About

Dr. Idowu Ajibade is an Assistant Professor of Geography at Portland State University. She is a faculty fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Solutions, PSU; an affiliate member at the McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative (MSSI), Canada; and a Young Scientist Fellow in Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) Programme, China. Idowu is an interdisciplinary scholar with a keen interest in human-environment relations and a focus on water-related extreme events, urbanization, adaptation and societal sustainability.

Research Interest

Her current research examines the social production of extreme events and multiple adaptations and resilient strategies to such events in cities of the global south. Specifically, she studies floods, storm surges, sea level rise and water scarcity induced by climatic, economic and urbanization processes. She explores how cities are adapting and transforming as a result of such events through new sustainability practices and through the construction of new eco-cities that are transforming the economic, political, and socio-cultural ‘riskscape’ of cities. Idowu seeks to understand how such transformation is perceived by people undergoing change and how environmental injustices, eco-gentrification and uneven development are perpetuation through such transformation. Her work provides some direction on why the articulation of multiple and alternative trajectories of future socio-ecological and socio-economic relations are necessary in bringing about transformation towards a more inclusive sustainability in cities.

Idowu holds a PhD in Geography and Environmental Sustainability from Western University, Canada; an M.A degree in International Law and Human Rights from the University for Peace, Costa Rica; and an B.A in Philosophy from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. She was a Jeanne Sauve fellow at McGill University, Canada. Through her research, teaching and community engagement, she contributes to scholarship in areas of political ecology, hazards geography, urban planning, environmental justice, sustainability science and transformation studies.

Selected Publications

  • Pelling M, Leck H, Pasquini L, Ajibade I, Osuteye E, et …al (2018) Africa’s Urban Adaptation Transition Under 1.5 Degree Climate. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability Vol 31:10-15
  • Ajibade, I. (2017) Can a future city enhance urban resilience and sustainability? A political ecology analysis of Eko Atlantic city. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. Vol 26: 85-92
  • Ajibade, I. Pelling M, Agboola, J.  and Garschagen M (2017) Sustainability transitions: exploring risk management and the future of adaptation in Lagos. Journal of Extreme Events.3 (3), 1-25.
  • Ajibade, I., (2016) Distributive justice and human rights in climate policy: The long road to Paris. The Journal of Sustainable development law and policy. 7 (2), 66-80
  • Ajibade, I., Armah, F.A., Zubedaar , V., Luginaah, I., & McBean, G. (2015) Self-reported experiences of climate change in Nigeria: the role of personal and socio-environmental factors. Climate. 3, 16-41
  • Boamah S, Armah. F, Kuuire, V, Ajibade.I, Isaac Luginaah I, McBean G (2015) Does previous experience of floods stimulate the adoption of coping strategies? Evidence from cross sectional surveys in Tanzania and Nigeria. Environments, 2, 565-585
  • Ajibade, I., Armah F, Zubedaar V, Luginaah I, McBean G, & Tenkorang E. (2014) Assessing the bio-psychosocial correlates of flood impacts in coastal areas of Lagos, Nigeria. Environmental Planning and Management.  58 (3) 445-463
  • Ajibade, I., & McBean, G. (2014) Climate extremes and housing rights: a political ecology of impacts, early warning and adaptation constraints in Lagos slum communities. Geoforum, 55: 76-86
  • Ajibade, Idowu and Olawuyi Damilola (2014) Climate change impacts on housing and property rights in Panama and Nigeria: Toward a rights-based approach to adaptation and mitigation, In: Elena Lopez-Gunn and Dominic Stucker (Eds.) Adaptation to Climate Change through Water Resources Management: Capacity, Equity and Sustainability. Routledge, New York.  pp.264-284
  • Ajibade, I., McBean., G, & Bezner-Kerr R. (2013) Urban flooding in Lagos, Nigeria: Patterns of vulnerability and resilience among women. Global Environ Change. 23 (6): 1714-1725
  • Ajibade, Idowu (2012) Climate security and vulnerable populations in Canada: Making a case for ambitious Policies. In the Security of Canada and Canadians: Implications of Climate Change. Lawrence National Center for Policy and Management: London, ON. pp. 1-26.
  • McBean, G., & Ajibade, I. (2009) Climate change, related hazards and human settlements. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1(2): 179-186.

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