Is There a Metabolism of an Urban Ecosystem? An Ecological Critique

Golubiewski, Nancy E.

doi:10.1007/s13280-011-0232-7

Cited by 114 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…The implementation of this latter approach that is based on the analysis of material flows employs more practical measuring units that the non-academic stakeholders can more easily understand. However, the approach has been criticized [59]. Indeed, the suitability of the Urban Metabolism (UM) framework in applying the concept of the city as a biophysical system has been questioned, emphasizing "[ .…”

Section: The Academy-oriented Contributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ecological Efficiency Based Ranking of Cities: A Combined DEA Cross-Efficiency and Shannon’s Entropy Method

Storto

2016

Sustainability

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Abstract:In this paper, a method is proposed to calculate a comprehensive index that calculates the ecological efficiency of a city by combining together the measurements provided by some Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) cross-efficiency models using the Shannon's entropy index. The DEA models include non-discretionary uncontrollable inputs, desirable and undesirable outputs. The method is implemented to compute the ecological efficiency of a sample of 116 Italian provincial capital cities in 2011 as a case study. Results emerging from the case study show that the proposed index has a good discrimination power and performs better than the ranking provided by the Sole24Ore, which is generally used in Italy to conduct benchmarking studies. While the sustainability index proposed by the Sole24Ore utilizes a set of subjective weights to aggregate individual indicators, the adoption of the DEA based method limits the subjectivity to the selection of the models. The ecological efficiency measurements generated by the implementation of the method for the Italian cities indicate that they perform very differently, and generally largest cities in terms of population size achieve a higher efficiency score.Keywords: cross-efficiency; data envelopment analysis; Shannon's entropy; ecological efficiency; cities; ranking; Italy BackgroundIn the last decade, cities have gained a greater centrality in the economic and social growth of nations. The recent report delivered by the Brookings Institution indicates that in 2014 the economies of the 300 largest metropolitan areas accounted for 47% of global gross domestic product (GDP) and 38% of GDP growth [1]. According to recent estimates provided by Seto et al.[2], more than 80% of the national gross domestic product (GDP) is generated in urban areas. A recent worldwide research conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute on a sample of 600 cities estimates that between 2010 and 2050, the GDP of these cities is expected to double, while 23 megacities-cities having more than 10 million inhabitants-in 2007 generated 14% of global GDP [3].People move to and live in cities to have access to better jobs, education, health care, goods and services. More than half of the human population over the world is living in cities and towns, and, in the next decades, the number of people expected to live in cities will grow to 75%, while population growth over the next 25 years will be concentrated in cities and towns [4,5]. The most urbanized areas are located in the American and Europe continents, respectively having about 80% and 70% of all inhabitants residing in cities and towns. However, while cities are the primary source of economic development and social prosperity, and house more than half of the world population, they are large users of resources, responsible for about 2/3 of energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions [5]. The recent rapid and intense urbanization has often resulted in an over consumption of water, energy, raw

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Section: The Academy-oriented Contributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…. ] a weakness of UM as the tendency to conflate organism and ecosystem, often using the terms interchangeably" ( [59], p. 757).…”

Section: The Academy-oriented Contributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological Efficiency Based Ranking of Cities: A Combined DEA Cross-Efficiency and Shannon’s Entropy Method

Storto

2016

Sustainability

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“…6 25.3 29.9 Per capita public road area (m 2 ) 6 15.3 19.1 Per capita gross floor area (m 2 ) 6 21.5 23.0 Per capita green area (m 2 ) 6 6.5 7.8 Floor area ratio (%) 7 2.1 1. 3 Gross floor area: the total floor area inside the building envelope (including the external walls but excluding the roof); 4 Total area: foundation area, roads, and green areas; 5 Site area: the area of land on which the settlements are built; 6 Statistics from surveys; 7 Floor area ratio: the ratio of the gross floor area of buildings on a certain location to the size of the land of that location; a Scaled from Google Earth and using average per capita public road area data from Xiamen Special Economic Zone Yearbook 2009; b Calculated from the greening rate of Qianpu settlement [35], green rate is a ratio of green area/land area; c Calculated with data scaled from Google Earth; d Calculated from road area in settlements scaled from Google Earth and data from the property services scheme for XMU faculty [36]; e Data from property services scheme for XMU faculty [36]; f Calculated with base area scaled by Google Earth, road and green areas; g Data from Planning for Qianpu residential area [35]. Figure 3 shows the urban form of the two settlements, including the overlay, mixed land-use functions, and buildings.…”

Section: Socioeconomic and Built-environment Characteristics Of The Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With more than 50% of the world's population living in cities [1], evidence of how urban metabolism and inward flows dramatically increase during urban expansion has emerged [2,3]. As self-regulating open systems, cities are usually compared to an ecosystem rather than an organism [4,5]: they draw in energy, food, and materials and produce waste, and by these processes produce welfare and a sustainable livelihood for human beings. low-rise (less than seven stories) densely arranged buildings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability and Chinese Urban Settlements: Extending the Metabolism Model of Emergy Evaluation

et al. 2016

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Anthropogenic activity interacts with urban form and inner metabolic processes, ultimately impacting urban sustainability. China's cities have experienced many environmental issues and metabolic disturbances since the nation-wide market-oriented "reform and opening-up" policy was adopted in the 1980s. To analyze urban reform policy impacts and metabolism sustainability at a settlement scale, this study provides an integrated analysis to evaluate settlement metabolism and sustainability using a combination of emergy analysis and sustainability indicators based on scrutiny of two typical settlements (one pre-and one post-reform). The results reveal that housing reform policy stimulated better planning and construction, thereby improving built environmental quality, mixed functional land use, and residential livability. The pre-reform work-unit settlements are comparatively denser in per capita area but have less mixed land use. Housing reform has spatially changed the work-housing balance and increased commuting travel demand. However, short commuting distances in pre-reform settlements will not always decrease overall motor vehicle usage. Integrating non-commuting transport with local mixed land-use functional planning is a necessary foundation for sustainable urban design. Functional planning should provide convenient facilities and infrastructure, green space, and a suitable household density, and allow for short travel distances; these characteristics are all present in the post-reform settlement.

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“…Kennedy illustrates this by dismissing the perceived small contribution natural components make to overall urban accounts. Certainly, the liberal and colloquial use of language has influenced ecology (Craige 2001;Larson 2011). Indeed, it may be beneficial for ecologists to review the pros and cons of ''ecosystem metabolism'' and other metaphors within the discipline and across interdisciplinary endeavors.…”

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confidence: 99%