An Environmental Health Typology as a Contributor to Sustainable Regional Urban Planning: The Case of the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo (MRSP)

Abstract

The recognition of metropolitan regions and their growth as a necessary scale of analysis for their integrated management has become a central characteristic of urban planning. The current metropolitan landscape warrants the use of instruments beyond the municipal scale, especially since the economic integration of cities and their development are accentuating urban problems that affect the sustainability of cities. The São Paulo Metropolitan Region (MRSP), one of the world’s megacities, is used as a case study to identify how typologies can contribute to integrated sustainable urban planning and management at the metropolitan level. It applies the territorial analytical typology based on the Driving-Force-Pressure-Situation-Exposure-Effect-Actions (DPSEEA) Environmental Health Matrix to identify the heterogeneity of conditions encountered in large metropolitan regions such as the MRSP. The results show a great variety of environmental and social conditions present in the municipalities of the MRSP that condition the sustainability and health of the urban environment. This typology constitutes a first step to characterize metropolitan regions in socioenvironmental terms using as a conceptual basis a matrix of environmental health indicators, being a precursor in the largest metropolitan region of Brazil.

O uso do modelo de indicadores em saúde ambiental força-motriz-pressão-situação-exposição-efeito-ações (FPSEEA) como subsídio ao planejamento urbano: estudos de sua aplicabilidade em territórios metropolitanos

“…Para tratar de concretizar conceitos, ferramentas e métodos são necessários para ajudar os planejadores e órgãos de decisão para propor e estabelecer políticas públicas que alcancem a sustentabilidade (Silva e Souza-Lima, 2010). No que abrange a formulação de políticas públicas que interfiram positivamente na qualidade de vida das grandes cidades, deve-se considerar que existe uma relação empírica entre os indicadores de sustentabilidade e os de saúde que impactam na qualidade de vida e bem-estar da população (Maria e Slovic, 2018;Maria et al, 2019a).…”

“…A abordagem FPSEEA vem sendo aplicada no Brasil desde a década de 1990 principalmente no Campo da Vigilância em Saúde Ambiental. Entretanto, o potencial metodológico do modelo também vem sendo investigado para análise socioambiental no planejamento de territórios metropolitanos (Giatti et al, 2013;Talamini e Giatti, 2013;Silva, 2015;Maria e Slovic, 2018;Maria et al, 2019a;Maria et al, 2019b).…”

Urban green infrastructure health assessment, based on landsat 8 remote sensing and entropy landscape metrics

“…The research literature shows that the health indicator system is constructed using the "Pressure-State-Response (PSR)" as the conceptual model, the "Driving Force-Pressure-State-Exposure-Effect-Action" (DPSEEA) as the mode, analysis on the model of the "Driving force-Pressure-State-Impact-Response" (DPSIR) (Edokpolo et al, 2019;X. Hu et al, 2021;Lima et al, 2017;Maria et al, 2019). The index system was constructed according to the spatial difference and time evolution of an urban ecosystem (Tian et al, 2009;S.…”

Selecting Indicators to Monitor and Assess Environmental Health in a Portuguese Urban Setting: A Participatory Approach

“…As cities are home to more than 60% of the world’s population [ 5 , 8 ], the growing understanding of these relationships in the way cities are planned and built and how this impacts health has evolved over the years [ 9 ]. Nowadays, sustainable cities have come to the forefront of environmental health (EH) priorities [ 10 ].…”

“…It is known that the collection of monitoring and surveillance data is a key task for many governmental organizations and industries charged with ensuring the wellbeing of the population [ 17 ]. Environmental interactions are difficult to quantify and evaluate, and to gather evidence-based information for decision-making is far from straightforward [ 10 , 18 ]. As it is essential to build evidence-based tools for the development of EH interventions, there must be a rationale on how to select the dimensions and indicators to assess EH [ 19 ].…”