Principles of Urban Environmental Management ETE22806 – Wageningen University & Research
Principles of Urban Environmental Management
Week 1 The city
Software: What institutions and management practices are needed to change resource flows in a city.
Hardware: Infrastructure and technologies needed to analyze resource flows in a city.
Definition of an urban area:
• Not straight forward:
o Complexity and variety of urbanization processes.
o Varies from country to country.
o Varies between data sources within a country.
• Urbanization doesn’t stop:
o Likely underestimation of actual urbanized areas and population.
Definition urban area
Wirth: Large population size, high population density, social heterogeneity, permanence.
Bugliarello: Population, administrative jurisdictions, function, territory.
Cohen: Population size, population density, administrative or political boundaries, economic function.
Urban Area (UN, 2018): one or more of the following criteria:
• Administrative criteria: boundaries and jurisdictions.
• Population size or population density.
• Economic characteristics.
• Functional characteristics.
However:
• Populated areas often exceed administrative boundaries.
o E.g. sub-urban areas, adjacent cities.
• Administrative boundaries may include large unpopulated areas.
o E.g. agriculture.
Urban agglomeration: go from one urban area into another → they agglomerate.
Metropolitan region: Where rural areas (or sub urban areas) are between urban areas.
Urban agglomeration & Metropolitan areas:
• Agglomeration: Population contained within the contours of a contiguous territory inhabited at urban
levels of residential density.
• Metropolitan: 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 (through transport networks, road linkages or commuting patterns).
Concluded, an urban area can be defined by:
• Administrative criteria, population size/ density, economic characteristics, functional characteristics
o May be metropoles, cities, towns, conurbations.
o Generally, not villages.
Urban areas have come to be due to (1) availability of and access to resources (agriculture, trade) and (2) the
underground (subsoil).
The Netherlands 1000 AD: foundation on wooden pillars.
Innovation: end-bearing pile:
,Principles of Urban Environmental Management ETE22806 – Wageningen University & Research
• Bearing capacity of hard stratum.
• Strength of pile (material) determines the max weight of building.
Figure 2: Subsoil is unstable (e.g. due to oxidizing) → sinking grounds.
Problem of this technique: you need to keep adding sand because of oxidizing or something different. Sinking
cities occur in areas with new building techniques. Jakarta is sinking 10cm/year. Otherwise, we would not have
built in these areas.
3 main drivers for urban growth:
• Natural increase (births > deaths)
• Migration
• Reclassification of urban areas (due to a different definition so now called urban)
Population growth= urban growth
o Alle future population growth will take place in urban areas (>90%)
o 60% of urban population in Sub-Saharan Africa live in slums
Climate change:
• Temperature and climate change
• More extreme weather events
Effects:
• Changes in composition of the oceans
• Sea level rise
• (Unknown) microorganisms?
Linear metabolism: Cities are highly dependent on external supplies. 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.
Cities have a high potential:
• Density= solutions and potential.
• Unused potential for supply, recovery, and production.
• Unused potential in terms of ambitious people.
o Self-sufficiency as motivation.
• Local technical/ socio-technological solutions possible.
o Balance between small scale/ large scale and centralized/ decentralized solutions.
Lecture 2 Urban Metabolism
Urban Metabolism:
,Principles of Urban Environmental Management ETE22806 – Wageningen University & Research
• From biology.
• Physiological and chemical processes within an organism.
o Involving the intake of resources.
o The uptake of energy and nutrients.
o Required to sustain life.
o The excretion of wastes.
• Direct waste occurs at the demand site, indirect waste at the supply side. Measuring impacts of urban
consumption: local → global. Cities have global impact!
“The sum total of the technical and and socio-economic processes that occur in cities, resulting in growth,
production of energy and elimination of waste.” (Kennedy et al., 2007)
Organism: any living thing.
Ecosystem: any community of living and non-living things that work together.
Urban footprint:
• Based on ecological footprint.
• First introduced by Wackernagel and Reed.
• Space needed to sustain life in 1 ha of urban land.
• Usually measured in gha (global hectares).
Picture left: Calculating Urban Footprint. Demand vs.
Supply.
Food demand:
• Increases in production are linked to consumption changes.
• Increase in agricultural production. 2017: 240% since 1961.
• Land use change, land use intensification and climate change have contributed to desertification and
land degradation.
Food losses:
• South (Developing countries): 80% of food losses are on-farm and in transportation/ processing .
o Unavailability of sale outlets.
o Lacks of cold or appropriate storage.
o Need to sell immediately and raise case.
• North (Developed countries): 80% lost in retail, catering and at home.
o Food is cheap for customers.
o Accustomed to food at highest cosmetic standards.
o Litigation and lack of education on food safety prompt reliance on ‘use-by’ dates.
Urban metabolism: (1) resources are finite (2) use, policies and practices are based on infinite and (3)
conditions and contexts are changing, resulting in increased pressures.
A Sustainable city: “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
Circular Urban Metabolism:
• Reduce consumption and pollution.
• Recycle and maximize renewables.
, Principles of Urban Environmental Management ETE22806 – Wageningen University & Research
o Cascading, recycling, recovery.
• Within regional ecosystems.
Measure Urban Metabolism to: measure urban impact, compare resource use and identify opportunities.
Advantages of Urban Metabolism as a framework:
1. Explicitly identifies of the system’s boundaries;
2. Accounts for inputs and outputs to 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;
7. Integrates social science and biophysical science/ technology.
Urban Footprint
• Shifting impacts over time
o Delay
“MFA is a systematic assessment of the flows and stocks of materials within a system defined in space and
time.” The objectives of an MFA 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.
• Basis for managing resources.
MFA components (make sure it is the same material and unit throughout):
• Material
o Substances or goods (e.g. Cd, H2O, P, N, solid waste, wood).
• Processes
o Physical or activity (e.g. cutting, boiling, use, transformation).
o Stock (material reservoir within system).
• Flows
o Material/ time (link processes).
