Project
AMAZING is a Polisocial project that aims to contribute to making the Wadi Abiod valley, today one of the driest of the Aurès, the center of an active network of knowledge production, able to combine technology and traditional sciences in managing climatic, natural and social challenges.
Description
The rural population of Aurès, which in the 1960s made up 70% of those settled in these valleys, today represents less than 15%. This process threatens the survival of the community standing as the last custodian of a wealth of knowledge that for millennia has made the area habitable and productive. The main problems that lead the local population to migrate to urban centers or new settlements (often of poor quality) include:
- the complex orography, the loss of efficiency of water management in a context in the process that is heading for desertification
- the limited comfort of traditional homes compared to contemporary standards.
Consequences of these critical issues are environmental loss of aggregation of the social fabric.
Objectives
The fundamental objectives are to increase the resilience of the territory to the challenges posed by climate change by ensuring equity, inclusion and cultural sustainability, and trigger processes of ecological transition and social innovation.
Transversal to these topics is the enhancement of the Berber cultural heritage, which operationally speaking is enhanced and integrated with the polytechnical research lines through tools that pertain to Social Sciences.
Optimize
Water
Resources
The water resource management is optimized by combining practices of oasis systems, new models and technologies. The research on water management will enable us to evaluate the impact of agricultural activities and their effectiveness in managing the territory against desertification.
Enhance
Historical
Buildings
Preservation and enhance historical buildings by adapting their safety, comfort and sustainability to facilitate widespread and conscious recovery. AMAZING will contribute locally to the mitigation of the impact of extreme environmental conditions on buildings, through the co-design of climate-responsive and climate-resilient building adaptation, with assessment of the sustainability of the interventions (energy improvement and reduction of vulnerability).
Circular
Economy
Safe and sustainable historical heritage, favoring circular supply chains for the production of building materials, with a focus on a pilot school-site relevant to the local and scientific community. The circular supply chain linked to the new materials under study (UBiskra-UAnnaba-PoliMi) has direct relevance for the sustainable development of the local economy.
Social relevance
The key result will be to increase the resilience of the territory to the challenges posed by climate change in a context of ecological transition, in line with the themes outlined in the EU Green Deal, EU Soil Strategy 2030. The formation of a new body of knowledge and techniques activated by collaboration with the Universities of Biskra and Annaba and with local communities will promote the management of critical issues and the understanding of the potential of the territory by the community that still inhabits it or that would like to return to plan their future here. The abandonment of these territories is experienced not as a choice, but rather as a fallback in the face of the impossibility of managing environmental and economic changes. Growing complexity and social decohesion are key drivers of this process. Integrated resource management methods between anthropized and natural
environments will lay the foundations for reducing water and energy scarcity, intervening on issues of wide resonance throughout the MENA area. AMAZING will activate participatory processes by promoting the direct involvement of the population in activities aimed at sharing and developing knowledge and skills. The social impact will be assessed through the number of adhesions to the interactive experimental / laboratory activities, the dissemination events, and through process evaluation tools, as well as the outcome of the in situ experimentation thanks to the pilot construction site-school as a place of elaboration and sharing of good building practices based on the effective reuse of locally available underutilized resources, thus initiating circular economy actions and promoting sustainable architecture interventions.
