EDUCATOR
Melbourne, Australia
RISE: Revitalising Informal Settlements & their Environments
EDUCATOR
Melbourne, Australia
RISE: Revitalising Informal Settlements & their Environments
Project Team
Leadership: Professor Diego Ramirez-Lovering (RISE Program Director)
Professor Karin Leder (Director Research – Assessment)
Professor Tony Wong (Director Upscaling)
Kerrie Burge (Deputy Director Intervention)
Dr Fiona Barker (Deputy Director Research – Assessment)
Professor Steven Chown (Ecology Leader)
Dr Brandon Winfrey (Environment Leader)
Professor Stephen Luby (Human Health Leader)
Dr Rebekah Henry (Chief Investigator Pathogens and Genomics)
Professor David Johnston (Wellbeing Leader)
Professor Thomas Clasen (Policy and Scaling Up Leader)
Associate Professor David McCarthy (Chief Investigator Ecology and Environment)
65 Views
RISE transforms human and environmental health in informal settlements through water-sensitive, naturebased infrastructure. Based in Melbourne RISE works with communities and governments in Fiji and Indonesia, to deliver sanitation upgrades and evidence to scale resilient, equitable urban futures.
Overview
Globally, more than one billion people live in informal settlements where contaminated floodwater and inadequate sanitation drive preventable disease. With up to three billion people expected to live in such settlements by 2050, conventional infrastructure cannot keep pace. RISE demonstrates a new approach to addressing this challenge by using community-led, climate-resilient, nature-based water and sanitation systems such as decentralised treatment wetlands to improve environmental and human health. Through a randomised controlled trial in Suva, Fiji and Makassar, Indonesia, RISE is upgrading settlements and measuring impacts on human and environmental health, water quality, and resilience. The long-term goal is scalable evidence for global transformation.
Institution
Monash University
Art, Design and Architecture
Community Engagement
Community engagement is foundational to RISE. Residents are partners in co-designing and maintaining climate-resilient flood management and sanitation infrastructure. Their participation ensures diverse voices shape locally grounded, socially inclusive solutions that bring communities, governments, researchers, and practitioners together.
Partners
RISE is an international consortium spanning Monash University, governments in Fiji and Indonesia, UN agencies, NGOs, utilities, and development banks.
