The Lincoln Institute provides a variety of early- and mid-career fellowship opportunities for researchers. In this series, we follow up with our fellows to learn more about their work.

With a background in landscape architecture, Seung Kyum Kim has always been interested in the interplay between green space and the urban form.

After beginning his career at Design Workshop in Phoenix and Salt Lake City in the late 2000s, Kim relocated to South Korea in 2009 to take a role with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, working on flood mitigation, drought, and stormwater management. There, he got interested in “how to minimize risk from flooding, natural disasters, and climate change,” he says, which led him to pursue a master’s and a PhD from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

While at Harvard GSD, Kim joined a trip to several cities in China with Professor Richard Peiser and discovered he had an interest in housing and land policy as well. Since then, his research—which included work as an International Fellow through the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s China program in 2021—has spanned multiple disciplines, connecting urban planning, landscape architecture, housing and economics, environmental justice, and climate change.

In this interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, Kim reflects on some of the most successful climate-adaptive green spaces around the world, why cities with aging residents are less likely to invest in new green spaces, and how park usage differs in the United States and South Korea.

JON GOREY: What is the main focus of your research?

SEUNG KYUM KIM: I’m currently a professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology [KAIST], which is very much focused on technology and science. The engineering school is very strong here, it’s like MIT in South Korea. My department is the Graduate School of Future Strategy, and I’m working on the economic side, urban planning and climate change, while some of the professors in our department are working on the engineering side.

I’m working on six research projects at the same time, so my field of research is kind of expanding, rather than going deep. I’m focusing on how climate policies like carbon taxes and the CBAM, or carbon border adjustment mechanism, influence the urban economy, particularly manufacturing competitiveness and urban inequality. I’m also exploring the long-term impact that these policies have on shrinking cities and urban revitalization.

One of my projects is on how blue-green infrastructure for climate change adaptation affects gentrification in urban areas in 32 countries on the African continent. And in one of my recent research papers, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, I was researching how an aging population impacts climate policy.

JG: What’s something that was surprising or unintuitive that you found in your research?

SK: I studied how the aging population impacts climate adaptation strategy in Southeast Asia. Using remote sensing and difference-in-differences approaches, I found that communities with a growing elderly population were seeing reduced green infrastructure and green spaces, making them more vulnerable to climate change. This was sort of surprising, and it underscored the importance of considering demographic change in climate policy planning.

As people get older in a community, the tax base decreases. So with a limited budget, the government’s priorities are different. As the people are getting older, the government mostly focuses on hospitals, the health budget is increased—but for environmental green space and parks, investments in those kinds of amenities, the budget is reduced.

JG: What do you wish more people knew about urban green spaces?

SK: I wish people understood that climate policy isn’t just an environmental concern. It is deeply connected to economic and social equality. Effective urban planning can simultaneously address environmental, economic, and social issues as well.

JG: You’ve studied green spaces all over the world. Are there any great projects that you think were particularly successful at combining green space and climate adaptation?

SK: There are a few inspiring examples of successful green space projects that also address climate change and provide cultural benefits. There’s the Cheonggyecheon Stream restoration in South Korea, this was 15 or 20 years ago. Originally it was a covered highway, and the Cheonggyecheon was restored into an urban stream and linear park in central Seoul. It significantly reduced urban heat island effects, improved air quality, boosted biodiversity, and provided the poor with an urban oasis in the densest area of the city.

One of the reasons they did not convert the covered highway into a stream and green space earlier was that land prices are very expensive in central Seoul, and because of traffic issues, transportation issues. So there were two phases. Before the Cheonggyecheon restoration project, they actually modified the transportation systems within Seoul. . . . The local government created a dedicated bus lane in the center of the road to solve the traffic conditions. After that, they did the stream restoration. So that kind of environmental project is not solely a green space project, it’s linked. That’s one of the reasons we need to see the broader perspective. We need to see the transportation and climate change and environmental benefits and the cultural benefits within urban issues.

China also has the sponge city initiative in various cities, including Wuhan and Xinjiang. It aims to incorporate permeable surfaces, wetlands, green roofs, and rain gardens throughout the urban area. The [sponge city] project improves urban water management to reduce flooding and runoff and enhance the urban ecosystem, making the city more resilient to extreme weather events.

JG: Have you noticed any differences in the ways we use or don’t use urban green space in the United States compared to South Korea?

SK: In the United States, green space often means larger parks . . . nature reserves and recreational areas that are generously spread out, especially in suburban or less dense urban areas. Expansive parks like Central Park in New York or Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, they’re intended not only for recreation but also for preserving nature and wildlife within an urban context.

But in Korea, the green spaces are usually smaller—it’s a small country, so they’re more strategically placed within dense urban neighborhoods because of limited urban land availability. The parks tend to be compact and highly designed to maximize efficiency, often equipped with walking paths, exercise equipment, benches, and community gardens. Also, in Korea green space focuses heavily on accessibility, daily convenience, and the well-being of residents fitting seamlessly into the high-density urban environment. Another difference is cultural usage. Korean parks often serve as a community space for daily activities, like group exercise and community gatherings, whereas US parks might see more individual, family-based recreational uses, like picnics and sports and leisure activities.

JG: What’s the best book you’ve read lately, or a favorite TV show you’ve been streaming?  

SK: Recently I read Elizabeth Kolbert’s Under a White Sky, which vividly explores how environmental innovations can sometimes have unexpected consequences. Another book I read recently was Ian Goldin’s Rescue: From Global Crisis to a Better World. That was also fascinating, especially how it highlights the factors determining urban success or failure.

Jon Gorey is a staff writer at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Lead image: Former Lincoln Institute International Fellow Seung Kyum Kim. Credit: Courtesy photo.

The Lincoln Institute provides a variety of early- and mid-career fellowship opportunities for researchers. In this series, we follow up with our fellows to learn more about their work.

How do you get people to consider drinking recycled wastewater? That was the challenge Marisa Manheim sought to address as a doctoral student at Arizona State University. With the help of a Babbitt Center Dissertation Fellowship, Manheim worked with 15 tap-water skeptics to conceive and codesign an exhibit aimed at inspiring curiosity about—and perhaps even acceptance of—a concept that many people reflexively reject.

While all water is recycled, in a sense—that’s how the water cycle works—some communities in arid areas, such as Scottsdale, Arizona, have been piloting direct potable reuse (DPR) systems, using advanced purification processes to treat wastewater to standards that exceed those of bottled water. Manheim decided to investigate the public’s response to such programs, bringing theories of embodied cognition to her research and exploring how emotions and bodily sensations contribute to decision-making.

Before pursuing her PhD, Manheim earned a master’s degree in experience design, and worked in corporate design research roles she found less than fulfilling. “A detour into activism” led her into urban agriculture just as the movement gained national momentum in the early 2000s.

Now an assistant professor of environment and sustainability at the University at Buffalo in New York, Manheim continues to take an interdisciplinary approach to her research. In this interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, Manheim explains how good music can influence our choices, why urine makes great fertilizer, and what she’s learned about challenging social norms.

JON GOREY: What was the focus of your dissertation research?

MARISA MANHEIM: I was always trying to answer the question, why is urban agriculture such an amazing launching point for environmental awareness building and intersectional justice and civic participation and all these pieces that have a really hard time getting traction otherwise? And I eventually landed on embodied cognition and activism, which are ideas from cognitive philosophy and psychology about how we process the world around us. It’s very much trying to reintegrate ideas about the body and sensation and social situations into how we conceptualize consciousness and cognition, decision-making, and so forth. I wanted to study something that helped me to explore those ideas further, but didn’t know what it would be.

When I found the concept of recycling wastewater as a drinking water supply, it was basically love at first sight. It’s just such an interesting topic, because it’s about water policy, it’s about food policy, and it’s about novel technologies and the way we tend to be very distrustful or suspicious of them. And because it really comes down to this moment of disgust and reaction, and the way that all manifests, it allowed me to ask a lot of questions about embodied cognition.

The research itself looks at how we are responding to the idea of introducing recycled water into the drinking water supply in central Arizona, how the people in charge of that from a policy and instrumentation side are anticipating and responding to those consumer perceptions, and also how we can apply lessons from design practice and design research to help inform and improve how the decision-making plays out around that topic.

I recruited people who are specifically going out of their way to secure alternative drinking water—so they don’t drink their tap water. I worked very closely with this group of 15 water skeptics to understand and cocreate ways to help other people become curious about the possibilities of incorporating advanced purified water into the drinking water supply . . . and then turned that into an exhibit that engaged 1,100 people in three public festivals.

It starts at the entrance, where there are panels teaching you about water scarcity and the changing climate and the uncertain future of the water supply. Then you go through this inflatable tunnel with this big display about direct potable reuse and how it works. And then you go out of the tunnel, and you’re in this circle where people are standing around drinking water, and there’s lots of fun colors and greenery and music, and you’re invited to sample the water and share your responses to it.

At the entrance to the exhibit, which is called the Future Taste of Water, we had people vote by dropping a marble into one of three water bottles, so they were able to say whether they would support the use of recycled water as a drinking water supply. Something like 77 percent said they wouldn’t support it at the entrance. And then at the exit, they had the same question, and almost everybody supported it.

So the concept is, what works to promote curiosity about a topic with a group of extreme skeptics is highly likely to work with people who are more neutral or who haven’t made up their mind yet.

JG: Many solutions to our biggest challenges hinge on some kind of shift in human behavior. Has your research revealed any strategies that can help reshape people’s attitudes and actions?

MM: Mainly it’s bringing in materiality. It’s very easy to do with recycled water, because we have this artifact, this thing, the water itself. Taking it out of this conceptual, speculative space and making it about something that people can directly interact with completely changes the dynamics.

It’s also social setting; that’s the other ingredient. We did this in a very public space and did things to make it really cool and celebratory—[provided] good music, good aesthetics—and people were almost always surrounded by other people doing the same activity. So there was an opportunity to calibrate your response based on how you think others are responding around you. And that’s the other part of it—we’re constantly calibrating in relationship with the people around us, especially around things that challenge social norms.

Social norms are so important because they reduce the transaction costs of social exchanges. We don’t have to think about, ‘How should I respond to this?’ because social norms have shaped and patterned those responses. When we’re confronted with something and asked to actually slow down and consider responding differently, we can’t rely on those social norms anymore. We have to look around, and think about what we actually feel, the sensations that we’re getting from this beverage, and how we see other people responding.

So if you can make it material for people and if you do it in a social way . . . you can really move things into a space of positivity. . . . My suspicion is that, across almost all of these difficult sustainability transitions that we’re trying to overcome—why is it so hard to get people to ride public transportation? why is it so hard to get people to eat differently, in a more low-carbon way?—if there are opportunities to experience what it would mean on a daily basis, and how it would feel over time, it can provide an experiential foundation for larger changes.

JG: What have you been working on more recently?

MM: I was invited to sign on to a [National Science Foundation] grant as part of the Convergence Accelerator program . . . and the project that I’m a part of is about urine recycling using source separation. So rather than combining feces and urine into a flow and then having to treat them and separate out the things that are valuable for reuse later, the idea is that we can work upstream—literally—and separate the urine and then recycle it as a fertilizer. The piece that I’m responsible for on that project is drawing on my user experience and design research methods, doing a lot of exploratory user and stakeholder interviews and codesign sessions.

If we’re successful in phase two, we’re going to be building out a fully functional mobile demonstration unit with toilets equipped with urinals, female urinals, and potentially a source-separating toilet, where people can go and use the facilities. So it’ll help demystify what it’s going to feel like from a toilet user perspective, but then also you can see how the treatment system works, so it’ll help to demystify what it will look like from an operator’s perspective if you’re a building engineer, architect, or municipal decision-maker.

A big part of the other side of this research, in terms of the design work that I’m involved in, is to work with farmers, extension educators, and other people involved in the agricultural system to inform the product design for the granular fertilizer created by the dehydration process. What is the packaging and labeling? What kind of certification would be necessary? How important is it that it doesn’t have any smell? It has to be a certain size so that it can fit into farm equipment, and obviously the nutrient makeup has to be very consistent and accurately communicated. But there’s a lot more that we don’t really know.

JG: What’s the most surprising thing you’ve found in your research?

MM: Disgust is different when you give people the actual thing instead of the speculative thing. When I worked with this group of water skeptics in the Phoenix region, one person in particular thought that she would never, ever allow her municipal drinking water to pass her lips. They use it for cleaning in her household, and that’s it, because of the taste.

When we gave her the opportunity to try actual DPR water, because we went to the Scottsdale water treatment facility and she got to sample their advanced purified water, she thought it was so good. She had been skeptical about DPR, and she became a huge proponent: “I want that water. Why don’t I have that water now?”

JG: When it comes to your work, what keeps you up at night? And what gives you hope?

MM: The thing that keeps me up at night is the polarization in our society. I see it as a positive feedback loop—the more polarization we have, the more echo chamber and social division, people are only listening to people they already agree with. There’s not this cross-pollination and constructive debate that goes on in a society that isn’t polarized and divided. So it just increases, because you’re surrounded by people who share your viewpoint, and anybody who doesn’t is an “other” and is demonized, or at least not afforded respect.

What I think about a lot is, what can we, as individuals, as universities, as people involved in nonprofit organizations, be doing to help to pull people out of that cycle of polarization and positive reinforcement, and into a space of engagement and interplay and deliberation?

What gives me hope is the work that people are doing and all the intersections I can find. Even though we’re in this moment of crisis and it feels very hopeless, and things are headed in the wrong direction, I don’t know why I’m such an optimist. But I just feel like if enough of us are finding the kernel of truth that we feel motivated by, and if we are doing it in a way that helps us find each other, we can be building alternative futures.

JG: What’s the best book you’ve read lately?

MM: It’s called Disabled Ecologies: Lessons from a Wounded Desert, by Sunaura Taylor, who graduated from the University of Arizona. It’s about the TCE pollution [trichloroethylene, a carcinogen] in South Phoenix related to the aeronautics industry. I picked it up because I’m teaching a Water and Society course this semester, and I was looking for texts that might be worth including. She’s telling a really important story about environmental injustice and persistent pollution, but because she’s a disability scholar, she’s telling it from this embodied perspective that I think is often really missing in these narratives around the environment and injustice.

Forever chemicals and things that are consistently present in our environment—if they’re in our environment, then they’re in our bodies. And this has been borne out by a lot of research, that we are actually part of the disabled ecologies that we’re so concerned about. When we’re trying to restore an ecosystem because it’s an important site for waterfowl or something like that, we’re actually trying to restore our own bodies as well, because we rely on those ecosystems. And so pollutants really help to bring all that into focus. It’s a great way of pulling that all together for people, and I’m definitely going to be using it in my class.

Jon Gorey is a staff writer at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Lead image: Visitors to an interactive Future Taste of Water exhibit sample recycled wastewater. Credit: Marisa Manheim.

En la ciudad ecuatoriana de Durán, más del 70 por ciento de los 325.000 residentes estimados no tienen servicio de agua potable ni alcantarillado. Deben comprar agua transportada por camiones cisterna, una situación precaria y aparentemente insostenible que ha persistido durante casi 40 años. Cuando un equipo de periodistas se dispuso a investigar las razones de la inadecuada infraestructura de agua de Durán —y descubrió parte del encubrimiento del gobierno y la corrupción del sector privado detrás de esta—, comenzó a recibir amenazas de violencia.

Sin embargo, el equipo perseveró y publicó una serie de investigaciones multimedia, en la que se describe con gran detalle cómo la colusión entre los actores gubernamentales y el sector privado ha restringido el acceso al servicio básico de agua potable para la mayoría de la población de Durán. En octubre de este año, el Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo reconoció el trabajo de dos periodistas involucrados en el proyecto —Leonardo Gómez Ponce y otra persona cuyo nombre no se revela debido a amenazas continuas— con el Premio Lincoln 2024 (Premio Lincoln) al Periodismo sobre políticas urbanas, desarrollo sostenible y cambio climático. Ambos beneficiarios forman parte de la Unidad de Investigación Tierra de Nadie. El premio, ahora en su tercer año, se presentó como parte de la prestigiosa Conferencia Latinoamericana de Periodismo de Investigación 2024 (COLPIN) y reconoce al mejor periodismo de política de suelo en América Latina y el Caribe.

Ponce y otros ganadores del Premio Lincoln se unieron a una mesa redonda, moderada por Laura Mullahy, Senior Program Manager del Instituto Lincoln, el día 3 de la conferencia anual COLPIN, celebrada este año en Madrid. El organizador del evento de cuatro días fue el Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS), con sede en Lima, Perú.

Los periodistas enviaron 265 obras para el Premio Lincoln este año, dice Mullahy, más del doble del número recibido en cada uno de los primeros dos años. Dichas obras se extendían por todo el mapa, tanto literalmente (representando 63 ciudades en 22 países) como en relación con los temas tratados. La escasez de agua, el cambio climático y la vivienda fueron temas predominantes, al igual que las investigaciones sobre conflictos de suelo, migración climática, asentamientos informales y uso ilegal o injusto de la tierra.

Mullahy dice que la profundidad y la tenacidad de los informes fueron inspiradoras. Algunos de los periodistas ganadores dedicaron varios años a la investigación y escritura de sus reportajes. Dice: “Me emocionan un poco estos premios porque son personas tan dedicadas”. Mullahy también se enorgullece de que dos de los ganadores hayan participado en cursos del Instituto Lincoln para periodistas latinoamericanos en el pasado, que se diseñaron para presentarles los conceptos básicos de la política de suelo.

A continuación, encontrará los ganadores del Premio Lincoln 2024 al Periodismo sobre políticas urbanas, desarrollo sostenible y cambio climático, junto con enlaces a su trabajo (vea los ganadores de 2023 aquí).

Ganadores del Premio Lincoln 2024

Primer premio: Leonardo Gómez Ponce y colega por la serie Durán, los hijos del tren y las mafias del agua, una investigación de años publicada por la revista ecuatoriana Tierra de Nadie.

La plataforma en línea para esta serie de investigación de varias partes y muy informativa se abre con un conteo en tiempo real de los más de 38 años (cada mes, día, hora y segundo) que el 70 por ciento de los residentes de la ciudad de Durán, Ecuador, han pasado sin agua potable ni sistemas de alcantarillado en funcionamiento.

“Este es un ejemplo de cómo las empresas sin escrúpulos pueden limitar la planificación y el desarrollo de la infraestructura de una ciudad”, dice Mullahy. “El comité de selección valoró la calidad de la investigación, la contribución de datos y documentación de respaldo, y la clara demostración de que, sin infraestructura de servicios básicos, las poblaciones permanecen en la pobreza y no es posible progresar”.

Segundo premio: Alexánder Marín Correa, Juan Camilo Parra, Miguel Ángel Vivas, Camilo Tovar Puentes, María Angélica García Puerto y Juan Camilo Beltrán, por “Escasez de agua en Bogotá: ¿Cómo llegamos a este punto? ”, publicado por El Espectador en Colombia.

Producido por un grupo de periodistas del periódico colombiano El Espectador, en este artículo se narra cómo una combinación de factores históricos, ambientales y de gestión condujo a una catástrofe sanitaria en Bogotá.

En el artículo se relata cómo la capital de Colombia ha experimentado un rápido crecimiento y una mayor demanda de agua, mientras que la deforestación y el cambio climático han disminuido las fuentes de agua. La situación se ve agravada por la contaminación de los ríos y la falta de infraestructura adecuada. En el artículo se muestra claramente que la gestión del agua ha sido ineficiente, lo que ha provocado problemas de distribución y acceso inequitativo. Este contexto plantea un desafío urgente para garantizar el suministro sostenible de agua a la población de Bogotá.

Tercer premio: Aramís Castro, por “Boom inmobiliario en la Amazonía del Perú agudiza la pérdida de bosques”, publicado por OjoPúblico en Perú.

En el artículo de Castro se analiza cómo la especulación inmobiliaria está contribuyendo a la deforestación en la Amazonía peruana, lo que demuestra cómo la venta de tierras rurales está transformando regiones como San Martín y Ucayali, donde ya se han perdido miles de hectáreas de bosques.

Castro analizó cientos de anuncios en las redes sociales y descubrió que las empresas inmobiliarias privadas estaban promoviendo representaciones de edificios modernos en entornos arbolados y naturales y atrayendo a los compradores con lemas como “El nuevo Miami en la selva peruana”. Sin embargo, muchos de los lotes rústicos carecen incluso de servicios básicos de agua o alcantarillado y, a menudo, contribuyen a la degradación del ecosistema. La investigación muestra cómo la falta de regulación y control en la venta de tierras agrava la deforestación, la pérdida de biodiversidad y otros problemas ambientales.

Mención de honor 1: Lucía Viridiana Vergara García, Darío Ramírez, Isabel Mateos, Rodrigo Flores Esquinca, Alonso Esquinca Díaz, Erick Retana, Eduardo Mota y Eduardo Buendía, por “Aquí no cabe un tren” y “La Sedena arrasó la selva para construir 6 hoteles del Tren Maya”, producido por Mexicanos contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad en México.

En este artículo y el pódcast que lo acompaña, se analiza cómo la construcción del Tren Maya en México y los nuevos hoteles vinculados a este megaproyecto podrían causar daños irreversibles al medio ambiente, lo que contradice los argumentos a favor del desarrollo de las regiones por las que pasará el tren. El trabajo explora de manera clara y creativa el tema con ricos testimonios y plantea una serie de problemas con el proyecto: desde la tala de árboles y la falta de estudios técnicos y científicos de sus impactos ambientales hasta los efectos de la construcción en áreas arqueológicas protegidas y una biosfera declarada Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la Unesco en 2002.

Mención de honor 2: Daniel Fonseca por “¿Dónde vamos a vivir? Datos, proyectos e intentos de solución al problema de vivienda en América Latina”, publicado por Distintas Latitudes, Honduras.

En esta investigación periodística, realizada para Distintas Latitudes por la séptima generación de la Red LATAM de Jóvenes Periodistas, se explora la crisis de la vivienda en América Latina desde diferentes ángulos. Se destacan problemas, como el acceso a la vivienda, el aumento de la desigualdad y la falta de políticas inclusivas para grupos vulnerables como los jóvenes, las mujeres y la comunidad LGBTI.

En la serie, se examinan la dinámica del crecimiento urbano no planificado y cómo los gobiernos no han abordado adecuadamente la demanda de vivienda digna, y se busca arrojar luz sobre las condiciones actuales y proponer soluciones para garantizar el derecho a una vivienda adecuada en la región.

Mención de honor 3: Aitor Sáez por “Aguas revueltas: sequía y saqueo en México”, publicado por​ Pie de Página, México.

En esta serie de investigación, se describe la crisis del agua en 12 regiones de México. En el informe, se reflejan los diferentes conflictos relacionados con la falta de agua, que resultan tanto de la crisis climática como de la intervención humana directa, especialmente a través de la coerción del crimen organizado.

Mención de honor 4: Miguel Ángel Dobrich y Gabriel Farías, por “De la sequía a la inundación: el impacto sobre el trabajo en la zona costera de Uruguay, de Este a Oeste”, publicado por Amenaza Roboto en Uruguay.

En este artículo, se explora el impacto del cambio climático en las condiciones de trabajo en diferentes áreas de Uruguay, desde Valizas hasta Ciudad del Plata, y se describe cómo el clima extremo afecta a los pescadores artesanales, los trabajadores domésticos y otras personas que dependen de ecosistemas vulnerables. También se aborda la desigualdad y el riesgo de inundaciones en las comunidades costeras. La investigación combina datos geoespaciales y visualización avanzada para mostrar el impacto de estos cambios.

Mención de honor 5: Vinicius Sassine y Lalo de Almeida por “Cerco às aldeias” (“Asedio de aldeas”), publicado por Folha de São Paulo en Brasil.

En esta obra, se describe cómo las empresas mineras, o garimpos, roban la tierra, el agua y la salud de los grupos indígenas mundurukú, kayapó, nambikwara y yanomami de la Amazonía brasileña. En las áreas donde operan estas empresas mineras, los habitantes sufren enfermedades debido al contacto con el mercurio, que es el metal pesado tóxico utilizado para separar el oro del suelo. Se diagnostica a los niños con retrasos cognitivos y a los adultos con enfermedades físicas. Sin embargo, el Gobierno brasileño no tiene planes de poner fin a la minería ilegal.

Imagen principal: Un camión lleva agua a Durán (Ecuador), donde casi el 70 % de los residentes ha vivido sin agua potable durante décadas. Hace poco, un proyecto plurianual que investiga esta crisis ganó un premio de periodismo del Instituto Lincoln. Crédito: Unidad de Investigación Tierra de Nadie.

In the Ecuadorian city of Durán, more than 70 percent of the estimated 325,000 residents have no drinking water or sewage service. They must purchase water trucked in by tanker companies—a precarious, seemingly untenable situation that has persisted for almost 40 years. When a team of journalists set out to investigate the reasons for Durán’s inadequate water infrastructure—and uncovered some of the government obscuration and private-sector corruption behind it—they began to receive threats of violence.

The team persevered, however, and published a multimedia investigative series that describes in vivid detail how collusion between government actors and the private sector has restricted access to the basic service of drinking water for most of Durán’s population. This fall, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy recognized the work of two journalists involved with the project—Leonardo Gómez Ponce and another whose name is being withheld due to ongoing threats—with the 2024 Lincoln Award (Premio Lincoln) for Urban Policy, Sustainable Development, and Climate Change Journalism. Both recipients are part of the Unidad de Investigación Tierra de Nadie (No Man’s Land Research Unit). The award, now in its third year, was presented as part of the prestigious 2024 Latin American Conference of Investigative Journalism (COLPIN), and recognizes the best land policy journalism in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Ponce and other Premio Lincoln winners joined a roundtable discussion, moderated by Lincoln Institute Senior Program Manager Laura Mullahy, on Day 3 of the annual COLPIN conference, held this year in Madrid. The four-day event was organized by the Lima, Peru–based Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (Press and Society Institute), or IPYS.

Journalists submitted 265 entries for the Premio Lincoln this year, Mullahy says—more than double the number received in each of the first two years—and the entries were all over the map, both literally (representing 63 cities in 22 countries) and topically. Water shortages, climate change, and housing were prevalent subjects, as were investigations on land conflicts, climate migration, informal settlements, and illegal or unjust land use.

Mullahy says the depth and tenacity of the reporting was inspiring. Some of the winning journalists had been pursuing stories for several years. “I get sort of emotional about these awards,” she says, “because these are such dedicated people.” Mullahy was also proud that two of the winners had participated in Lincoln Institute courses for Latin American journalists in the past, which were designed to introduce them to core concepts of land policy.

Below, find the winners of the 2024 Lincoln Award for Journalism on Urban Policy, Sustainable Development, and Climate Change, along with links to their work. (See the 2023 winners here.)

2024 Premio Lincoln Winners

First Prize: Leonardo Gómez Ponce and colleague for the series, “Durán, los hijos del tren y las mafias del agua” (“Durán: The Children of the Train and the Water Mafias”), a years-long investigation published by Ecuador’s Tierra de Nadie.

The online platform for this multi-part, data-rich investigative series opens with a real-time counter tallying the more than 38 years—every month, day, hour, second—that 70 percent of residents in the city of Durán, Ecuador, have gone without drinking water or functioning sewer systems.

“This is an example of how unscrupulous businesses can limit the planning and development of a city’s infrastructure,” Mullahy says. “The selection committee valued the investigative quality, the contribution of data and supporting documentation, and the clear demonstration that without infrastructure of basic services, populations remain in poverty and no progress is possible.”

Second prize: Alexánder Marín Correa, Juan Camilo Parra, Miguel Ángel Vivas, Camilo Tovar Puentes, María Angélica García Puerto, and Juan Camilo Beltrán, for “Escasez de agua en Bogotá: ¿Cómo llegamos a este punto?” (“Water Shortage in Bogotá: How Did We Get to This Point?”), published by El Espectador in Colombia.

Produced by a group of journalists from Colombian newspaper El Espectador, this article chronicles how a combination of historical, environmental, and management factors led to a health catastrophe in Bogotá.

The article recounts how Colombia’s capital city has experienced rapid growth and increased demand for water, all while deforestation and climate change have diminished water sources. The situation is aggravated by river pollution and the lack of adequate infrastructure. The article clearly shows that water management has been inefficient, leading to distribution problems and inequitable access. This context poses an urgent challenge to guarantee the sustainable supply of water to the people of Bogotá.

Third prize: Aramís Castro, for “Boom inmobiliario en la Amazonía del Perú agudiza la pérdida de bosques” (“Real Estate Boom in the Peruvian Amazon Exacerbates Forest Loss”), published by OjoPúblico in Peru.

Castro’s article analyzes how real estate speculation is contributing to deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon, demonstrating how the sale of rural land is transforming regions such as San Martín and Ucayali, where thousands of hectares of forests have already been lost.

Castro analyzed hundreds of social media advertisements and found that private real estate companies were promoting renderings of modern buildings in wooded, natural settings, luring buyers with slogans like, “The new Miami in the Peruvian jungle.” But many of the rustic lots lack even basic water or sewerage services, and often contribute to the degradation of the ecosystem. The research shows how the lack of regulation and control in the sale of land aggravates deforestation, biodiversity loss, and other environmental issues.

Honorable Mention 1: Lucía Viridiana Vergara García, Darío Ramírez, Isabel Mateos, Rodrigo Flores Esquinca, Alonso Esquinca Díaz, Erick Retana, Eduardo Mota, and Eduardo Buendía, for “Aquí no cabe un tren” (“There’s No Room for a Train Here”) and “La Sedena arrasó la selva para construir 6 hoteles del Tren Maya” (“Sedena Razed the Jungle to Build 6 Mayan Train Hotels”), produced by Mexicanos contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad in Mexico.

This article and accompanying podcast look at how the construction of the Mayan Train in Mexico—and the new hotels linked to this mega-project—could cause irreversible damage to the environment, contradicting arguments for developing the regions through which the train will pass. The work clearly and creatively explores the topic with rich testimonials, and raises a range of issues with the project, from the felling of trees and the lack of technical and scientific studies of its environmental impacts, to the effects of construction in protected archaeological areas and a biosphere declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2002.

Honorable Mention 2: Daniel Fonseca for “¿Dónde vamos a vivir? Datos, proyectos e intentos de solución al problema de vivienda en América Latina” (“Where Are We Going to Live? Data, Projects, and Attempted Solutions to the Housing Problem in Latin America”), published by Distintas Latitudes, Honduras.

This journalistic investigation, carried out for Distintas Latitudes by the seventh generation of the LATAM Network of Young Journalists, explores the housing crisis in Latin America from different angles. It highlights problems such as access to housing, the increase in inequality, and the lack of inclusive policies for vulnerable groups such as youth, women, and the LGBTI community.

The series examines the dynamics of unplanned urban growth and how governments have failed to adequately address the demand for decent housing—and seeks to shed light on current conditions and propose solutions to guarantee the right to adequate housing in the region.

Honorable Mention 3: Aitor Sáez for “Aguas revueltas: sequía y saqueo en México” (“Troubled Waters: Drought and Looting in Mexico”), published by ​​Pie de Página, Mexico

This investigative series describes the water crisis in 12 regions of Mexico. The report reflects the different conflicts related to the lack of water, which result from both the climate crisis and direct human intervention, especially through the coercion of organized crime.

Honorable Mention 4: Miguel Ángel Dobrich and Gabriel Farías, for “De la sequía a la inundación: el impacto sobre el trabajo en la zona costera de Uruguay, de Este a Oeste” (“From Drought to Flood: The Impact on Work in the Coastal Zone of Uruguay, from East to West”), published by Amenaza Roboto in Uruguay.

This article explores the impact of climate change on working conditions in different areas of Uruguay, from Valizas to Ciudad del Plata, describing how extreme weather affects artisanal fishermen, domestic workers, and other people who depend on vulnerable ecosystems. It also addresses inequality and flood risk in coastal communities. The research combines geospatial data and advanced visualization to show the impact of these changes.

Honorable Mention 5: Vinicius Sassine and Lalo de Almeida for “Cerco às aldeias” (“Siege of Villages”), published by Folha de São Paulo in Brazil.

This piece describes how mining companies, or garimpos, rob land, water, and health from the Mundurukus, Kayapós, Nambikwaras, and Yanomami–Indigenous groups of the Brazilian Amazon. In the areas where these mining companies operate, inhabitants suffer from illnesses due to contact with mercury, the toxic heavy metal used to separate gold from the ground. Children are diagnosed with cognitive delays, and adults with physical illnesses. However, the Brazilian government has no plans to put a stop to illegal mining.

Lead image: A truck brings water to Durán, Ecuador, where nearly 70 percent of residents have lived without drinking water for decades. A multiyear project investigating this crisis recently won a Lincoln Institute journalism award. Credit: Unidad de Investigación Tierra de Nadie.