Healthy people, healthy biophysical environments, and healthy human-environment interactions are synergistic relationships that underpin the sustainability of cities (Liu et al., 2007). Urban sustainability therefore requires horizontal and vertical integration across multiple levels of governance, guided by four principles: the planet has biophysical limits, human and natural systems are tightly intertwined and come together in cities, urban inequality undermines sustainability efforts, and cities are highly interconnected. 3, Industrial Pollution in Russia (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Industry_in_Russia.jpg), by Alt-n-Anela (https://www.flickr.com/people/47539533@N05), licensed by CC-BY-2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en), Fig. Fig. In other words, the needs call for the study of cities as complex systems, including the processes at different scales, determining factors, and tipping points to avoid adverse consequence. In short, urban sustainability will require a reconceptualization of the boundaries of responsibility for urban residents, urban leadership, and urban activities. Three elements are part of this framework: A DPSIR framework is intended to respond to these challenges and to help developing urban sustainability policies and enact long-term institutional governance to enable progress toward urban sustainability. The strategies employed should match the context. Key variables to describe urban and environmental systems and their interrelationships; Measurable objectives and criteria that enable the assessment of these interrelationships; and. MyNAP members SAVE 10% off online. Resources Cities need resources such as water, food and energy to be viable. In discussing sustainability from a global perspective, Burger et al. Understanding these interconnections within system boundaries, from urban to global, is essential to promote sustainability. Further mapping of these processes, networks, and linkages is important in order to more fully understand the change required at the municipal level to support global sustainability. Upload unlimited documents and save them online. Globally, over 50% of the population lives in urban areas today. In many ways, this is a tragedy of the commons issue, where individual cities act in their own self-interest at the peril of shared global resources. Poor waste management likewise can harm the well-being of residents through improper waste disposal. Urban sustainability requires durable, consistent leadership, citizen involvement, and regional partnerships as well as vertical interactions among different governmental levels, as discussed before. Specifically, market transformation can traditionally be accomplished by first supporting early adopters through incentives; next encouraging the majority to take action through market-based approaches, behavior change programs, and social norming; and, finally, regulating to prompt action from laggards. Much of the current information on urban areas is about stocks or snapshots of current conditions of a single place or location. Health impacts, such as asthma and lung disease. It's a monumental task for cities to undertake, with many influences and forces at work. Learning from existing menu of urban development solutions: Although addressing forced displacement in cities is a relatively new challenge, responses can be informed by proven urban development approaches , ranging from urban upgrading and community driven development to disaster risk management. Urban areas and the activities within them use resources and produce byproducts such as waste and pollution that drive many types of global change, such as resource depletion, land-use change, loss of biodiversity, and high levels of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Big Idea 2: IMP - How are the attitudes, values, and balance of power of a population reflected in the built landscape? Be perfectly prepared on time with an individual plan. While urban areas can be centers for social and economic mobility, they can also be places with significant inequality, debility, and environmental degradation: A large proportion of the worlds population with unmet needs lives in urban areas. New sustainability indicators and metrics are continually being developed, in part because of the wide range of sustainability frameworks used as well as differences in spatial scales of interest and availability (or lack thereof) of data. In order to facilitate the transition toward sustainable cities, we suggest a decision framework that identifies a structured but flexible process that includes several critical elements (Figure 3-1). What is the ideal pH for bodies of water? A multiscale governance system that explicitly addresses interconnected resource chains and interconnected places is necessary in order to transition toward urban sustainability (Box 3-4). High amounts of nutrients that lead to an algal bloom and prevents oxygen and light from entering the water. Create the most beautiful study materials using our templates. Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Challenges and Opportunities for the United States. Free and expert-verified textbook solutions. Cities that want to manage the amount of resources they're consuming must also manage population increases. Sign up for email notifications and we'll let you know about new publications in your areas of interest when they're released. Best study tips and tricks for your exams. Book Description This title includes a number of Open Access chapters. Commitment to sustainable development by city or municipal authorities means adding new goals to those that are their traditional concerns (McGranahan and Satterthwaite, 2003). Consequently, what may appear to be sustainable locally, at the urban or metropolitan scale, belies the total planetary-level environmental or social consequences. Cities have experienced an unprecedented rate of growth in the last decade. Fig. The metric most often used is the total area of productive landscape and waterscape required to support that population (Rees, 1996; Wackernagel and Rees, 1996). The spread and continued growth of urban areas presents a number of concerns for a sustainable future, particularly if cities cannot adequately address the rise of poverty, hunger, resource consumption, and biodiversity loss in their borders. As climate change effects intensify extreme weather patterns, disturbances in water resources can occur. However,. The second is an understanding of the finite nature of many natural resources (or the ecosystems from which they are drawn) and of the capacities of natural systems in the wider regional, national, and international context to absorb or break down wastes. of the users don't pass the Challenges to Urban Sustainability quiz! The other is associated to the impact of technology intensity that is assumed for characterizing productivity in terms of the global hectare. Extra-urban impacts of urban activities such as ecological . Indicates air quality to levels to members of the public. 2Abel Wolman (1965) developed the urban metabolism concept as a method of analyzing cities and communities through the quantification of inputswater, food, and fueland outputssewage, solid refuse, and air pollutantsand tracking their respective transformations and flows. Learn about and revise the challenges that some British cities face, including regeneration and urban sustainability, with GCSE Bitesize Geography (AQA). and the second relates to horizontal autonomy, which is a function of the citys relationship with local economic and social groups that the city depends on for its financial and political support. 3 Principles of Urban Sustainability: A Roadmap for Decision Making. Examples of Urban Sustainability Challenges When cities begin to grow quickly, planning and allocation of resources are critical. Cities with a high number of manufacturing are linked with ____. In this context, we offer four main principles to promote urban sustainability, each discussed in detail below: Principle 1: The planet has biophysical limits. Some of the major advantages of cities as identified by Rees (1996) include (1) lower costs per capita of providing piped treated water, sewer systems, waste collection, and most other forms of infrastructure and public amenities; (2) greater possibilities for, and a greater range of options for, material recycling, reuse, remanufacturing, and the specialized skills and enterprises needed to make these things happen; (3) high population density, which reduces the per capita demand for occupied land; (4) great potential through economies of scale, co-generation, and the use of waste process heat from industry or power plants, to reduce the per capita use of fossil fuel for space heating; and (5) great potential for reducing (mostly fossil) energy consumption by motor vehicles through walking. Improper waste disposal can lead to air, water, and soil pollution and contamination. Will you pass the quiz? Regional planning can also help create urban growth boundaries, a limit that determines how far an urban area will develop spatially. Urbanization is a global phenomenon with strong sustainability implications across multiple scales. When cities build and expand, they can create greenbelts, areas of wild, undeveloped land in surrounding urban areas. Water conservation schemes can then be one way to ensure both the quantity and quality of water for residents. Inequitable environmental protection undermines procedural, geographic, and social equities (Anthony, 1990; Bullard, 1995). As discussed by Bai (2007), although there are factors beyond local control, the main obstacles to bringing the global concerns onto the local level are the reflection of contradictory perceptions, concerns, interests, and priorities, rather than the scale of the issue. Urban sustainability requires the involvement of citizens, private entities, and public authorities, ensuring that all resources are mobilized and working toward a set of clearly articulated goals. suburban sprawl, sanitation, air and water quality, climate change, energy use, and the ecological footprint of cities. What sources of urbanization can create water pollution? Let's take a look at how the challenges of sustainable urban development may not be challenges at allit all depends on perspective! For instance, greater regional planning efforts are necessary as cities grow and change over time. Urban governments are tasked with the responsibility of managing not only water resources but also sanitation, waste, food, and air quality. AQI ranged 51-100 means the air quality is considered good. Without paying heed to finite resources, urban sustainability may be increasingly difficult to attain depending on the availability and cost of key natural resources and energy as the 21st century progresses (Day et al., 2014, 2016; McDonnell and MacGregor-Fors, 2016; Ramaswami et al., 2016). Clustering populations, however, can compound both positive and negative conditions, with many modern urban areas experiencing growing inequality, debility, and environmental degradation. Urban sustainability has been defined in various ways with different criteria and emphases, but its goal should be to promote and enable the long-term well-being of people and the planet, through efficient use of natural resources and production of wastes within a city region while simultaneously improving its livability, through social amenities, economic opportunity, and health, so that it can better fit within the capacities of local, regional, and global ecosystems, as discussed by Newman (1999). First, large data gaps exist. Some of the most prevailing indicators include footprinting (e.g., for water and land) and composite indices (e.g., well-being index and environmental sustainability index). Part of the solution lies in how cities are planned, governed, and provide services to their citizens. True or false? The article aims to identify the priority policy/practice areas and interventions to solve sustainability challenges in Polish municipalities, as well as . More than half the worlds population lives in urban areas, with the U.S. percentage at 80 percent. Ultimately, all the resources that form the base on which urban populations subsist come from someplace on the planet, most often outside the cities themselves, and often outside of the countries where the cities exist. Concentrated energy use leads to greater air pollution with significant. For a renewable resourcesoil, water, forest, fishthe sustainable rate of use can be no greater than the rate of regeneration of its source. See also Holmes and Pincetl (2012). Waste disposal and sanitation are growing problems as urban areas continue to grow. Factories and power plants, forestry and agriculture, mining and municipal wastewater treatment plants. Third, the critical task of developing finance models to support urban sustainability action requires urgent attention. transportation, or waste. What are five responses to urban sustainability challenges? True or false? The DPSIR framework describes the interactions between society and the environment, the key components of which are driving forces (D), pressures (P) on the environment and, as a result, the states (S) of environmental changes, their impacts (I) on ecosystems, human health, and other factors, and societal responses (R) to the driving forces, or directly to the pressure, state, or impacts through preventive, adaptive, or curative solutions. Thankfully, the world has many resources and the capacity to properly distribute them. Therefore, urban sustainability will require making explicit and addressing the interconnections and impacts on the planet. Currently, urban governance is largely focused on single issues such as water. Environmental disasters are more likely to occur with greater intensity; buildings, streets, and facilities are more likely to be damaged or destroyed. Institutional scale plays an important role in how global issues can be addressed. Sustainable management of resources and limiting the impact on the environment are important goals for cities. limate, precipitation, soil and sediments, vegetation, and human activities are all factors of declining water quality. Getting an accurate picture of the environmental impacts of all human activity, including that of people working in the private sector, is almost impossible. The challenges to urban sustainability are often the very same challenges that motivate cities to be more sustainable in the first place. This will continue the cycle of suburban sprawl and car dependency. Discriminatory practices in the housing market over many decades have created racial segregation in central cities and suburbs. These opportunities can be loosely placed in three categories: first, filling quantitative data gaps; second, mapping qualitative factors and processes; and third, identifying and scaling successful financing models to ensure rapid adoption. Because an increasing percentage of the worlds population and economic activities are concentrated in urban areas, cities are highly relevant, if not central, to any discussion of sustainable development. Health equity is a crosscutting issue, and emerging research theme, in urban sustainability studies. Many of these class and cultural inequalities are the products of centuries of discrimination, including instances of officially sanctioned discrimination at the hands of residents and elected leaders (Fullilove and Wallance, 2011; Powell and Spencer, 2002). See our explanation on Urban Sustainability to learn more! Indeed, it is unrealisticand not necessarily desirableto require cities to be solely supported by resources produced within their administrative boundaries. A description of each of these phases is given below. Ready to take your reading offline? Some promising models exist, such as MITs Urban Metabolism framework, that warrant further development (Ferro and Fernndez, 2013). Further, sprawling urban development and high car dependency are linked with greater energy use and waste. In a kickoff event at UCLA's Royce Hall (see event video), Chancellor Gene Block will describe the ambitious project . It must be recognized that ultimately all sustainability is limited by biophysical limits and finite resources at the global scale (e.g., Burger et al., 2012; Rees, 2012). 2. A holistic view, focused on understanding system structure and behavior, will require building and managing transdisciplinary tools and metrics. Given the uneven success of the Millennium Development Goals, and the unprecedented inclusion of the urban in the SDG process, the feasibility of SDG 11 was assessed in advance of . Poor waste management can lead to direct or indirect pollution of water, air, and other resources. These strategies should not be developed in isolation, but rather in collaboration with, or ideally, developed by, the practitioners responsible for achieving the goals and targets. over time to produce the resources that the population consumes, and to assimilate the wastes that the population produces, wherever on Earth the relevant land and/or water is located. Low density (suburban sprawl) is correlated with high car use. There is the matter of urban growth that, if unregulated, can come in the form of suburban sprawl. Thinking about cities as closed systems that require self-sustaining resource independence ignores the concepts of comparative advantage or the benefits of trade and economies of scale. Lack of regulation and illegal dumping are causes for concern and can lead to a greater dispersion of pollutants without oversight. Instead they provide a safe space for innovation, growth, and development in the pursuit of human prosperity in an increasingly populated and wealthy world (Rockstrm et al., 2013). Science can also contribute to these pathways by further research and development of several key facets of urban areas including urban metabolism, threshold detection of indicators, comprehension of different data sets, and further exploration of decision-making processes linked across scales.
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