Durban Hub
In Durban, PATH studies how flood-displaced residents navigate life in informal settlements amid rapid urban expansion and intensifying climate hazards. Working alongside community partners and local government, we co-develop solutions that address housing precarity and build community-led climate resilience.
Research Focus
Durban’s informal settlements have long been shaped by the uneven legacies of apartheid-era spatial planning. Today, rapid urban expansion and intensifying climate hazards — most devastatingly the 2022 floods — have left thousands of residents in precarious housing situations, navigating displacement, damaged infrastructure, and uncertain futures.
PATH’s research in Durban explores how communities in these conditions understand their situation, imagine their futures, and act on their own behalf. We work alongside residents of Pholani and other informal settlements to understand the everyday realities of housing precarity and flood risk — and to co-develop adaptation strategies that centre community knowledge, local governance, and social justice.
Our partnerships with the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of the Western Cape connect community-level research to academic expertise in urban geography, environmental governance, and informal settlement studies. We also engage directly with Durban city structures, including the eThekwini Municipality’s Disaster Management and Emergency Control Unit, to bridge the gap between lived community experience and formal adaptation planning.
From the Field
In July 2025, the full PATH team gathered in Durban for a five-day research collaboration meeting — including workshops, a community visit to Pholani, and a Learning Lab with city officials from the Disaster Management and Emergency Control Unit.
Meet the Durban Team
Dr. Catherine Sutherland — Professor
Professor Catherine Sutherland is an urban geographer who specializes in environmental, water and climate governance, with a focus on informal settlements and peri-urban areas in Durban. The theory and practice of local environmental change, urban governance, state–citizen relations and social transformation, and how they shape urban sustainability in cities in the South, are of particular interest in her work. She has worked on disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation at the local and provincial government scale in KwaZulu-Natal. She is an academic in the School of Built Environment and Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, a Research Associate in WASH R&D Centre, and teaches modules on sustainability, environment and development and environmental governance.
sutherlandc@ukzn.ac.za
Dr. Shirley Brooks — Professor
Dr. Shirley Brooks is an associate professor at the University of the Western Cape.
sbrooks@uwc.ac.za
Dr. Orli Bass — Senior Lecturer
Orli Bass is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, located in Durban, South Africa. Her research interests are in urban identities, cities and culture, gender, mega-events, tourism and recreation, and aspects relating to the geography discipline in South Africa.
bass@ukzn.ac.za