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Upscaling “Building and Planning Culture” to a Regional Level in Römerland Carnuntum (Lower Austria)
Get PDFUnder the term "Baukultur" (building culture), there have been a large number of success stories in Austria in the construction of new buildings or the renovation and transformation of existing buildings. But regional planning and design advisory boards such as the Neusiedler See World Heritage Association (Burgenland, Austria) or the "Rhätische Bahn" advisory board (Kanton Chur, Switzerland), institutionalized above single municipal initiatives (Verein Welterbe Neusiedler See (Hrsg.), 2011; Clemens, n.d.), are still rare. Basically, the term "building culture" (in German: “Baukultur”) is much more popular than "spatial planning" (in German: “Raumplanung”), but still misleading and incomplete. Building and planning projects are often preceded by a “common history” during many years of discussion and decision-making processes with different stakeholders, and various instruments involved on the local spatial planning level. Thus, a more comprehensive term, instead of “building culture” would therefore be "building and planning culture" (in German: “Bau- und Planungskultur”).
This paper describes how the use as well as the procedure of a Regional Planning and Design Advisory Board (REGB) is prototypically tested in a real-world laboratory, within the framework of a transdisciplinary research project (RLC 2040). The goal is future institutionalisation within the regional development association to aim for quality assurance in planning and building projects with regional relevance in the Römerland Carnuntum region. The participatory workshops including municipality representatives and interested citizens of the regional “future council” (an institutionalised civic platform) identified seven characteristics to classify the regional relevance of building and planning projects. It can be stated that basically every project is regionally relevant whose positive as well as negative impacts are clearly reaching beyond effects on a single municipality. Based on this fundamental finding, the paper discusses the construction and functioning of the catalogue of criteria used for project evaluations and the linkage of these criteria to the five fields of action (“Handlungsfelder”) developed for the vision of "RLC 2040". It also explains the possible uses of the catalogue of criteria beyond project evaluations and what added value the different types of the 30 municipalities from the “Römerland Carnuntum” region may gain by using this toolbox. The paper concludes with a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of the advisory board (REGB) draft
Urban Land Use and Food Supply: the Example of Vienna
Get PDFSince 2008 more than half of the world's population live in cities and in 2050 it will be more than two thirds. Urbanization increases not only the cities themselves, but also their responsibility to provide a ‘Good Life for All’ within planetary boundaries. Global agreements such as the Paris Climate Agreement, the UN Sustainable Development Goals or the Biodiversity Charter underpin and secure these aspirations. While 55% of the global population live in urban areas, it is estimated that 1-3% of world’s land is urbanized. Hence, cities are characterised by land scarcity and urban land use conflicts crystallize around issues such as food production, housing, recreational areas or transport infrastructure. Nevertheless, soil and its biological productivity through photosynthesis is the prerequisite of every life on this planet and urban land use does not end at the city gates: food is just one example of how the city is connected to its hinterland, nation, and to the rest of the world. Their supply with agricultural products is feeding the city, but also connects it with both social and ecological impacts on people (e.g. farmers) and the environment at the place of production resp. processing. From this point of view, the responsibility of urban areas as consumption ‘hotspots’ does not end at their city borders.
Recently, a broader awareness of environmental impacts by consumed goods could be observed. An important contributor here is the communication and visualization of footprints, which are sustainability indicators that quantify resource use or ecological consequences of certain products. Some well-known examples are probably the ecological footprint, which measures the biologically productive area required, resource footprints for water and land or the carbon footprint, which illustrates the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the consumption of a product or lifestyle. Especially in the context of cities, contrasting consumption and production-based accountings has been proved to provide important insights for options to reduce ecological impacts of cities.
In the course of the IN-SOURCE project, we quantify urban land use intensities both inside and outside of city borders applying the concept of HANPP (Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production) as a further environmental footprint indicator. HANPP measures the depth of human interventions into the biological productivity of ecosystems. Net primary production (NPP) is the amount of biomass produced by the process of photosynthesis minus the plants' own energetic requirements in an ecosystem. Human appropriation of NPP occurs through two distinct processes: first, land cover/use change (e.g., from forest to cropland, HANPPluc) alters ecological patterns and processes, inclduing NPP, and second, via agricultural and forestry harvest, biomass is removed from ecosystems (HANPPharv). HANPP can be calculated for territorial units, e.g. cities or nations, and it also allows to relate the land use intensity of cities within their borders with impacts beyond. In this contribution, we focus on impacts associated with urban food supply in order to contextualize and explore these impacts within the urban food-water-energy nexus (FWE nexus).
In IN-SOURCE, we developed the HANPP Explorer as an interactive web application, which enables stakeholders and other practitioners to access insights from this research and interactively explore the topic. The HANPP Explorer intends to provide knowledge of the manifold dimensions of urban food, thereby gaining new perspectives on urban land use and opening up possible future developments for discussion
Urban Trees – Detection, Delineation, Quantification, and Characterisation based on VHR Remote Sensing
Get PDFTrees play a vital role in the urban ecosystem, providing benefits for society, ecology and economy. In particular in urban areas, trees mitigate the urban heat island effect, filter air pollution, regulate microclimate and hydrology, bond carbon dioxide, and provide spaces for recreation and leisure, among others. Despite these diverse positive effects, detailed information on the number, location, dimensions and other characteristics of urban trees remains scarce. For this reason, most cities in Germany currently aim to establish a tree information system for efficient and targeted management of their tree inventory. However, traditional terrestrial surveying is time-consuming and costly and therefore only suitable to a limited extent. In addition, the municipal tree cadastre usually only includes urban trees on public propertyand thus does not cover the complete stock. Against this background, remote sensing acquisitions with very-high spatial resolution (VHR) of less than one meter offer promising capabilities for area-wide detection, delineation, and characterization of urban trees.
In this study, we use VHR aerial imagery as well as a derived canopy height model (CHM) for detection and delineation of urban trees. Different methods for individual tree detection using local maximum (LM) filtering andLaplacian of Gaussian (LoG) blob detectionare compared and evaluated. For tree crown delineation, marker-controlled watershed segmentation (MCWS), clustering using Voronoi tessellation, and region growing are implemented as segmentationtechniques. The detection of individual trees and delieation of tree crowns are validated against about1,000 reference trees from visual interpretation via stereophotogrammetry.In addition, we relate our results to street tree location data of Munich, which was derived from mobile terrestrial laser scanning (TLS).The characterization of urban trees is realized based on the 3-dimensional shape of individual tree segments as well as auxillary data sets of land use and building density.
According to our analyses, there are 1.54 million trees in Munich.Compared to available reference trees, tree detection was evaluated with highest values of F-score, precision, and recall of 0.95, 0.99, and 0.94, respectively. Results of tree crown segmentation revealed an overall accuracy of 88.1 % compared to crowns of reference trees. Based on auxillary land use information, urban trees were categorized into street trees, (public) park trees, as well as trees in (private) residential gardens.In Munich, 9.1 % are characterized as street trees, 38.4 % are allocated in residential gardens and 33.1 % stand in public parks. The remaining 19.4 % oftree segments were found onother land use such as agricultural areas, parking lots, or along railroad tracks. According to these categories, the height and crown area of urban trees are analyzed and related to the distance to the city center. In a more general manner, this analysis was performed in relation to the building density in Munich. As expected, relatively few trees were found close to the city center and generally on areas with high building density. However, these areas are particularly associated with the greatest challenges in the context of sustainable and climate change-adapted urban development.In this study, we demonstrate that information derived from remote sensing contributes new spatial and quantitative knowledge on urban trees, providing the basis for sustainable management and informed decision-making in cities
Using Environmental Input-Output Analysis to Assess Energy, Water and CO2 Emissions in Tokyo’s Food System
Get PDFThe sustainability of Tokyo relies on a big food supply chain to meet the huge demands of a population of 14 million people. The production of food consumes enormous amounts of water and energy along with producing the accompanying vast amount of CO2 emissions. Excessive emissions create serious downward pressure on reaching the goal of being a carbon-neutral society by 2050. In order to relieve this pressure, it is required to first evaluate the CO2 emissions quantitatively and then identify the main emitters exactly. Most of the previous studies focused on the emissions by industrial sectors, ignoring nexus effects across sectors. They also ignored the contribution of carbon emissions in the entire food supply chain, from supply industries to final consumption. This paper aims to develop a framework to visualize direct and indirect resource consumption and emissions in the food system, from food supply to food demand, and identity the key nodes and paths to achieve reduction targets using input-output tables at different scales. First, we define the elements in the food nexus system and establish the relationships among elements, in which the supply-side includes agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, and food manufacturing, while the demand-side includes food wholesale and retail, catering, and households. Then by using a monetary input-output table compiled from the statistics from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, direct and indirect resource utilization and emissions are calculated to identify the sources of environmental stress through combining environmentally-extended input-output analysis and energy-water-CO2 flow analysis. Finally, the reduction targets could be allocated to specific sectors and districts according to the results of emissions at different scales. The results show that the manufacturing and services sectors played the top roles of direct and indirect energy consumption and carbon emission, with manufacturing as the largest embodied energy consumer and CO2 emitter, and services as the largest direct and embodied water user. These results indicate that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government could provide more measures on energy conservation and reduction in manufacturing and services. In addition, government should promote the wide use of zero emission vehicles to reduce emissions in transportation. It was found that the food system emits 10.73% of total CO2 emissions and the embodied resource consumption and carbon emissions triggered by households is nearly a quarter of total embodied household consumption and emissions. Also, more than 80% of direct consumption and emissions comes from food demand. For embodied energy and CO2 emissions, the main sectors with a strong correlation effect were manufacturing–services, manufacturing–transport/post, and services–transport/post, while manufacturing–services, telecommunication–services, and services–telecommunications were the major sectors for embodied water use. These sector pairs are the key paths for formulating energy conservation, water saving, and reduction measures. Our findings show that the food-energy-water (FEW) system is a significant contributor of CO2 emissions in Tokyo. Thinking and acting on the FEW nexus across sectors could help the government to roll out its “Zero Emission Tokyo Strategy 2050” more effectively
Visioning of Next-Generation Wastewater Resource Recovery Facilities: Summary Findings of Student Work
Get PDFComponents of traditional industrial infrastructure systems have unilateral input-output relationships—individual components transfer energy from natural resources and then dissipate the byproducts as waste into the natural environment. In what has been termed “Infrastructural Ecology'', a multilateral approach reveals interdependencies and potential reciprocities between several urban systems viewed as part of a whole. To the extent that City authorities undertake improvements and upgrades to major facilities such as wastewater treatment processes and their campuses, an intersectoral approach, based on progressive trends for next-generation facilities incorporating practices for resilience, is timely. [1,2]
This paper provides a review of experimental findings from a sustainability graduate class that analyzed the cross-cutting issues and opportunities explored on the campuses of seven of the fourteen existing Wastewater Treatment Facilities in New York City. The students’ findings and visions highlight the potential to break down municipal department silos and foster cross-sector collaboration to develop synergies that can decarbonize operations, metabolize portions of the City’s waste stream, incentivize further resource recovery, and provide important co-benefits to improve the resilience, livelihoods, and quality of life in the adjacent communities
Competences of Smart City Planners: the Alpha and Omega
Get PDFRevisiting previous research in the course of the DevOps project ‘DevOps Competences for Smart Cities’ (Kaufmann et al., 2020), this paper aims to zoom in the interrelationship between Smart City domain priorities, collaboration and competences regarded to be a paramount fundament for urban management. After a discussion of literature on this triptych, a conceptual framework is synthesized. The hypothesized conditional importance of competences is analyzedand confirmed by additional descriptive and explanatory quantitative research on the DevOps data on smart city planners having applied partial least square analysis
Barriers and Opportunities of Community Participation in Informal Settlement Upgrading Projects: A Case Study of Slovo Park, South Africa
Get PDFThe Upgrading Informal Settlement Programme (UISP) has been identified as an approach to improve the lives of informal settlement dwellers with minimal interruption to their livelihoods and social networks. In addition, it has been recognised as a progressive approach in human settlements that moves away from the traditional approach of providing housing in the periphery of the city. This approach requires community participation to be at the centre of the development taking place within the settlement. Recent studies reveal that commonly, the state lacks institutional capacity to conduct effective community participation. The paper presents the results of an assessment of community participation in the upgrading process of informal settlements, as implemented at the Slovo Park. The study was conducted using a qualitative approach by means of in-depth interviews with the residents of Slovo Park to gather information on the possible impact of ineffective community participation during the UISP process. The paper reveals that community participation was ineffectively facilitated and this is reflective in the residents’ lack of information pertaining the design layout of the future projects to be implemented in the settlement. Moreover, the paper highlights that ineffective community participation hinders residents of informal settlements from accessing self-provided adequate housing and results in provided basic services such as electricity, inaccessible to the beneficiaries due to their known socio-economic status. Results in this paper can be used to emphasise the importance of meaningful community participation for a successful UISP process
Densification of the Existing Urban Pattern: the Case Salzburg
Get PDFMost European cities are facing the challenge of a continuous demand to enlarge their housing stock. Based on the common sustainable development goals, this demand should be created in the range of the existing urban pattern, which means that transformation of areas or the increase of density on underused plots. A town like Salzburg, which is characterized by a high amount of valuable historic buildings and neighborhoods, has also to deal with this question. The strategy of the past years was not to extend the urban pattern in the green surrounding, because of the proximity to the mountains and protected landscape. This paper will give an overview of the chosen strategy and development of the past 25 years by studying 22 different projects. The reason for these projects was, that there are arguments that the densification of recent projects in Salzburg is too high and delivers unsatisfied urban projects. This study is based on an overview of the development of different densities and approach of the projects. The conclusion will discuss the different opinions and will give recommendations about an improved approach to a sustainable future planning
Developing Design Baseline to Reduce Urban Environmental Load in Food-Energy-Water Demand
Get PDFCities reflect diverse spatial patterns as a result of their composition in population density, building forms, and household types. These differences, to a large extent, reflect the quality of life of an area’s inhabitants and the correspondent environmental load their lifestyles impose. Environmental load is related to the supply and demand for food, energy and water. As a result, identifying gaps between supply and demand is a common starting point for urban planning and design aimed at zero-carbon emissions and other forms of sustainable urbanism. In this regard there is substantial research and tools that can be applied to these issues. One typical example is the Ecological Footprint which uses an equivalent land area to express the demand for the production of goods and CO2 absorption. This indicator is powerful at the macro level with regards to the conceptualization of the problem, but difficult to use at the small scale when considering the benefits of particular design options. Against this background, this study aims to develops an indicator to express a design baseline that enables the quantitative evaluation and comparison of the demand and supply of FEW as well as their contribution to environmental load with regards to food, energy, and water at the city block level.
Many environmental indicators were developed in recent years to clarify the interaction of the so-called FEW Nexus, or the confluence between the otherwise separate realms of food, energy, and water. However, these indicators are also difficult to apply at a small scale. This study develops an index that enables the quantitative evaluation and comparison of the relationship between food, energy and water at the city block level. The demand and consumption for food, energy, and water associated with residences are strongly influenced by the type of households under consideration. Meanwhile, the potential production and supply of food, energy, and water for a given household is mostly determined by the capacity to install solar panels and home gardens, which are themselves strongly determined by building forms and land use. Therefore, the baseline of a city block for FEW demand and supply can be assessed by identifying the type of households and the form of buildings within it. With this in mind, we categorized "household types" in terms of the number of family members, the age group and gender; "building form" is defined either as a detached house or an apartment. The demand for food, energy, and water associated with a given "household type" (per household or per capita) is defined as social intensity. The unit associated with "building form" is defined as physical intensity. The social and physical intensity were carefully identified through statistical data and previous studies. Based on these preparations, the demand for FEW, as well as the amount of production, can be estimated at a household level and aggregated to the city block level. Physical estimation of the demand and supply are then converted to an environmental footprint by applying the concept of the Ecological Footprint to FEW.
This indicator was applied to the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area as a case study. In order to improve the comparability at the regional level, the metropolitan area was categorized by three forms, namely the inner city, near urban and suburban. Typical areas were selected to represent the social and spatial characteristics of each. Finally, the method was applied at the metropolitan scale using GIS data in sample areas.
The result clearly shows the spatial differences in demand and supply of food-water-energy as well as the correspondent environmental print. While the environmental print per unit area is greater in the inner city, the per capita number is greater in suburban areas. This indicates that suburban areas have a larger responsibility to reduce their environmental footprint through food-water-energy consumption. This knowledge is helpful to move environmental issues from being a matter of concern for the government to being a problem for communities and individuals
Different or Alike? Motivation to Participate and Social Influence in Online Discussions by Age and Gender
Get PDFWhile the use of incentive mechanismsto stimulate efficient communication and collaboration among individuals in online platforms, groups and communities has been widely documented and discussed, comparatively little is known about the influence of age and gender on the motives for participation in these platforms and how responses may vary based on these personal attributes in less developed countries like Afghanistan. In this paper, we examined if the age and gender of the respondents affect the kinds of incentivesthat stimulatetheir effective participation in online discussions andifsuch online discussions have a social influence on participantspresented with such incentives. To this end, we firstrun an idea contest project, using a real word online discussion forumcalled D-Agree in collaboration with Kabul Municipality (KM). Weincorporateddifferent incentive schemes which yielded 3,892 respondents/participants whocumulatively exchanged14,587 opinions and responses on the platform. This enabled us to conduct a post discussion survey, usingSurveyMonkey where 201 respondents participated. We demonstrate that financial (e.g. monetary reward) and social (e.g. fulfilling the desire to learn and improve one's abilities, knowledge and experience)motives consistently outperform all other incentivesas motivators of participation in Afghanistan. The results of this work demonstrate that males and females are influenced by similar incentives to participate in online discussions. As for the social influence of participating in online discussions, the results show that respondents were affected from a moderate level to a great deal, butwith no significant differences based on age and gender. The output of this research might open a new direction in the study of social influence based on incentive mechanisms. This could be used as a planning tool to stimulate participation in forums/platforms for crowdsourcing