Benefits of floodplain communities focus of Stuckeman professor’s exhibition

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The lifestyle of the approximately 90,000 residents of amphibious communities in Iquitos, Peru, centers around the Amazon River. The city, however, doesn’t have the means to provide utilities like electricity or sanitation systems to the communities, so the government has started to relocate the residents to a pilot community two hours inland. 

Leann Andrews, assistant professor of landscape architecture and Stuckeman Career Development Assistant Professor in Design in the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School, and an international and multidisciplinary team set out to discover whether the relocation community improved the health and quality of life of the residents, as well as how the animals and ecosystem were impacted. Their work is now part of a traveling exhibition designed to invite attendees to learn about the benefits of integrating sociological and ecological considerations in community planning. 

Andrews, who is a core researcher in the Stuckeman School’s Hamer Center for Community Design, started working with the traditionally designed floodplain communities — meaning the houses are either on stilts or float on the river for half of the year during rainy seasons — in Peru in 2016 while she was pursuing her doctorate at the University of Washington. 

“In terms of our global problem with sea level rise and glacial melt, it’s imperative to study floating communities in terms of thinking about sustainable ways of life and traditional, Indigenous ways of building and how they work with the river and the Amazon floodplains,” Andrews said.

Andrews explained that the community’s informal way of life complicates their integration into the city. Because their shifting houses sit partially on water, they cannot claim property or establish citizenship, but they are still residents of Iquitos. In an attempt to provide services such as electricity, the government created a pilot relocation community about a two-hour bus commute from the river and encouraged volunteer community members to move there. 

The researchers evaluated the relocation community in the highlands and two informal floodplain communities to better understand the potential societal, ecological and health impacts of the move.

They conducted a health and wellbeing survey and cognitive mapping exercise, which involves such activities as asking residents to draw their connections to nature. The professional team alongside community scientists conducted biodiversity surveys and trash counts to demonstrate ecological value and studied the environmental impact that the relocation community has on deforestation. The team listened to perspectives from 166 residents across 136 households. They documented 84 species of plants, 140 species of birds, 34 species of butterflies and 24 species of reptiles and amphibians across the three communities.

Ultimately, the researchers found that the move may do more harm than good.  

“The question is: Is it worth moving all of these people and risking irreversible ecological and cultural destruction if little has changed in residents’ quality of life? Could there be opportunities for environmental improvements in existing communities?” Andrews asked.

The team, which includes Peruvian and U.S. ecologists, photographers, landscape architects, social scientists, anthropologists and public health researchers, developed their work into the exhibition, “Tres Comunidades, Un Río” — three communities, one river — to educate local decision-makers and the world about the cultural and ecological benefits of the amphibious communities. 

The exhibition uses professional photography and data informational graphics to create a narrative capturing the communities' way of life and the challenges they face. The exhibition first opened in the summer of 2022 in Iquitos at the Peru Ministry of Culture’s Amazonian Museum. Community members came to the opening as well as invited non-profit organizations, professional advocates and decision-makers.

Andrews said that the team received positive feedback about the exhibition from the community and city residents who attended. 

In a public feedback opportunity at the opening, one community member wrote (translated), “By reencountering our values, showing our culture, rooted in our ancestors, I am hopeful that this exhibition will successfully [spark] a little more consideration of our needs in all aspects.”

After Iquitos, the exhibition traveled to Seattle, Washington, where it was on display in the University of Washington Gould Gallery from Nov. 8 to Dec. 15. Andrews said she hopes to bring the exhibition to the State College area in the coming months and later to New York and Lima, Peru. 

“The whole world could learn from these communities — both in terms of understanding traditional ways of life and sustainable living, but also in terms of coming up with solutions for climate change and tackling global health issues that impact us all,” Andrews said. 

The team members are from Penn State, EarthLab, the University of Washington, the Centro de Investigaciones Tecnológicas Biomédicas y Medioambientales, the Universidad Nacional de la Amazonia Peruana, Traction and the National Institutes of Health Fogarty Global Health Program.