Examining urban metabolism: A material flow perspective on cities and their sustainability

Cui, Xuezhu; Wang, Xuetong; Feng, Yunyu

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.01.021

Cited by 50 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…-Some cities already measure the impact on the environment [102,145,146], metabolic relations between cities and rural regions [103] to model future metabolism under certain conditions and policies [103,147,148].…”

Section: Empirical Support For Our Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeking Circularity: Circular Urban Metabolism in the Context of Industrial Symbiosis

Feiferytė-Skirienė

Stasiškienė

2021

Sustainability

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Cities are leading in the implementation of circular economy (CE) principles and sustainable development due to the concentration of knowledge, resources and technology while remaining the highest consumers and producers of resources. CE, urban metabolism (UM) and industrial symbiosis (IS) offer a new more holistic approach based on material and energy flow analysis and materials recovery from waste by creating IS networks to support a new circular urban system (CUM) which contrast to the traditional linear extract-produce-use-dispose model of economic systems. In this paper, we present the concepts of CE, IS and CUM and how the new framework could improve cities transition to sustainability and CE, with detailed CE and IS indicators analysis. We introduce the relations between IS, CE and UM concepts, how they can be used and monitored in the CUM framework. CUM can help unite urban planners, the city’s governance and the business sector to promote collaboration across the city to improve future sustainability and circularity by closing loops.

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Section: Empirical Support For Our Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeking Circularity: Circular Urban Metabolism in the Context of Industrial Symbiosis

Feiferytė-Skirienė

Stasiškienė

2021

Sustainability

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“…For example, a recent study shows that Guangzhou, in China, is increasingly dependent on the external economy [117]. When facing external events such as fluctuations in the supply of some resources, its resilience will result quite weak, with a slow recovery capacity.…”

Section: Can One City Be Sustainable?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The complex economic interactions in the metabolism process make it difficult to determine whether a city is sustainable. This is related to the required resources and environmental costs inside and outside the local geographic area, which are related to production, consumption, waste discharge and the well-being of residents [117]. SMR can form a backbone of sustainability science by delivering consistent analyses of social metabolism that help to better understand the interdependencies between societal well-being and the physical services provided by society metabolism [1].…”

Section: A Scale-up Framework Of Smrmentioning

confidence: 99%

From local to national metabolism: a review and a scale-up framework

Yan

Liu

Ripa

et al. 2020

Ecosyst Health Sustain

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Countries are likely the most important subjects involved in the environmental control and response to global environmental issues, while the majority of the related metabolic analyses are focused on the metabolism at the city scale. A single city or a smaller area is hardly self-sufficient, and its sustainability needs the support of the surrounding environment. Nevertheless, at the country scale, systems exhibit a higher level of self-organization and a corresponding higher level of complexity, addressing the need for applying the metabolic theory at the national scale. Socio-metabolic research is an effective method to study resource and environmental issues and has been applied at different scales. Based on previous studies, this review outlines the origin and development of metabolic theories, metabolic studies at different scales and their research methods, pointing out the relevance of national scale metabolic studies. The interactions among and within the scales are nested, as well as the goals and methods. Socio-metabolic research on scales differ in their priority goals, and the methods adopted must be targeted. In particular, we show the advantages in using the emergy

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“…The current generation shows the limited ability to use primary resources efficiently by still considering goods as disposable products, which, after use, become directly waste. Regenerative Supply Networks [56] can be introduced as a connective element between the analyses of urban metabolism and the territorial dimension of Regenerative Design [57][58][59].…”

Section: Regenerativescape: a Circular Approach For Wastescapes Regenerationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regenerativescapes: Incremental Evaluation for the Regeneration of Unresolved Territories in East Naples

et al. 2020

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The unresolved territories are privileged places for the proliferation of degradation phenomena that affect the environment and human well-being. The impacts of their critical conditions go beyond the limits of the damaged urban fragments, involving the built environment, society, economy, culture, and conditioning quality of life. This paper proposes a methodological approach to landscape design supported by an evaluation framework to orient strategic design planning with specific attention to unresolved territories consistent with the circular economy perspective. The circular city principles are applied to landscape spatial planning, by operationalising Ecosystem Services, Landscape Services, and Ecosystem Disservices, as interpretative categories for multi-dimensional regenerative strategies. Starting from a theoretical framework, the objective of the analysis is to implement an approach to the regenerative design of landscapes of waste, defined wastescapes. The industrial area of East Naples is the case study where an incremental evaluative approach has been defined to design scenarios to provide services and values, aimed to drive the conversion in a regenerativescape. A multi-criteria analysis through preference ranking organisation method for enriched evaluation (PROMETHEE)-GAIA method has been implemented to compare the base case scenario with two incremental new scenarios and identify situated sustainable priorities.

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Examining urban metabolism: A material flow perspective on cities and their sustainability

Cited by 50 publications

References 29 publications

Seeking Circularity: Circular Urban Metabolism in the Context of Industrial Symbiosis

Seeking Circularity: Circular Urban Metabolism in the Context of Industrial Symbiosis

From local to national metabolism: a review and a scale-up framework

Regenerativescapes: Incremental Evaluation for the Regeneration of Unresolved Territories in East Naples

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