“Food insecurity, urbanization, and climate change are interconnected and rapidly rising globally. In the early 2020s, a summer of heatwaves, floods, and increased use of food banks nearly broke the Great Lakes city of WateryTrees’ budget. The city incentivized its various districts to develop solutions and in response, the Lakefront district embarked on a journey to become a spongy food oasis in 15 years. This is a recount of that district’s efforts, including their ups and downs, between the years 2024 and 2039.” 

- taken from the main page of my website.

My name is Saachi and today is September 30th; I’m five months into a 12-month sabbatical. If you’re new here, I’m taking a break from work - data viz analytics for a financial institution - to focus on a research and communication design project. The aim of this project is to: 

1. Understand the current sustainability of urban waterfronts and their future potential to address food insecurity at a community level
2. Upskill in communication, data visualization, coding, and 3D modelling
3. Combine points 1 and 2 into a visual portfolio that doubles as speculative fiction about sustainability on an urban lakefront and four shared meals

On the main page, I wanted the user to get a basic summary of the lakeshore district in WateryTrees - a brief intro, the main historical events from 2024 to 2039, and a top-down view of a map changing over time. The map was inspired by urban planning models and the wooden world maps people use as wall decor.  

Image credit: Saachi Sadcha (the main page of this interactive website, with the final model of WateryTrees' Lakeshore District's map)

A user might scroll through the entire timeline in a few seconds to watch the map change. But if they want to understand why and how a specific event impacted food security or emissions locally, I provide big KPI numbers and short paragraphs on the sides. 

I don’t want to overwhelm the page with words, but I want to provide proper explanations AND highlight the real-world inspirations for my decisions. I’m still trying to figure out how to achieve that balance, as well as figure out the tone of the written section of this page.  

 Toronto’s food insecurity issues, which are connected to barriers of wealth and an affordability crisis rather than just food availability, are growing and made worse by climate change and urbanization. While the entire city contends with extreme and more frequent heat waves, ice storms, and flooding, it’s the most marginalized citizens that are most impacted.

• "Toronto is designed for a climate that doesn't exist anymore and it needs to 'face the reality,' experts say" by Alli Raza, CBC
• "A Scan Of Climate Change Impacts On Toronto" by Clean Air Partnership 
• "RESILIENT FOOD SYSTEMS, RESILIENT CITIES: A High-Level Vulnerability Assessment of Toronto’s Food System" by Kimberly Zeuli, Austin Nijhuis and Zachary Gerson-Nieder, ICIC.org

For example, a single female parent is at very high risk of food insecurity due to the high cost of childcare and housing but is managing to scrape by. A massive flood occurs and the insurance premiums in her apartment go up, which leads to an increase in monthly rental payments. To compensate, she starts to skip meals.

• "Who’s Hungry Report" by Daily Bread Food Bank
• "Household Food Insecurity in Canada" by PROOF at the University of Toronto
• "Case Study: Food Deserts, Swamps, Mirages, and Oases in Toronto" by Laine Young

This bit of research was a downer, but thankfully there are always people working on solutions to hard problems.

This includes people like Claire Perttula at the Malvern Family Resource Centre (interviewed in the video link above by CBC). It was so heartening to learn about the many existing, active solutions to rising food insecurity, driven by local community members. If you’d like to learn more, please use the links below.   

• "Meet the Scarborough change-maker making a big difference through urban farming" by Laura Pedersen, CBC
• Combating Food Insecurity in Malvern and Scarborough, Malvern Family Resource Centre
• "Feeding the City: Reconnecting to our food systems" by WATERFRONToronto
• FoodShare
• SecondHarvest

For this project, rather than focusing on the problems, I want to highlight and speculate on the potential impact of community-level solutions.

Image Credit: Saachi Sadcha (an early model of WateryTrees, based on Toronto's layout)

That’s why I decided to call this pretend city ‘WateryTrees’. Toronto may have received its current name from the Mohawk word ‘Tkarón:to’, while ‘WateryTrees’ refers to the meaning ‘tree in the water there’. Both refer to the ancient fishing weirs at Atherly Narrows used by Indigenous peoples almost 5000 years ago. Thus, Toronto and WateryTrees have nearly identical layouts, histories, and key features, but the first is real and the second is not. 

•  "Tkarón:to & Turtle Island: The Remarkable Indigenous Trade Networks" by Professor Bonnie Devine and the Museum of Toronto
• "Origin of the names of Canada’s provincial and territorial capitals" by Government of Canada
• Peoples of this Land: Who has lived here and cared for this place?" a Talking Treaties project by Jumblies Theatre

Image Credit: Saachi Sadcha (a preview of the area of interest)

The function of the main page is 80% done and requires only content and some user interaction testing. So I’ll have to bribe and beg some willing victims to help me slowly improve this page over the rest of the sabbatical. 

Besides testing, my main focus will be the main chapter of Summer 2024, which will include the following: 

1. Add in the spatial data viz for the sections leading up to Summer 2024 on the main page
2. Build an explorable Area of Interest in 3D. It’ll be a walkable path that retains water and increases pedestrian thermal comfort on the way to a grocery store
3. Update the mini data viz game I made with native javascript in the first month of this sabbatical
4. Edit an 8000-word short story I wrote for summer a couple of months ago down to something I’m not totally scared to share
5. Add steps 1-4 to the website for further testing

Thank you kindly, 

Saachi