FOR 5903:  Sustainable Rurbanity - Resources, Society, and Regulatory Systems

• Subject Area: Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine ; Construction Engineering and Architecture ; Biology ; Humanities ; Geosciences ; Computer Science, Systems and Electrical Engineering ; Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 548312187

Human societies constitute complex forms of social organisation as reflected in the diverse settlement patterns that they have produced worldwide over time. City limits draw arbitrary boundaries between an (urban) interior under strong human control and a (rural) exterior more subject to biophysical processes. In reality, both spaces have always been closely linked, and with intensifying use of natural resources, rural-urban transformation processes increasingly become their characteristic determinants. In the Anthropocene, urbanisation and its associated social and ecological changes have reached global dimensions. "The rural" and "the urban" enter into multiple relationships at different scales, becoming an often self-organising entity of great scientific, social, and political significance. The proposed Research Unit “Sustainable Rurbanity” addresses this phenomenon, and analyses it as a state of being and becoming constantly re-inventing and restructuring itself. Guided by three overarching hypotheses, 10 projects of the Natural and Social Sciences use rurban areas in India, West Africa, and Morocco to investigate mechanisms of transformation, consequences, and governance processes of rurbanity. An interdisciplinary, social-ecological systems approach combined with ideas from assemblage thinking allows for creating synergies between disciplinary cultures and different scientific disciplines, including perspectives from the Global South. This common framework is a prerequisite for linking contextual empirical research to theory-driven analytical comparisons, and for using innovative methods of systems analysis and synthesis of results. Our approach understands rural-urban transformation and the derived phenomenon of rurbanity in its complexity across scales and regions, and assesses its key implications for sustainable land use and societal development.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• International Connection: Ghana, India, Morocco

Projects

• A01 – RurbanAgroforestry: Effects of tree-based agriculture on ecosystem services supply, distribution, and access in a rurban environment (Applicants Plieninger, Tobias ;  Wachendorf, Michael ;  Wijesingha, Ph.D., Jayan )
• Between hometown and transnational connections: The small town of Larteh in Ghana (Applicant Werthmann, Katja )
• C01 - RurbanGeography: Towards a global geography of rurbanity - developing a set of indicators to map and monitor rurban spaces (Applicants Esch, Thomas ;  Loulad, Safia ;  Siebert, Stefan )
• Coordination Funds (Applicant Bürkert, Andreas )
• RurbanFlows: Material flows, supply chains, and ecosystem services in rurban spaces (Applicants Bürkert, Andreas ;  Devy, Soubadra ;  Schütt, Brigitta )
• RurbanFoodWaste: Understanding the sustainability potential of food waste as livestock feed in Indian rurban contexts (Applicants Bernzen, Amelie ;  Schlecht, Eva )
• RurbanLivestockSystems - Building rurban livelihoods through livestock (Applicants De Bukari, Kaderi ;  Schareika, Nikolaus ;  Schlecht, Eva )
• RurbanPollution – Effects of rurbanity on soil quality and pollution (Applicants Gassmann, Matthias ;  Peth, Stephan )
• RurbanSoilFunctions: Synergies and trade-offs in soil functions of rurban spaces (Applicants Paul, Carola ;  Wachendorf, Christine )
• RurbanSpace: The social production of rurban space in Bengaluru (Applicants Altrock, Uwe ;  Dittrich, Christoph )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Andreas Bürkert