thrive by meeting UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Research teams could request up to $100,000/year for up to three years. Four projects were funded for a total of $1.14 million.
 

Alliance for Waste Equity (AWE): Transforming Waste Management with Sustainable Community-Engaged Solutions

Nida Sajid, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, CLA

Co-PIs: 
Rishikesh Narayan,  Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Goa
Ankur Kumar, Specialists in Management of Environment and Wildlife (SMEW) Ecological Solutions

Collaborators:
Suvadip Sinha, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, UMN
Thaseem Thajudeen, IIT Goa
Shakthi Prasad, IIT Goa
Sunil Paul, IIT Goa
Sarah Ali, GIS Specialist, Tinsa Ecological Foundation India
Amit Kumar, SMEW Ecological Solutions
Priyanka Saxena, Tinsa Ecological Foundation India

We are proposing a 3-year multidisciplinary project – AWE (Alliance for Waste Equity) – to offer sustainable, community-engaged solutions for waste management. The lack of waste segregation is a critical issue facing most countries of the Global South. The waste workers, in particular, endure the worst effects of mixed waste as an underserved population in developing countries like India. Ill-equipped material recovery facilities and untenable segregation practices further lead to the contamination of water, air, and soil, affecting the surrounding communities and environment. Our team will implement and test solutions to the above problems by leveraging its research partnership with IIT Goa and community partners in India, SMEW Ecological Solutions, and Tinsa. Our objective is to design sustainable and engaged solutions for waste segregation facilities that lack infrastructural support and employ daily-wage labor. Solutions will incorporate human and environmental vulnerability assessments and collaboration with local partners to identify focal points of social and technological interventions. We will work on capacity-building strategies throughout the project with a strong commitment to reciprocal and intersectional methods in research and engagement. The design and application of optimal solutions will prioritize dignity as a fundamental principle in waste work and focus on low-cost innovations for long-term impact on local communities and global sustainability.

Community-Based Networks to Improve Water Quality and Security in the Tzalá River and Lake Atitlán Basins, Guatemala

Edgar Arriaga, Department of Chemistry, CSE

Co-PIs:
Pamela Pennington, Dean of Arts and Sciences, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG)
Brenda Noriega, Community Liaison, UVG-Altiplano

Collaborators: 
Olena Boiko, Geospatial Developer, UMN
Maria Jose Lazo Hernandez, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala
Esdras Rafael T. Jerez, UVG-Altiplano
Diego Josue Incer Nuñez, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala
Melany Lucia Ramirez Galindo, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala
Johanna Alexandra Ochoa Ruilova, Universidad del Azuay
Maria Lorena Orellana Samaniego, Universidad del Azuay
Josué Pozo Martínez, Universidad del Azuay

This proposal outlines steps to create sustainable GeoCommunities around Lake Atitlán, serving as a model for regions like Minnesota. Lake Atitlán is vital to nearby Mayan communities, their economies, their traditions, and their culture. The communities and the ecosystem face threats from climate change, population growth, and economic development. The University of Minnesota (UMN) and the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG) will focus on San Andrés Semetabaj, in the Tzalá River basin, which feeds into Lake Atitlán. Pollution from agricultural runoff and urban activities endangers water quality and public health, echoing challenges in some Minnesota communities. Our approach involves citizen science, mobile data collection, and analytical chemistry to build a collaborative monitoring network with students and local members. The project aims to: (1) engage the community in sustainable monitoring; (2) identify and quantify pollutants; (3) use cell-phone-based data systems to integrate findings into Geographic Information Systems (GIS); and (4) strengthen partnerships between UMN, UVG, and local communities. The strategies developed will not only support Lake Atitlán but also provide insights relevant to Minnesota, fostering sustainable GeoCommunities globally.

Envisioning a Sustainable Future for Leech Lake: A Geodesign Approach to Community-Led Innovation

Dingliang Yang, School of Architecture, College of Design

Co-PIs:
Thomas Fisher, School of Architecture and Director, Minnesota Design Center, UMN
Sabina Saksena, Founder, Smart North
Laurie D. Harper, Education Director, Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe

Collaborators:
Ryan Anderson, GIS Technician, Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe
Anthony Fettes, University of New Mexico
Scot Nortrom, Director of 106 Group (specialists on archeological survey)
Maxwell Xuanyi Nie, University at Buffalo

The proposed research utilizes geodesign to address critical challenges on the Leech Lake Reservation by integrating traditional indigenous knowledge with GIS tools. A key focus of this approach is youth engagement, empowering the next generation of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe to actively participate in the planning and decision-making process. Through workshops at the Smart North’s Deer River Tech Hub, youth will learn geospatial thinking and GIS techniques, gaining the skills needed to map, analyze, and co-design solutions for their community. The geodesign process facilitates collaborative, data-driven planning that integrates cultural, ecological, and technological factors. Youth and community participants will play a central role, contributing to the mapping of critical local issues, such as land use, water systems, and natural resource management, while reconceptualizing the Reservation as a unified territory. This method enables the community to visualize and shape the future sustainable development of Leech Lake and the project will co-envision a 10-year masterplan (2025-2035) for the reservation. This approach not only builds local capacity but also serves as a model for sustainable, community-driven planning and design that can be adapted in other indigenous and rural contexts globally. Future efforts include pursuing additional grant funding and advocating for policy influence at state and national levels.

Participatory Planning for Sustainable Landscape Restoration in the Western Himalaya

Forrest Fleischman, Department of Forest Resources, CFANS

Collaborators: 
Adriana Uscanga Castillo, Department of Forest Resources, UMN
Pooja Choksi, Department of Forest Resources, UMN
Sudipan Saha, IIT Delhi
Pushpendra Rana, Indian Forest Service
Rajan Kumar Kotru, Trestle Management Advisors (policy think tank on natural resource management)
Akshay Jasrotia, Mahagram Sabha (community forest management committee)

Over the last decade, ecosystem restoration has emerged as a leading natural climate solution, with the potential to produce co-benefits for biodiversity and people’s livelihoods. Yet recent research has shown that these benefits may not be realized if the local people who use and manage those landscapes are not involved in planning for restoration. We propose to build on ongoing research on trees, people, and restoration in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh to work with local communities and local government officials to identify community-based strategies for improved futures through restoring degraded landscapes. We will hold participatory workshops in villages that draw on participatory rural appraisal, strategic foresight, and participatory GIS techniques, informed by advanced remote sensing and AI. We will work with leaders in these communities to develop long-term management plans, in collaboration with the government forest department that draw on the resulting plans, and will lead to healthier and more productive long-term landscapes. Scholarly outputs of this research will include publications examining how to effectively merge advanced remote sensing techniques with participatory planning, analyses of the differences between restoration outcomes with and without these techniques, and proposals to large-scale funders to scale up successful solutions.