Download or read book Understanding Urban Metabolism written by Nektarios Chrysoulakis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-08-27 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding Urban Metabolism addresses the gap between the bio-physical sciences and urban planning and illustrates the advantages of accounting for urban metabolism issues in urban design decisions. Urban metabolism considers a city as a system, and distinguishes between energy and material flows as its components. Based on research from the BRIDGE project, this book deals with how the urban surface exchanges and transforms energy, water, carbon and pollutants in cities. This book also introduces a new method for evaluating how planning alternatives can modify the physical flows of urban metabolism components and how environmental and socioeconomic components interact. The inclusion of sustainability principles into urban planning provides an opportunity to place the new knowledge provided by bio-physical sciences at the centre of the planning process, but there is a strong need to bridge knowledge and practice, as well as for a better dissemination of research results and exchange of best practice. This book meets that need and provides the reader with the necessary tools to integrate an understanding of urban metabolism into urban planning practice.
Download or read book Sustainable Urban Metabolism written by Paulo Ferrao and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-08-30 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unified framework for analyzing urban sustainability in terms of cities' inflows and outflows of matter and energy. Urbanization and globalization have shaped the last hundred years. These two dominant trends are mutually reinforcing: globalization links countries through the networked communications of urban hubs. The urban population now generates more than eighty percent of global GDP. Cities account for enormous flows of energy and materials—inflows of goods and services and outflows of waste. Thus urban environmental management critically affects global sustainability. In this book, Paulo Ferrão and John Fernández offer a metabolic perspective on urban sustainability, viewing the city as a metabolism, in terms of its exchanges of matter and energy. Their book provides a roadmap to the strategies and tools needed for a scientifically based framework for analyzing and promoting the sustainability of urban systems. Using the concept of urban metabolism as a unifying framework, Ferrão and Fernandez describe a systems-oriented approach that establishes useful linkages among environmental, economic, social, and technical infrastructure issues. These linkages lead to an integrated information-intensive platform that enables ecologically informed urban planning. After establishing the theoretical background and describing the diversity of contributing disciplines, the authors sample sustainability approaches and tools, offer an extended study of the urban metabolism of Lisbon, and outline the challenges and opportunities in approaching urban sustainability in both developed and developing countries.
Download or read book New Urban Metabolism written by Josep Antoni Acebillo and published by ACTAR Publishers. This book was released on 2012 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The iCUP (Institute for Contemporary Urban Project) is the institute, directed by ... Acebillo and coordinated by ... Enrico Sassi, within which this book has been produced and it is part of the Accademia di architettura, USI (Universita della Svizzera Italiana), Mendrisio"--Page 6.
Download or read book Urban Informatics written by Wenzhong Shi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 941 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book is the first to systematically introduce the principles of urban informatics and its application to every aspect of the city that involves its functioning, control, management, and future planning. It introduces new models and tools being developed to understand and implement these technologies that enable cities to function more efficiently – to become ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’. The smart city has quickly emerged as computers have become ever smaller to the point where they can be embedded into the very fabric of the city, as well as being central to new ways in which the population can communicate and act. When cities are wired in this way, they have the potential to become sentient and responsive, generating massive streams of ‘big’ data in real time as well as providing immense opportunities for extracting new forms of urban data through crowdsourcing. This book offers a comprehensive review of the methods that form the core of urban informatics from various kinds of urban remote sensing to new approaches to machine learning and statistical modelling. It provides a detailed technical introduction to the wide array of tools information scientists need to develop the key urban analytics that are fundamental to learning about the smart city, and it outlines ways in which these tools can be used to inform design and policy so that cities can become more efficient with a greater concern for environment and equity.
Download or read book Urban Metabolism written by Yan Zhang and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-05-17 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides the basic theory, method framework and application results of urban metabolism. Urban metabolism is an important research philosophy and approach for analyzing urban mega organism and its ecological environmental problems. It has constantly formed quantitative network research framework and analysis methods in a metaphor way and expanded its application in different scales such as global, national, urban agglomeration and city to support the process of multi-scale regional sustainable development.
Download or read book Urban Metabolism and Climate Change written by Rahul Bhadouria and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-05-23 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a basic understanding and state-of-the-art of urban metabolism. Urban centres are increasingly challenged by population increase and the resultant environmental concerns including the urban sprawl and climate change. Different patterns of urbanization contribute to the changing climate via. differences in their urban metabolism represented by energy and matter. Urban metabolic studies in terms of energy and material inflows, outflows, and stocks can be associated with traditional evaluation techniques to help assess the magnitude and potential effects of variety of environmental challenges the world is facing today. Urban centres are critical real time observatories that indicate the impact anthropogenic activities have on global biogeochemical cycles. Urban processes have significant and lasting impacts on the global carbon budget. The technological and infrastructural advancements have fuelled an increase in urban inputs and outputs of material and energy. Therefore, more sustainable approaches need to be adopted in changing scenarios for urban planning, particularly for sustainable resource utilization and better waste management practices. The book emphasises on the sustainability in urban metabolism, sustainable urban planning, ecosystem services, and disaster resilience to provide an interdisciplinary understanding of urban metabolism. The book also identifies an urgent need to develop new methodological approaches for real time and reliable evaluation of urban metabolism.
Download or read book Sustainable Urban Metabolism written by Paulo Ferrao and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-08-30 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unified framework for analyzing urban sustainability in terms of cities' inflows and outflows of matter and energy. Urbanization and globalization have shaped the last hundred years. These two dominant trends are mutually reinforcing: globalization links countries through the networked communications of urban hubs. The urban population now generates more than eighty percent of global GDP. Cities account for enormous flows of energy and materials—inflows of goods and services and outflows of waste. Thus urban environmental management critically affects global sustainability. In this book, Paulo Ferrão and John Fernández offer a metabolic perspective on urban sustainability, viewing the city as a metabolism, in terms of its exchanges of matter and energy. Their book provides a roadmap to the strategies and tools needed for a scientifically based framework for analyzing and promoting the sustainability of urban systems. Using the concept of urban metabolism as a unifying framework, Ferrão and Fernandez describe a systems-oriented approach that establishes useful linkages among environmental, economic, social, and technical infrastructure issues. These linkages lead to an integrated information-intensive platform that enables ecologically informed urban planning. After establishing the theoretical background and describing the diversity of contributing disciplines, the authors sample sustainability approaches and tools, offer an extended study of the urban metabolism of Lisbon, and outline the challenges and opportunities in approaching urban sustainability in both developed and developing countries.
Download or read book Urban Metabolism of Six Asian Cities written by Asian Development Bank and published by Asian Development Bank. This book was released on 2014-09-01 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The urban metabolism framework maps the activities of cities from their consumption of materials, the different activities associated with those processes, and the wastes produced. Information generated provides a diagnostic tool for identifying high waste generating or inefficient activities and identifying potential points of policy intervention. The streamlined approach surmounts the lack of city level data, which is often cited as the most significant limitation preventing material flow analysis at the city level. Extension of the methodology to cover more cities can contribute toward creating benchmarks for city typologies.
Download or read book Urban Planet written by Thomas Elmqvist and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-26 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global urbanization promises better services, stronger economies, and more connections; it also carries risks and unforeseeable consequences. To deepen our understanding of this complex process and its importance for global sustainability, we need to build interdisciplinary knowledge around a systems approach. Urban Planet takes an integrative look at our urban environment, bringing together scholars from a diverse range of disciplines: from sociology and political science to evolutionary biology, geography, economics and engineering. It includes the perspectives of often neglected voices: architects, journalists, artists and activists. The book provides a much needed cross-scale perspective, connecting challenges and solutions on a local scale with drivers and policy frameworks on a regional and global scale. The authors argue that to overcome the major challenges we are facing, we must embark on a large-scale reinvention of how we live together, grounded in inclusiveness and sustainability. This title is also available Open Access.
Download or read book Urban Metabolism and Ecological Management written by Gengyuan LIU and published by EDP Sciences. This book was released on 2021-02-25T00:00:00+01:00 with total page 826 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urbanization is the one of the most evident forms of anthropization. With most of the world population living in cities, the need of thinking about a more sustainable urban lifestyle has become an imperative. This is why present and future generations of scholars, urban managers and policy makers should be prepared to work together to support the reduction of impacts generated by urban activities, while pursuing the goal of an equitable and sustainable well-being within the planetary boundaries. In this respect, the use of different methods and tools can support the implementation of roadmaps and policies. Besides that, different communication languages can be used to enhance the development of a shared reflective vision about the future of cities among citizens, as major actors of the urban life and its transformation. This book provides an accessible overview of some key methods to deal holistically with the analysis of urban resources flows to readers with an interest in the academic or professional reference of the different approaches for studying urban metabolism. It presents some of the most important tools along with relevant case studies to illustrate their potential application. Experts in the field and holding the belief that visions and hopes trigger decisions and behaviors beyond the knowledge, the authors introduce readers to the use of different art-based methods to engage with citizens towards a common outlook on the future of our cities. The book also offers an enhanced reading experience by featuring a soundtrack composed by one of the authors and available through the QR code at the beginning of each chapter.
Download or read book Towards the Control of Microplastic Pollution in Urban Waters written by Emma Fältström and published by Linköping University Electronic Press. This book was released on 2020-11-04 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water pollution has long been considered a challenge in urban areas, and new types of pollution are continuously introduced to society. Urban wastewater and stormwater act as transport pathways of pollution from urban areas to receiving waterways. Microplastics are a new type of pollution that is being highlighted as problematic, and the presence of microplastics is widespread in the environment. The knowledge about behaviour, sources and transport pathways is still limited. Still, there have been suggestions for ways to control microplastic pollution. Moreover, many other pollutants have been introduced, and to a various extent controlled, in the urban water system before, which means that there are strategies for pollution control in place. The problem of microplastic pollution is receiving attention from both research and policy. Therefore, there is a need to simultaneously explore ways to handle the pollution and learn more about the flows of microplastics. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of flows of microplastics in urban waters and investigate strategies and measures that can control the flows. This aim has been addressed through three different studies presented in the three appended papers. The empirical material was gathered between 2017 and 2020 using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The flows of microplastics were investigated using a quantitative approach with inspiration from substance flow analysis. Strategies and measures to control pollution were investigated by means of analyses of documents, literature review and interviews. In terms of flows, the results show that laundry seems to be a large contributor to the wastewater system, while the contribution from cigarette filters was smaller than anticipated. Littering, in general, as well as paint, are potentially important sources of microplastics where the understanding is very limited. In terms of strategies and measures to control the flows, there are both preventive and treatment options for microplastics. As microplastics are a diverse pollutant group, several different solutions are needed. Some aspects that influence control efforts are related to the properties and behaviour of the specific pollutant and can therefore be more or less suitable for different pollutants. Other aspects are more general, such as what compartments are seen as valuable and prioritised in terms of protection. Further, treatment moves the pollution from the water to another medium, and this movement also needs to be considered. Challenges in terms of changing, limited or even lack of legislation, as well as unclear responsibility, and problems with collaboration among urban actors also impact the possibilities to control pollution. The case of microplastics also raises questions about when and how pollution should be controlled and by whom. Further, emerging practices in the urban water system, such as source separation, pipe-separation, and water reuse, will have implications for how pollution will be handled in the future.
Download or read book City Information Modelling written by Ali Cheshmehzangi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology written by Roland Clift and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-11 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we design more sustainable industrial and urban systems that reduce environmental impacts while supporting a high quality of life for everyone? What progress has been made towards reducing resource use and waste, and what are the prospects for more resilient, material-efficient economies? What are the environmental and social impacts of global supply chains and how can they be measured and improved? Such questions are at the heart of the emerging discipline of industrial ecology, covered in Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology. Leading authors, researchers and practitioners review how far industrial ecology has developed and current issues and concerns, with illustrations of what the industrial ecology paradigm has achieved in public policy, corporate strategy and industrial practice. It provides an introduction for students coming to industrial ecology and for professionals who wish to understand what industrial ecology can offer, a reference for researchers and practitioners and a source of case studies for teachers.
Download or read book Design for Sustainability written by Janis Birkeland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-05-04 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With radical and innovative design solutions, everyone could be living in buildings and settlements that are more like gardens than cargo containers, and that purify air and water, generate energy, treat sewage and produce food - at lower cost. Birkeland introduces systems design thinking that cuts across academic and professional boundaries and the divide between social and physical sciences to move towards a transdiciplinary approach to environmental and social problem-solving. This sourcebook is useful for teaching, as each topic within the field of environmental management and social change has pairs of short readings providing diverse perspectives to compare, contrast and debate. Design for Sustainability presents examples of integrated systems design based on ecological principles and concepts and drawn from the foremost designers in the fields of industrial design, materials, housing design, urban planning and transport, landscape and permaculture, and energy and resource management.
Download or read book The Case for Degrowth written by Susan Paulson and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relentless pursuit of economic growth is the defining characteristic of contemporary societies. Yet it benefits few and demands monstrous social and ecological sacrifice. Is there a viable alternative? How can we halt the endless quest to grow global production and consumption and instead secure socio-ecological conditions that support lives worth living for all? In this compelling book, leading experts Giorgos Kallis, Susan Paulson, Giacomo D’Alisa and Federico Demaria make the case for degrowth - living well with less, by living differently, prioritizing wellbeing, equity and sustainability. Drawing on emerging initiatives and enduring traditions around the world, they advance a radical degrowth vision and outline policies to shape work and care, income and investment that avoid exploitative and unsustainable practices. Degrowth, they argue, can be achieved through transformative strategies that allow societies to slow down by design, not disaster. Essential reading for all concerned citizens, policy-makers, and students, this book will be an important contribution to one of the thorniest and most pressing debates of our era.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Ecology written by Brian D. Fath and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2018-08-23 with total page 2786 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encyclopedia of Ecology, Second Edition, Four Volume Set continues the acclaimed work of the previous edition published in 2008. It covers all scales of biological organization, from organisms, to populations, to communities and ecosystems. Laboratory, field, simulation modelling, and theoretical approaches are presented to show how living systems sustain structure and function in space and time. New areas of focus include micro- and macro scales, molecular and genetic ecology, and global ecology (e.g., climate change, earth transformations, ecosystem services, and the food-water-energy nexus) are included. In addition, new, international experts in ecology contribute on a variety of topics. Offers the most broad-ranging and comprehensive resource available in the field of ecology Provides foundational content and suggests further reading Incorporates the expertise of over 500 outstanding investigators in the field of ecology, including top young scientists with both research and teaching experience Includes multimedia resources, such as an Interactive Map Viewer and links to a CSDMS (Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System), an open-source platform for modelers to share and link models dealing with earth system processes
Download or read book In the Nature of Cities written by Nik Heynen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-03-23 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The social and material production of urban nature has recently emerged as an important area in urban studies, human/environmental interactions and social studies. This has been prompted by the recognition that the material conditions that comprise urban environments are not independent from social, political, and economic processes, or from the cultural construction of what constitutes the ‘urban’ or the ‘natural’. Through both theoretical and empirical analysis, this groundbreaking collection offers an integrated and relational approach to untangling the interconnected processes involved in forming urban landscapes. The essays in this book attest that the re-entry of the ecological agenda into urban theory is vital both in terms of understanding contemporary urbanization processes, and of engaging in a meaningful environmental politics. They debate the central themes of whose nature is, or becomes, urbanized, and the uneven power relations through which this socio-metabolic transformation takes place. Including urban case studies, international research and contributions from prominent urban scholars, this volume will enable students, scholars and researchers of geographical, environmental and urban studies to better understand how interrelated, everyday economic, political and cultural processes form and transform urban environments.
