Socio‐spatial dynamics of Informal Settlements in Fiji, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands

• Period: 2019-2022
• Funded by: French Ministry of foreign affairs, Caledonian government and Pacific Islands Universities Research Network (PIURN).
• Partners: Ecosophy company, University of New Caledonia, IRD, University of South Pacific, National University of Vanuatu, Solomon Islands National University, and Massey university.
• My role : Coordinator of two PIURN projects

Faced with growing urbanization, informal settlements are an integral part of the urban landscape in the Pacific island states. Improving living conditions of populations has become a major issue. For this, stakeholders need indicators and tools to better understand and plan evolutions of these communities w.r.t. their environment. The objective of this multidisciplinary project is to analyze and modelize the dynamics of informal settlements based on GIS data, satellite images, drone data and household surveys. Agent-based modeling (ABM) will be used to simulate informal settlements dynamics. Then, data mining techniques will be used to analyzed simulation results, and improve the model. The objective here is to develop an hybrid approach where ABM is guided by data science. To construct its generic model, this project more particularly study six informal settlements in Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Fiji.