Sustainable urban systems: Co-design and framing for transformation

Abstract

Rapid urbanisation generates risks and opportunities for sustainable development. Urban policy and decision makers are challenged by the complexity of cities as social–ecological–technical systems. Consequently there is an increasing need for collaborative knowledge development that supports a whole-of-system view, and transformational change at multiple scales. Such holistic urban approaches are rare in practice. A co-design process involving researchers, practitioners and other stakeholders, has progressed such an approach in the Australian context, aiming to also contribute to international knowledge development and sharing. This process has generated three outputs: (1) a shared framework to support more systematic knowledge development and use, (2) identification of barriers that create a gap between stated urban goals and actual practice, and (3) identification of strategic focal areas to address this gap. Developing integrated strategies at broader urban scales is seen as the most pressing need. The knowledge framework adopts a systems perspective that incorporates the many urban trade-offs and synergies revealed by a systems view. Broader implications are drawn for policy and decision makers, for researchers and for a shared forward agenda.

Balancing security, resilience, and sustainability of urban water supply systems in a desirable operating space

“…Avoiding traps and moving back into the DOS requires UWSS governance approaches that are desirable from a sustainability perspective, i.e. that optimize resource use across sectors in a circular economy [59,60], including the use of renewable energy in the water sector [37,61], the reuse of water, waste, and nutrients [35,36]. Design of modular, coordinated, flexible and participatory systems are needed, in which information is shared and stakeholders are linked across hierarchies and sectors, from decision-makers, managers and operators to the served community [62][63][64][65].…”

The nexus between water, energy and food in cities: towards conceptualizing socio-material interconnections

“…Meanwhile, material and social dimensions of sustainable development interact as the provisioning of services is not just dependent on the resource itself, the industrial processes and infrastructures at work, but also on the policies, daily practices, informal rules, discourses and actors at play. This becomes particularly crucial when considering the policy and decisionmaking of cities as socio-material systems (Webb et al 2018). Cities represent the places in which actors, networks, infrastructures, and resource flows get connected in specific socio-material urban contexts (Hodson et al 2012).…”

“…The urban setting thus represents a challenge and opportunity for understanding and steering resources into more sustainable configurations (Vogt et al 2014;Webb et al 2018).…”

Participatory Risk Governance for Reducing Disaster and Societal Risks: Collaborative Knowledge Production and Implementation

“…At the same time, the adoption of the complex, interdependent goals and objectives raises awareness of the tremendous risk that failure to facilitate and guide transformation could have on human societies. Failure to understand and find viable approaches to transformations at all scales-global to local-clearly poses a daunting set of systemic risks to humanity (Renn 2016;Sharpe et al 2016;Nanz et al 2017;Webb et al 2018). The approaches discussed in this special section suggest significant steps to address aspects of these risks through the concepts, tools and methods, practices, and research programs of adaptive and participatory risk governance.…”