Ecological Science and Transformation to a Sustainable City
QUESTIONS
Subtopic
What is sustainable city? explain the contrast between the sanitary city and the sustainable city.
A sustainable city creates an enduring way of life across the four domains of ecology, economics, politics and culture. Goals of a sustainable city are to be able to feed itself with a sustainable reliance on the surrounding natural environment and have the ability to power itself with renewable sources of energy. The central focus of this topic is to create the smallest conceivable ecological footprint while also producing the lowest quantity of pollution achievable. All of this is to be accomplished by efficiently using the land in ways such as composting used materials, recycling, and/or converting waste-to-energy. The idea is that these contributions will lead to a decrease in the city's impact on climate change.
Contrast between the sanitary city and the sustainable city;
The sustainable city will include ecological as well as engineered infrastructure to provide ecosystem services, such as storm water control or climate mitigation.
Hazards will be addressed in all land cover types, and an attempt will be made to reduce vulnerabilities throughout the urban system. Moreover, sustainability recognizes that vulnerable people should not be disproportionately exposed to these hazards. Rather than segregating nuisances and polluting sites, efforts will be made to reduce, prevent, or mitigate hazards across the entire city region.
Wastes will be reduced in volume, and emphasis will be placed on recycling or reuse of any wastes that are generated. This applies to household and institutional waste streams, and demolition materials.
Management will be conducted not only by experts with specialized training, but with the involvement of communities, neighbourhoods, and private organizations. Governance in the sustainable city will be flexible and decentralized, and therefore more adaptive to community initiatives for sustainability.
How is ‘the sanitary city’ called as a less damaging form of an industrial city?
Sanitary refers more especially to conditions affecting health or measures for guarding against infection or disease: to insure sanitary conditions in preparing food. Hygienic is applied to whatever concerns the care of the body and the promotion of health.
This model of urban transformation from the industrial city to the sanitary city is associated with a human demographic transition, as people move from agricultural settlements having little access to health and educational services, to urban areas where the economy is primarily industrial, major shifts in their demographics occur, from high to low birth and death rates. Improved health care and reduced infant mortality ultimately lead to reduced family size. Increased education and literacy, particularly as it relates to empowerment of women, also contributes to the shift. Provision of clean water, sanitation, public education, recreational facilities, and green space along with establishment of public and non-governmental institutions to integrate new migrants into the social fabric are aspects of the sanitary city.
Subtopic
What elaborate the effects of industrialization on the environment?
As industry was introduced and grew, city population increased to staff the factories, and the economy shifted to focus on the concentration and conversion of raw materials into consumer goods and accumulated wealth (Boone & Modarres, 2006; Olson, 1997). Such industrial cities were productive but also highly polluted, disease ridden, and unhealthful. Industrialization, while important for economic growth and development of a society, can also be harmful to the environment. Amongst other things industrial process can cause climate change, pollution to air, water and soil, health issues, extinction of species, and more.
Industry is a major cause of air pollution, since the operation of factories results in the emission of pollutants, including organic solvents, respirable particles, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. These pollutants can both harm public health and damage the environment by contributing to global phenomena such as climate change, the greenhouse effect, ozone hole and increasing desertification.
Untreated wastewater can cause environmental woes including: pollution of groundwater reservoirs, damage of transport and wastewater treatment systems, and degradation of treated wastewater and sludge such that it would disqualify them from being used for agricultural purposes.
Leakage from the fuel and energy industries, as well as industries involving hazardous materials, are the main causes of land contamination. Examples of soil pollution sources are oil refineries and pipelines transporting gas, oil depots, gas stations, garages, metal treatment and coating factories, chemical plants, dry cleaning businesses, printing businesses, the textile industry, and sites where hazardous materials are stored.
Soil contamination is caused by direct exposure to the pollutant, leakage of toxic gases into buildings, and groundwater pollution. The properties of soil result in pollutants remaining in the soil long after the pollution incident
Solid waste is generated wherever there is human activity and is characterized by a several different streams, each with different characteristics and components. These include industrial waste, dry waste, and organic waste.
CONNECTOR
Copenhagen has taken many approaches to become the sustainable city it is today. They plan to put their focus on mobility, pollution and energy. Copenhagen has become a bike city which has 350 km of bike lanes, street lights for the bikers and only 29% of households even own a car. They have also implemented a multi functional recycling center and created three new recycling hubs. Copenhagen also has a 'green roof policy' which was implemented in June of 2010 which will reduce air pollutants. They plan to be carbon neutral by 2025 which means there will be no net release of carbon dioxide into the air. In order to achieve this they will reduce their carbon emissions through wind farms. They use one of the worlds largest district heating systems and use district cooling by using the water, reducing electricity use by 70%. The citizens within Copenhagen is one of the biggest driving forces because by having citizens that are willing to buy in and create a sustainable city by reducing their own ecological footprint will help the city reach its goals.
Subopic
If I were to build my own sustainable city…
Transportation: I would use bicycles like Copenhagen does and have that as the main way of transportation however, not all places can use bicycles all year round so I would use electric cars only,because these cars run off electricity there will be no exhaust pollution going into the air.
Energy: Hot water panels which will convert light energy into heat in order to heat homes and other spaces requiring heat. Solar panels which will convert light energy into electricity. I would also use geothermal energy for the majority of the city.
Waste Management: I would implement the same system that Calgary has for their waste program by giving each house three different colour bins for garbage, compost and recycling.
Oslo Norway is another example of a sustainable city. They plan to be running on 100% renewable energy by 2020. Oslo also wants to increase their wind power capacity by 2GW by the year 2020. Oslo Norway's transportation is a large part of what makes them so sustainable. Their main ways of transportation include bus, airplane, boats and trains. This ensures that there is less pollution going into the environment by having many people traveling at the same time. They have changed their street lights to reduce energy and C02 commissions, the lights are capable of being dimmed or turned off based on traffic and climate control. 98% of the energy hat Oslo uses is renewable energy, they are able to do this by using hydro power plants, wind power, waver power and bio energy. Oslo, Norway plans to be the most sustainable city by 2020.
Subtopic
ILLUSTRATION
I created a picture using Paint 3D app from windows, which shows the different ways a city can transform to be sustainable. For the transformation to sustainable city, city’s urban ecosystem must be well organized to be more efficient. Sustainable city can be achieved only if the city is well maintained as sanitary city. As urban areas are warmer than the surrounding agricultural areas, cities should develop ecosystem within the infrastructure of the city, by developing green space, planting more tress, rooftop gardens, harvesting rain water, natural vegetation and reducing CO2 emissions will help to create a sustainable city. As mentioned in the article sustainable city has a key characteristic motivated by human values. Some of the Humane metropolises were described as- protecting and restore ecological services in cities and suburbs, by promoting physical and mental health and safety of residents, by enhancing efficiency by conserving energy, matter, water, and time.
References
SUMMARY
Improving the sustainability of existing and emerging cities are becoming increasingly urgent. This has resulted in changes happening drastically due to sustainability transitioning. There is a growing urgency to enhance the sustainability of existing and emerging cities. The science of ecology, especially as it interacts with disciplines in the social sciences and has a contribution to make sustainable transformation of urban systems. But not all possible urban transformations may lead towards sustainability. Ecological science helps identify components of resilience that can favor transformations that are more sustainable. So the global shifts in urban processes place cities in crisis. This is because in the world and society we live in changes rapidly on a daily basis. We are faced with different challenges and obstacles that stand in front of us as a result of it all. Also sustainability provides a social vision for transformation of cities due to creative and new ideas on how to make society a better place. So that it is thriving and reaches the level of success they have in mind. So ecological process of urban areas are crucial for resilience because we need to advance and improve areas that are not thriving like others so that there is a sense of balance all around.
LITERARY LUMINARY
“In urban systems, the cycle may reflect sensitivity to economic or physical catastrophe, followed by neighborhood or district revitalization and recovery of livelihood and human well-being”
In biological systems, resilience appears as a cycle that begins with succession shifting from rapid growth to increasing structural investment, or ecosystem development shifting to increasing investment in maintenance. The cycle may be punctuated by periodic disturbance to the highly structured system, opening yet another bout of succession. We chose this quote because In cities, this "resilience" cycle will be drastically affected by either the amount of money you have or if there is any physical catastrophe [flood, tornado, fire, earthquake, etc]. In order to create a sustainable city, you have to follow the same way you do for anything else in life, one step at a time and in this case, one neighbourhood at a time.
Childers et al. (2013) present a more integrated conceptualization of cities as social–ecological systems, where the structural component includes both built and designed elements and natural features and where the functional component includes the interactions of human decisions and ecological processes.
Individuals cannot see a city with only one physical thing, such as the buildings, or human things, such as where people live and what they do, or a nature thing, such as the nature of the city itself. In order to have an integrated idea we have to combine all three of these elements, so that it includes built elements [buildings] and natural features [hills, parks] as well as functional pieces [where the humans put roads, sewers, skyscrapers]. As well as ecological processes [if there is a river running through the city]
"The fact that so many cities are now being built or are poised for revitalization means that there is the opportunity to urbanize in different ways than we have in the past. Compared to existing cit- ies, better integration of ecological processes may be most success- ful in ‘‘new’’ cities. Greater attention to environmental equity among citizens is also possible in new cities. But such benefits can accrue to existing cities as well".
We choose this quote because it talks about how people are usually drawn to cities by the perceived amenities they provide, such as the promise of jobs, the access to education, or the desire for a healthier and easier life. urban life does not give them what they need and the accessibility is hard to attain but urban areas are being revitalized or rebuilt. Cities are being rebuilt for financial gain because people are drawn to the cities which provides befits them and their lifestyle.
WORD WIZARD
Sustainability
sustainability is the ability to be maintained at a certain level where it is required to avoid the reduction of natural resources to maintain an ecological balance. Cities can achieve the goal of sustainability through the process of resilience.
A term mentioned by the author “inflection points” well describes how sustainability can be attained through the urban changes and by making them more resilient. Social activists, ecologists has pointed to the expanded sustainability as a profitable change to contemporary cities.
According to the author, the three pillars of sustainability such as ecological resilience, social and economic process can make the cities more sustainable. Sustainability does not have any terminating point. In order to acquire it, cities have to consider human well being and social equity.
The succession of Sanitary city (less damaging form of the industrial city) can also not be disregarded because some of its components will be required to reinvented which can enable sustainability resilience. For instance, in the sanitary city, drinking water purity is usually insured by filtration plants and stormwater and chlorine are transported from cities to prevent floods. It is considered beneficial and good for humans. Therefore, resilience plays an important role for cities to become sustainable.
Resilience
Ability to get back into shape and recover the difficulties quickly. Resilience is the ability of an individual, communities, and systems to survive, adapt, and grow in situations of stress and challenges. For instance, the impacts that brings uncertainty and challenges such as climate change, social and economic challenges and much more.
In the article resilience is defined as a “capacity of a social–ecological system to adjust to internal and external shocks, yet retain fundamental features of its structure and processes.”
Ecological resilience recognizes that systems do not have a fixed equilibrium point. Instead, it evolves, adapts, and learns from changes occurring between system and environment. These systems are based on living organisms and social interactions.
Resilience is also one of the most important components of sustainability. If a city is able to survive or resilient from disasters or other challenges, it is most likely to be considered sustainable. This is due to its ability to survive challenges and come back to its original shape which means it can provide people with basic necessities to survive.
Ecology
Relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.
It helps us understand the parts of resilience that favors changes which are more sustainable. The inflection points are circumstances where ecological information can be helpful.
By understanding and helping manage existing and emerging cities, science of ecology is able to make objectives to contribute into the urban sustainability. One of the ecological processes in urban systems discussed in the article is “natural disturbance”. In ecology, disturbance is identified as an event that interrupts three dimensional structure of a system. It can impact on metabolism (maintains life), composition (structure), and subsequent dynamics of the system.
There are many natural occurrences that are able to cause such disruptions, thus, their timings and intensities are not predictable.