Food Sources and Accessibility and Waste Disposal Patterns across an Urban Tropical Watershed: Implications for the Flow of Materials and Energy

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Appraising the social-ecological processes influencing the inflow, transformation, and storage of materials and energy in urban ecosystems requires scientific attention. This appraisal can provide an important tool for assessing the sustainability of cities. Socioeconomic activities are mostly responsible for these fluxes, which are well manifested in the household unit. Human behavior associated with cultural traditions, belief systems, knowledge, and lifestyles are important drivers controlling the transfer of materials throughout the urban environment. Within this context, we explored three aspects of household consumption and waste disposal activities along the Río Piedras Watershed in the San Juan metropolitan area of Puerto Rico. These included: the source of food consumed by residents, recycling activities, and trends in connection to the municipality's sewerage system. We randomly interviewed 440 households at 6 sites along the watershed. We also conducted analysis to estimate accessibility to commercial food services for residents in the study areas. Our surveys revealed that nearly all interviewed households (~97%) consumed products from supermarkets. In neighborhoods of the upper portion of the watershed, where residential density is low with large areas of vegetative cover, more than 60% of residents consumed food items cultivated in their yards. Less than 36% of residents in the in densely urbanized parts of the lower portion of the watershed consumed items from their yards. Accessibility to commercial stores for food consumption contrasted among study sites. Recycling activities were mostly carried out by residents in the lower portion of the watershed, with better access to recycling programs provided by the municipality. The surveys also revealed that only 4 to 17% of residences in the upper watershed are connected to the sewerage system whereas the large majority uses septic tanks for septic water disposal. For these residents wastewater from house maintenance is disposed of directly into the environment. In the lower portion of the watershed all residents were connected to the sewerage system. Our study suggests there is a need to understand human behavioral attitudes in the acquirement and processing of resources, as a tool to generate informed-based strategies promoting sustainable consumption and disposal patterns.

An Urban Metabolism and Carbon Footprint Analysis of the Jing–Jin–Ji Regional Agglomeration

“…), a social‐ecological material and energy input or output analysis for Puerto Rico (Garcia‐Montiel et al. ), and an investigation and mathematical description of UM in metropolitan areas (Kennedy et al. ).…”

Vegetation cover in relation to socioeconomic factors in a tropical city assessed from sub‐meter resolution imagery

“…The differences found here may be explained by a combination of climatic and cultural factors, including warm temperatures and abundant precipitation that, contrary to temperate zones, allows vegetation to thrive all year round (i.e., without a cold or dry season), the common practice of growing vegetables in backyards in San Juan (up to 60% of the people in some neighborhoods; Garcia‐Montiel et al. ), and a strong legacy of Spanish city planning (Muñoz‐Erickson et al. ).…”

Pro-environmental Behaviour of Households in the Czech Republic

“…A study by Garcia-Montiel et al (2014) suggests that it is necessary to understand human attitudes and behaviour with regard to socio-economic possibilities and their environmental education. This provides an opportunity to disseminate environmental information based on the support strategy for sustainable consumption and waste management.…”