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Summary of Principles of Urban Environmental Management lectures
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A complety summary of all of the Principles of Urban Environmental Management lectures that you need to study for the exam (2024)
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Principles of UrbanEnvironmental Management
Lecture 1.2: The urban environment – Challenges and
potential
The urban area is the part where people live, but industrial area is technically
part of it. It is an area with a high number of inhabitants, high building density, a
lot of infrastructure etc. An industrial area is also seen as part of the urban area.
However, it depends on what definition you have, for instance when you look at
population density, industrial areas are not really relevant.
An urban area can be defined differently in different countries. For example, an
area within Mongolia with a few thousand people can be considered an urban
area (because of the impact on the area). However, in Japan, this would not be
considered as such.
Populated areas often exceed administrative boundaries. Think of sub-urban
areas and adjacent cities. Or, administrative boundaries may include large
unpopulated spaces, e.g. agriculture.
Urban agglomeration: population contained within the contours of a
contiguous (borders are connected) territory inhabited at urban levels of
residential density.
Metropolitan area: Both the contiguous territory inhabited at urban levels of
residential density and additional surrounding areas with lower settlement
density that are under the direct influence of the city (for instance through
established transport networks, road linkages or commuting patterns).
Important factors in where people settled (and urban areas came to be):
- Access to resources (agriculture) and trade
- The subsoil
- Technological innovations
What are the 3 main drivers for urban growth?
- Natural increase (births > deaths)
- Migration
- Reclassification of urban areas
Urbanization is the increase in the proportion of people living in towns and
cities. Urbanization occurs because people move from rural areas (countryside) to
urban areas (towns and cities). This usually occurs when a country is still
developing.
Population growth = Urban growth (all future population growth will take
place in urban areas, with nearly all (>90%) in Africa, Asia and Latin America).
60% of urban population in Sub-Saharan Africa live in slums.
There is a correlation between the percentage of urban population and the GDP
per capita. There also is an correlation between income and the percentage of
urban population. Note, there is a correlation, this does not mean that people in
,an urban area automatically earn more. There is also more inequality and more
poverty.
Urban population also correlates to the CO2 emissions. The same goes for the
material footprint. Overtime our resource demand per capita is increasing.
In the past, we saw an increase in food prices, when there was a spike in the
phosphate rock price. Phosphate rock is used to produce phosphorus, which is
used for fertilizers. Since the 2000, the price of commodities is rising (after
decreasing for over a 100 years). This has everything to do with the finite
resources that are being used (like oil, phosphate rock etc).
Solid waste is not the only form of pollution. There are other forms like toxic
waste, medication and materials like PFAS or other persistent materials that
pollute the environment.
Urban areas and climate change
Part of the problem is the increase in production that is linked to consumption
changes (we all want more, there is more overweight etc). For instance, because
there is so much more demand for food, the inorganic N fertilizer use spiked with
more than 700% since 1961. Land-use change, land-use intensification and
climate change have contributed to desertification and land degradation.
We currently operate under a linear system of the urbanized world: Resources go
into a city, and waste streams (emissions to soil, water and air) go out. There is a
massive throughput of materials.
Cities are highly dependent on external supplies, often from very far away
The external supplies are made possible by global transportation systems,
which are entirely based on fossil fuel
Without mass use of fossil fuels, the growth of megacities would not have
occurred.
There needs to be a balance between us and the environment.
Cities have a high potential:
- There is a high density (it is easier to substract resources from a high
density than a low density). However, there is unused potential in this. Also
in terms of ambitious people.
- There is also the possibility for socio-technological solutions; a balance
between small scale/large scale and centralized/decentralized solutions.
The hope for cities is that we work on circular metabolism.
Lecture 1.4: Introduction to urban metabolism,
ecological footprint and urban footprint
On this moment we are in a poly-crisis, there are multiple crisis at the same
time. Think of inequality, poverty, climate change, a lack of fresh water,
pandemics and more.
What is your impact on earth? That is what this lecture is about.
Urban Metabolism: this is the physiological and chemical processes within all
organisms in an urban area. It involves the intake of resources, the uptake of
,energy and nutrients required to sustain live and the excretion of waste
(Agudela et al., 2012).
According to Kennedy (2007), Urban metabolism is the sum of the technical
and socio-economic processes that occur in cities, resulting in growth, production
of energy, and elimination of waste.
An organism is any living thing. An ecosystem is any community of living and
non-living things that work together.
The challenge is to match supply and demand over time and space.
Temporal = over time
Spatial = in a space
Increasing scale increasing complexity
Increasing resolution increasing complexity
Temporal challenges, such as a shortage of apples in December, can be solved
by spatial characteristics/solutions, for example when you send a boat to
Brazil to get apples there. The demand for apples in the Netherlands is constant,
since we always want to have apples. But the supply, our own apple trees, only
give apples in the summer/autumn, so supply is not constant.
This results in indirect waste for us, because it is not directly our waste, but
waste in South America. So when you measure impacts of urban consumption,
you should not only look at the local impact, but also at the global impact.
(Another example of temporal/spatial challenges) As much as 40% of the
agricultural supply chain of food is wasted. In the south 80% of this is mostly
because of on-farm losses and in transportation/processing, due to: unavailable
sale outlets, lack of cold or appropriate storage and the need to sell
immediately to raise cash. In the North (developed countries), 80% is lost in
retail, catering and home. This is because food is cheap for customers, we are
accustomed to food at highest cosmetic standards and there is a lack of
education on food safety prompt reliance on ‘use-by’ date.
There are different spatial scales, they become increasingly complex. The first
layer is for instance a building, the second layer a neighborhood and het last
layer whole city. The different layers have different activities, different resource
inputs and different waste streams.
The ecological footprint measures the human impact on the biosphere
- By estimating the amount of biologically productive land and sea to sustain the
consumption of a population or economic system,
- And to absorb the waste generated by its production and consumption activity.
The ecological footprint is usually measured in gha (global hectares)
The ecological footprint consists of 6 levels of land. These are the forest, the
carbon ecological footprint, cropland, grazing land, built-up land and fishing
grounds.
Biocapacity is the amount of resources our earth can produce in a year.
Biocapacity is decreasing over the years, due to deforestation, degradation,
, which reduces the ability of usable land to produce resources. There also is less
available land, and a bigger population, so more need for resources.
The urban footprint is based on the ecological footprint, but looks at the urban
area as an organism. Is was first introduced by Wackernagel and Reed and looks
at the space needed to sustain life in 1 ha of urban land (so how much gha it
needs to produce resources etc).
A sustainable city is an urban area for which the inflow of materials and energy
and the disposal of waste do not exceed the capacity of its hinterlands.
With circular urban metabolism you realize that resources are finite. Use,
policies and practices are based on this fact.
A sustainable city implies an urban region for which the inflows of materials
and energy and the disposal of wastes do not exceed the capacity of its
hinterlands (Kennedy et al., 2007). So if you exceed the capacity of your
hinterland, you should stop growing (although this goes against every economic
idea).
Circular Urban Metabolism (CUM) works on:
- reducing consumption and pollution
- recycle and maximize renewables (cascading, recycling, recovering)
- within regional ecosystems
We should evaluate the urban metabolism: 1) to measure the urban impact and
2) to compare resource use.
The advantages of urban metabolism as a framework according to Pincetl and
Bunje (2009);
1) Explicitly identifies of the systems boundaries;
2) Account for inputs and outputs of the system;
3) Allows for a hierarchical approach to research;
4) Includes decomposable elements for targeted, sectoral research;
5) Necessitates analysis of policy and technology outcomes with respect to
sustainability goals;
6) Is an adaptive approach to solutions and their consequences; and
7) Integrates social science and biophysical science/technology.
How to improve urban metabolism? This starts with us, by diminishing our
consumption, reducing our waste production, use renewables, eat local and
seasonal food and share cars. Furthermore, we (not we as a person but as
humans) can develop and apply new technologies, create sustainable designs for
products and systems and much more.
A Material Flow Analysis (MFA) is a systematic assessment of the flows and
stocks of materials within a system defined in space and time.
Some of the objectives are to explain a system of material flows and stocks,
reduce the complexity of the system, assess relevant flows and stock in
quantitative terms, present results about flows and stocks. It is a basis for
managing resources.
The different components of a MFA:
- Materials (substance or good e.g. solid wate, wood, water)
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