scholarly journals Enhancing Urban Sustainable Indicators in a German City—Towards Human-Centered Measurements for Sustainable Urban Planning

World ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-123
Author(s):  
Caroline Kramer ◽  
Madeleine Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Urban Sustainability ◽  
Sustainability Indicators ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Indicator Approach ◽  
City District ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Sustainability Indicators ◽  
Sustainable Indicators

This contribution demonstrates how more human-centered measurements for sustainable urban planning can be created by enlarging the traditional set of urban sustainability indicators. In many municipal reports, sustainable indicators concentrate on environmental issues, by collecting data at an aggregated spatial and temporal level using quantitative methods. Our approach aims to expand and improve the currently dominant quantitative–statistical methods by including perception geographical data (subjective indicators following the social indicator approach), namely additional indicators at spatial and temporal levels. Including small-scale city district levels and a temporal differentiation produces more process assessments and a better representation of everyday life. Based on a survey we conducted at district levels in the city of Karlsruhe, we cover three sustainability dimensions (ecological, social, economic) and analyze (1) how citizens are mobile in a sustainable way (bike use) and (2) how they perceive and react to heat events in the city. We argue for taking people’s perception and the spatiality and temporality of their daily activities better into account when further developing urban sustainability indicators and when aiming for a sustainable, human-centered urban development.

scholarly journals A Framework for Measuring Urban Sustainability in an Emerging Region: The City of Duhok as a Case Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (19) ◽  
pp. 5402
Author(s):  
Azad Hassan ◽  
Zeenat Kotval-K
Keyword(s):  
General Trend ◽  
Urban Sustainability ◽  
Sustainability Indicators ◽  
The Political ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Sustainable Practices ◽  
Urban Policies ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Sustainability Indicators

The City of Duhok in Iraq, as one of the Kurdistan Region’s (KR) main cities, is concerned about sustainability but lacks the measures to guide urban policies. This study bridges this gap and offers an example of the use of urban sustainability indicators in an emerging region that experiences rapid urbanization and growth. The substantial objective of this study was to develop a functional framework of indicators to assess and measure urban sustainability for the city after KR’s declaration of autonomy in 1991 until 2010. That is, we limited our investigation to examining previous research, which decisively contains the approach to “measuring urban sustainability”. The study followed a three-step approach to examine urban sustainability as an integration of a few other relevant studies. The study concluded with two facts: First, the lack of progress on urban sustainability in the first decades resulted from the destabilized era that left the city administratively fragmented. Second, the political and economic watershed led to steady progress towards urban sustainability post-2005. The study highlights nine urban sustainability indicators, from a total of 39 indicators, that played an important role in navigating the general trend of urban sustainability in the city and how they can be used to promote future sustainable practices.

scholarly journals The Role of Biophilic Agents in Building a Green Resilient City; the Case of Birmingham, UK

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 5033
Author(s):  
Linda Novosadová ◽  
Wim van der Knaap
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Climate Resilience ◽  
Natural Land ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Community Projects ◽  
Business As Usual ◽  
The City

The present research offers an exploration into the biophilic approach and the role of its agents in urban planning in questions of building a green, resilient urban environment. Biophilia, the innate need of humans to connect with nature, coined by Edgar O. Wilson in 1984, is a concept that has been used in urban governance through institutions, agents’ behaviours, activities and systems to make the environment nature-inclusive. Therefore, it leads to green, resilient environments and to making cities more sustainable. Due to an increasing population, space within and around cities keeps on being urbanised, replacing natural land cover with concrete surfaces. These changes to land use influence and stress the environment, its components, and consequently impact the overall resilience of the space. To understand the interactions and address the adverse impacts these changes might have, it is necessary to identify and define the environment’s components: the institutions, systems, and agents. This paper exemplifies the biophilic approach through a case study in the city of Birmingham, United Kingdom and its biophilic agents. Using the categorisation of agents, the data obtained through in-situ interviews with local professionals provided details on the agent fabric and their dynamics with the other two environments’ components within the climate resilience framework. The qualitative analysis demonstrates the ways biophilic agents act upon and interact within the environment in the realm of urban planning and influence building a climate-resilient city. Their activities range from small-scale community projects for improving their neighbourhood to public administration programs focusing on regenerating and regreening the city. From individuals advocating for and educating on biophilic approach, to private organisations challenging the business-as-usual regulations, it appeared that in Birmingham the biophilic approach has found its representatives in every agent category. Overall, the activities they perform in the environment define their role in building resilience. Nonetheless, the role of biophilic agents appears to be one of the major challengers to the urban design’s status quo and the business-as-usual of urban governance. Researching the environment, focused on agents and their behaviour and activities based on nature as inspiration in addressing climate change on a city level, is an opposite approach to searching and addressing the negative impacts of human activity on the environment. This focus can provide visibility of the local human activities that enhance resilience, while these are becoming a valuable input to city governance and planning, with the potential of scaling it up to other cities and on to regional, national, and global levels.

scholarly journals The Högdalen urban farm: a real case assessment of sustainability attributes

Food Security ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1461-1475
Author(s):  
Rebecka Milestad ◽  
Annika Carlsson-Kanyama ◽  
Christina Schaffer
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Food Provisioning ◽  
Urban Farm ◽  
City District ◽  
The City

AbstractWhile urban indoor farming is a fairly new phenomenon, there is a growing interest from producers, authorities and consumers alike. However, many assumptions are made, and expectations held, about urban indoor farming from a sustainability, food production and food provisioning point of view. These assumptions and expectations need to be tested and assessed. This study assessed greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and a number of social aspects of a newly established indoor urban farm in Stockholm. The farm was the result of a project created by commercial, civil society and municipal actors with the aim to make use of unused urban space, create jobs and produce food. While lettuce grown on the indoor farm emitted more GHG than lettuce cultivated outdoors in Sweden, it was more climate friendly than imported lettuce in our comparison. Furthermore, the indoor farm created value for the actors involved and for the city district, albeit on a small scale. Many of the positive environmental and social features owed to the small scale of the indoor farm and the context in which it developed. Thus, when evaluating production systems like this one, we need to be cautious and refrain from extrapolating the results.

scholarly journals Mapping and assessing ecosystem services to support urban planning: A case study on brownfield regeneration in Trento, Italy

One Ecosystem ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. e25477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Cortinovis ◽  
Davide Geneletti
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Planning Decisions ◽  
Stakeholder Perspectives ◽  
Other Information ◽  
Planning Processes ◽  
Multi Criteria Analysis ◽  
The City

This study explores the use of ecosystem service (ES) knowledge to support urban planning in the assessment of future scenarios. The case study concerns the prioritszation of brownfield regeneration interventions in the city of Trento (Italy). Alternative planning scenarios considering the conversion of existing brownfields into new urban parks are assessed and compared. The assessment focuses on two ES of critical importance for the city, namely microclimate regulation and nature-based recreation. The benefits of the different scenarios are quantified based on the number of expected beneficiaries broken down into different vulnerability classes and then compared through a multi-criteria analysis. Three combinations of criteria and weights reflect different planning objectives and related decision-makers’ orientations about what ES and beneficiary groups should be prioritised. The application demonstrates the potential for ES assessments to support urban planning processes in the specific phase of assessment and selection of alternatives, by meeting the requirements in terms of both sensitivity to small-scale changes in land uses or management activities and capacity to capture simultaneous variations in supply and demand of multiple ES. Being coherent with socially-orientated planning objectives, indicators based on ES demand and beneficiaries can effectively convey information about ES in planning decisions. Multi-criteria analysis is an effective way to integrate multiple ES assessments with other information about costs and benefits of planning scenarios, exploring diverse stakeholder perspectives and balancing competing objectives in a rational and transparent way.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document