Project

Reflexive environmental risk governance of coastal urban centres in China: the role of e- participation

Industrial and urbanization processes, combined with the threat of climate change, put Chinese coastal urban areas at increasing environmental risk. To address these risks, China’s environmental risk management strategy needs to move beyond its top-down and traditional architecture.

This project identifies ways in which environmental risk governance in Chinese’s coastal cities can become more localised and reflexive through e-participation. In different regions of the world, citizens are using ICT technologies and social media to monitor environmental problems and to inform policy-making. The potential of such e-participation by citizens for environmental risk governance in China is examined through in-depth case-studies of chemical pollution and flooding in three Chinese coastal cities.

This project is funded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).