Transcript Slide 1

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How to make cities sustainable?
• Lecture Ton Dietz at Changsha University
• Professor Human Geography University of
Amsterdam, The Netherlands,
specialisation: Environment and Development
• Former director of the Netherlands research
school for ‘resource studies for
development’, CERES
• Director of the African Studies Centre,
Leiden
• Involved in the initiative for a Green
University in a Sustainable City at the
University of Amsterdam
•
Borrow from a lecture given at UNESCO-IHE, Delft, NL
Ton Dietz 2010 Changsha
The Growth of Urbanization and of
(mega)cities
World Urbanization:
from 13% in 1900 =
220 million people
to 50% in 2009 =
>3 billion people
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http://www.aquatic.unesco.lodz.pl/i
mages/urbanisation/wykr1.jpg
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Megacities in 1800
nr 1: Beijing: 1.1 million
nr 2: London: 0.9 million
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/peking_red_forbidden_city.jpg
http://www.printsgeorge.com/CD-ROM%20Books/JA%20London/London-1800-sm.gif
Ton Dietz 2010
Changsha
Dietz
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Megacities 2000
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1 Tokyo: 33.2
2 New York: 20.3
3 Seoul: 19.9
4 Mexico city: 17.7
5 Mumbai: 17.6
Metropolitan World Atlas
Van Susteren 2007
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Sustainable Cities: THE Challenge of
the 21st Century
• A combination of challenges:
– How to reduce the use of energy, mainly in buildings
and transport?
– How to make cities climate neutral?
– How to re-use urban waste?
– How to keep water and air clean and healthy?
– How to make cities green and biodiverse, and how to
connect this to human well-being?
– How to diminish the city’s negative footprint on area and
people elsewhere?
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Scientific background
• Origin: urban ecology: city as a social system: the
Chicago School of Social Science 1920s: Robert Park,
Ernest Burgess, Rod McKenzie; later Brian Berry:
“Contemporary Urban Ecology” (1977).
• 1970s: City as a social-ecological system; ‘health,
environment and social life’, early environmental movement
USA, Europe
• 1999: David Satterswaite: “Earthscan Reader in
Sustainable Cities” : environmental + social sustainability,
environment AND development
• 2003: Haughton & Hunter: “Sustainable Cities”
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Sustainable city movement
• Global attempt to make cities more
sustainable, even if national
governments are not ‘green’ (or even
anti-green).
• Alliances between local municipal
governments + local universities and
think tanks + civil society + local
business organisations
• Important role for education: lecturers
and teachers + teacher trainers
• Develop a ‘rainbow approach’
Ton Dietz 2010 Changsha
Red Sustainability in Cities
• Develop smart transport systems
• energy-poor mobility, virtual traveling, tele-work,
mobility-poor communication, smart linkages
home-work-shop-leisure
• ‘compact city’, public transport, bicycles, ‘ smart’
spatial organization, ‘ smart’ parking
arrangements
• avoid noise pollution, and create silent spots in the
cities
Orange Sustainability in Cities
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zero-energy buildings
cities as energy producers
‘smart’ architectural design
Low-carbon architectural design
climate-proof buildings
Disaster-proof buildings
Integrate buildings and water
Yellow Sustainability in Cities
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low-carbon city
climate neutrality
use of wasted heat and cold
GHG mitigation, adaptation, compensation
urban vulnerability and resilience (climate-shock
proof)
• energy security
• smart grids
• alternative energy
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Green Sustainability in Cities
Green Urban landscape planning with attention for parks, public and
private gardens, green buffer zones, greening the streets and rooftops,
urban eco-diversity, re-creation of urban nature, greening waste
dumps, cleaning chemically polluted areas, urban agriculture, leisure
agriculture. Monitor ‘’ healthy urban nature’ (Lifewatch project; see
cordis.europa.eu).
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Blue Sustainability in Cities
• Clean surface and ground water, clean water
transport, innovative water management (‘ smart
water’), good water storage facilities and calamity
provisions for droughts and floods, flood-alert
planning, aquatic biodiversity, urban fisheries for
leisure and for food security/quality. Attention for
the water footprint (see virtualwater.eu).
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Indigo Sustainability in Cities
• Solid waste management
• separating ‘ grey’ and ‘ black’ water (urban
sewage management)
• waste limitation
• re-use of waste (e.g., waste as bio-energy)
• emission-free cars
• clean air; avoid air pollution from industries,
heating/cooling systems, and transport
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Violet Sustainability in Cities
• Reducing resource use, resource efficiency, valuechain management, conscious consumers and
traders, sustainable and fair companies (socially
and environmentally responsible business), slow
food movement, meat and fish-poor diets, organic
lifestyles, environmentally caring lifestyles, lower
ecological footprint elsewhere, consumers as
producers (‘prosumers’).
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Sustainable City Drivers
• Occasional disasters help to
mobilise support
• Impact of Disasters is often a
combination of a natural event (e.g.,
earthquake, flood, drought,
heatwave) and inadequate
preparations (e.g., bad quality
houses, built at wrong sites, lack of
security, faulty regulations)
• Local Disasters have Worldwide
Impact: e.g. Katrina New Orleans;
Chengdu earthquake China
• Climate change becomes a major
driver.
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The use of (website) information to support
the movement for sustainable cities
• Report all local initiatives, and highlight the
alliances and innovations
• Show successes and failures (you can also learn
from failures: be transparent)
• Link with good examples from elsewhere and
support learning by comparison
• Stimulate local businesses and government
agencies to show their attempts to become more
sustainable
• Stimulate students and teachers/lecturers to share
their studies on sustainability
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Sustainable Universities
• Support universities to get a ‘green portal’ on their
websites: about the role of a university in
sustainability:
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Role in teaching/curriculum development
Research activities
Outreach activities (alliances with others)
Sustainable management of the university as an
organization.
– E.g. www.uva.nl (‘duurzaamheid’)
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Find a balance
• Avoid being only alarmist (only showing disasters
and suffering)
• But make use of images and information that can
shock people
– And make them prepared to change their way of
thinking
– And their way of acting/way of life
• And also show that there are (many) alternatives
to non-green or anti-green lifestyles
Images of climate risks in the
humid tropics
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Cyclone Nargis, Myanmar 2008
Flash flood Vietnam 2009
http://www.lookatvietnam.com/vietnam-newsimages/2009/08/images1843459_flood-LaiChau.jpg
Storm Hanna, Haiti. 2008
http://picturrs.com/files/funzug/imgs/misc/amzin
g2008_photos_04.jpg
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Climate refugees and
urbanisation?
Of course climate upheavals
(droughts, floods, storms)
cause refugees
Nouakchot for instance:
From 20,000 in 1960 to 600,000 after the
Sahelian drought; urbanisation from <5% to
>50%
However: migration is a
complex phenomenon,
and not only, and often
not at all related to
climate-related disasters
Somali flood refugees in Kenya
Sahel experience:Get out of the drought
http://www.globalwarmingisreal.com/
blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/
climate_refugees.jpg
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/climaterefugee-1.jpg
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Risk prone
More people than ever
before live in vulnerable
locations: there has been
a massive movement to the
coasts
Many new slum areas in
flood-prone zones
with inadequate buildings
inadequate drainage
Weak sanitation infrastructure
Major health risks
Considerable
population
redistribution
1960-1994:
Emptying of the
extreme
drylands
and war zones
Move to
the coast
Very strong
urbanisation
Source: Dietz & Veldhuizen, 2004
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Major uncertainties
Rainfall variability is evident
but downward trend?
Example Mali 1918-1998
However:
many different predictions
Another example:
Bawku north east Ghana
Source: The Impact of Climate Change in Drylands, Dietz et al; 2004
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Major problems
• In their study ‘Beyond 2015’, the Netherlands
Environmental Assessment Agency summarises
the impact of greater climate risks as a result of
climate change (NEAA, 2009, p. 53):
• “A range of water resources management
problems are recognised that could become worse
because of climate change. The two most often
mentioned are
- increased pollution of water supplies as a result
of increased and more frequent flooding;
- and reduced water supplies and increased costs
associated with silting resulting from lower flows
and higher evaporation rates”.
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More competition, but also more
opportunities and more synergy?
• Growing water demands (anyhow), but what to do
with more fluctuations?
• Competition between municipalities in the same
water provision area, and between cities and
countryside (energy, irrigation): how to design
water sharing institutions?
• Ever wider supply-demand chains? Growing scale?
• And what about the re-use of wastewater? Urban
and peri-urban irrigation?
• How to prevent health risks in case of floods?
Ton Dietz 2010 Changsha
Municipalities coping with climate
risks and climate change
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• Cities for Climate
Protection campaign
• Clinton initiative
• Climate-neutral cities
Tensions between mitigation
(mainly: lower CO2 levels)
and adaptation (be better
prepared for disasters;
because they will come)
http://www.mwcog.org/environment/climate/images/
globe%20in%20hands%20poster.png
http://gothamist.com/attachments/jen/2007_05_cci.
JPG
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Rotterdam NL
• the municipality of
Rotterdam has an
ambitious programme to
make the city more flood
proof, combining national
programmes to “make
room for the river”, with
local initiatives to separate
sewage from rainwater,
and reducing pollution
risks in case of floods.
http://www.hollandexploringtours.nl/gfx/floodproof/
flood_prone_areas.jpg
http://www.fivefootway.com/2008/08/13/
riba-flood-proof-house-design-competition/
http://www.flcextended.be/wp/?cat=3
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New Orleans USA
Vulnerability is socially
and geographically
unequal
New Orleans Katrina
disaster: the poor were hit
most; the poor have lowest
recovery capability
Who should pay for the
insurance premiums of the
poor in cities like New
Orleans?
Risk sharing ethics
http://www.linkpicture.com/out.php?
i=82_KatrinaDevastatoin.jpg
http://www.gumbopages.com/looka/images/katrina-flooding.jpg
http://www.readthespirit.com/.a/6a00e54ef51d7688340120a519856a970b-800wi
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Health risks
WHO study 2003:
“Any increase in frequency of extreme events such as
storms, floods, droughts and cyclones would harm human
health through a variety of pathways. These natural
hazards can cause direct loss of life and injury and affect
health indirectly through:
• loss of shelter;
• population displacement;
• contamination of water supplies;
• loss of food production;
• increased risk of infectious disease epidemics (including
diarrhoeal and respiratory diseases;
• and damage to infrastructure for provision of health
services
(These can be) devastating impacts, particularly in densely
settled populations with inadequate resources”
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Increased Diseases as a result of
floods and droughts
Floods:
• increase in bacteriological
diseases like cholera and
typhoid,
• and in an increase in parasitic
diseases
Droughts:
• limited water supplies can have
a higher concentration of
pathogens,
• and hence higher risks of waterborne diseases,
• but low supplies may also affect
personal hygiene and result in
skin infections
http://healthmap.files.wordpr
ess.com/2008/08/cholera.jpg
http://djiin.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/cholera.jpg
http://www.stolenchildhood.net/tags/afghanistan
http://www.islamicrelief.com/Uploads/emergency/2Niger-child-skinproblem.jpg
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Reduced water supplies
• Ouagadougou;
• 1960: 59,000 people 1996
• Now: > 1 million
Per person available:
• In 1978: 57 l/d
• In 1986: 39 l/d
1986
• In 1993: 26 l/d
Needed:
Extra water dams, far away
+ urban water harvesting
+ subsidised water for the poor
+ health care for those without
clean water
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/800
0/8870/ouagadougou_etm_2006289.jpg
http://cdn9.wn.com/o25/ar/i/87/4fa5bd0fb01b01.jpg
http://www.filmfesthamburg.de/images/filmbilder/2005/ouagasaga.jpg
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Reduced water supplies?
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Ouagadougou
September 03, 2009
Ouaga under water
12 inches (300 mm) of water in
under 10 hours - the heaviest
rain there in 90 years - no
wonder the city is flooded.
• Thousands of houses have
fallen down. Schools and
churches at 193 sites across
Ouagadougou are sheltering
110,000 flood victims.
http://www.voiceinthedesert.org.uk/weblog/archives/images/ouaga_floodi
ng.JPG
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Most important
Higher climate risks mean
• Higher vulnerability
• More variability
• Less predictability
So:
Municipalities need to have more
robust disaster-prevention
measures against storms,
floods, drought, heat and dust
+ more flexibility + more early
warning capability
And if disaster strikes: a better
recovery capability + be better
shock proof = higher resilience
http://carlsbadconnection.com/wpcontent/uploads/2008/08/oceansdie-20city20hall.jpg
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What can be done?
• Each organisation and each territory in the city
could set targets for ‘greening’
– Lower energy use per capita or per area
• And transparent information!
• Smart grids!
– Lower waste generation or higher re-use of waste
– Lower water use, and better information about water use
and water quality
– Greening the direct environment
– Lower carbon and other greenhouse emissions
• And transparency about it, with sticks and carrots
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But also:
• Stimulate awareness about impact elsewhere of
own personal lifestyles (for consumers) and of
value chains (for producers): the ecological
footprint, or the water footprint.
• Stimulate ‘slow food’ (“eat locally”; “eat products
from the seasons”) and restricted meat- and fish
consumption
– Show local celebrities doing that
– Show top restaurants stimulating vegetarian and local
dishes
– Use popular magazines and websites to propagate this
– Stimulate ‘urban agriculture’; ‘leisure gardening’
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Use Sticks and Carrots
• Reward positive role models, the best performers, in
schools/universities; at work; in municipality: ‘green
awards’, ‘innovation prices’
• Do ‘naming and shaming’ for the worst performers: pictures
and articles; legal cases against them; block their activities
directly (government) or indirectly (consumer boycot).
• Target the most visible worst performers for a change of
attitude
• Use environmental and social impact assessment as a tool
for ‘awakening’ and do ‘people’s monitoring’ of new
initiatives.
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Give special attention to Buildings
• Buildings are very visible symbols of ‘ways-of-life’
• Involve architects and building firms to think about
greening their building practices
• In low-lying areas with flood risks: experiment with
water architecture
• In areas with risks of earthquakes or landslides:
invest in robust building
• Stimulate climate-neutral building: combining
building-related energy production (e.g. solar) with
energy saving, and transparancy about use