The River Dôn Project

The River Dôn Project is demonstrating the first-ever real-time interface between humans and non-human actors.

The River Dôn Project is an ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration modelling and demonstrating the future rights of nature in South Yorkshire, innovating a 21st-century social contract, le contract natural - Michel Serres.

“We are the first generation to know the scale of the challenges that have been created by human activity on the planet, and we are one of the last that can deeply do something about it. It is now about how we collectively harness that: working boldly enough, whilst being legitimate enough and doing so with care; demonstrate systemically, work in ecologies, and with a thoughtful urgency” (Civic Square).

Imagine:

The year is 2026, the establishment of an extensive sensor network combined with citizen science projects, campaigning, arts and cultural interventions and asset-based community development has created the first-ever real-time interface between the River Dôn and the inhabitants of its bioregion.

Hosted on a web platform and mobile app, this machine learning and AI facilitated interface articulates the river's voice via a distributed chatbot. The platform and interface are informed by an ongoing range of quantitative and qualitative datasets sourced from people, communities, citizen juries, research interventions and the sensor network.

We believe that to foster a new social contract we need to hear the voice of the river. The project can be a proof of possibility through its building of the infrastructure to facilitate civic engagement with nature, revealing and relearning our interdependence, aided by technology.

Consequently, the social, technological and political innovation space required to demonstrate new civic infrastructures of interdependence and multiple agencies around critical commons is unlocked. Thus deepening our collective understanding of how to respond with both plurality and coherence and further the Rights of Nature movement.

Progress:

2022

• We attained a collaboration of local, regional and international partners.
• We designed a theory of change, strategy and delivery plan across multiple intersectional workflows.
• Contacts and networked this project with over a 100 civic groups, academics and activists.

2023

• We were shortlisted for the Maison Rousseau et Littérature social contract award.
• We received funding from the Ministry of Digital Affairs in Taiwan to resource the Interface for Care design.
• Acquired multiple sources of secondary data on river health for the River Don.
• An undergraduate dissertation was completed on our project.
• We were involved in a Masters thesis data collation.
• We produced six events for the Festival of Debate 2023
• Generated local and national media interest.
• We were awarded a Sheffield Hallam Research Innovation Fund, where we have been working with artists and academics in exploring the concept of Rights of Nature.
• We were a part of the City of Rivers exhibition at - - Weston Park Museum, Sheffield.

2024

• We attained funding to implement a Many-to-Many Governance structure.
• Built a prototype Interface for Care in partnership with Dark Matter Labs.
• We commissioned HiveIT and designed a Minimal Viable Product for the Engagement Platform.
• We arranged two events for the Festival of Debate 2024
• We designed and delivered a series of interviews with communities in the region using a generative inquiry.
• We presented to academics at Manchester University, Sheffield Hallam University and Sheffield University.
• We became a part of the Mayoral Combined Authorities Local Nature Recovery Strategy in our region.
• We have and are engaging with research institutions, academics, professionals and communities to enhance our understanding of the problem and in collaboration to find solutions.
• We have partnered with Sheffield Museums to host an exhibition on the project.

Team:

Members of the River Dôn Project:
Opus Independents, Dark Matter Labs, Sheffield Hallam University, University of Sheffield: Urban Flows Observatory, Lawyers for Nature, Sheffield Data for Good, South Yorkshire Sustainability Centre.

What are we funding? With timelines and costing:

$1,000 / we will provide a visual layer of data on the Engagement Platform using secondary data, this could be a layer on land rights, a question of ownership to bring transparency and create responsibility. Who owns the River Don? / this would take no more than two months.

$5,000 / we will prototype individual accounts on the engagement platform in preparation for primary data submissions / this can take up to four months.

$10,000 / we will expand the minimal viable product Engagement Platform to include further secondary data through a river sensor or specific primary data that individuals could submit via their personal account on the platform / this can take up to six months.

$25,000 / We will do the above and integrate it with a prototype interface for care (AI chatbot) that could communicate with people through their own colloquial language and with specific data fed to it via the platform which would prove the integrated concept.

We would like to input data sensors so that the river has real-time data feeding into the Interface for Care, so that the river could communicate its own health in real-time / this could take up to nine months.