Urban resilience efforts must consider social and political forces

Eakin, Hallie; Bojórquez‐Tapia, Luis A.; Janssen, Marco A.; Georgescu, Matei; Manuel-Navarrete, David; Vivoni, Enrique R.; Escalante, Ana E.; Baeza, Andrés; Mazarí-Hiriart, Marisa; Lerner, Amy M.

doi:10.1073/pnas.1620081114

Cited by 135 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…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]. Different urban infrastructure systems need to be integrated [66,67] and dependence on external resources, including external funding, should be minimized.…”

Section: Desirable and Viable Operating Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Krueger

Borchardt

Jawitz

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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The security, resilience, and sustainability of urban water supply systems (UWSS) are challenged by global change pressures, including climate and land use changes, rapid urbanization, and population growth. Building on prior work on UWSS security and resilience, we quantify the sustainability of UWSS based on the performance of local sustainable governance and the size of global water and ecological footprints. We develop a new framework that integrates security, resilience, and sustainability to investigate trade-offs between these three distinct and inter-related dimensions. Security refers to the level of services, resilience is the system's ability to respond to and recover from shocks, and sustainability refers to local and global impacts, and to the long-term viability of system services. Security and resilience are both relevant at local scale (city and surroundings), while for sustainability cross-scale and -sectoral feedbacks are important. We apply the new framework to seven cities selected from diverse hydro-climatic and socio-economic settings on four continents. We find that UWSS security, resilience, and local sustainability coevolve, while global sustainability correlates negatively with security. Approaching these interdependent goals requires governance strategies that balance the three dimensions within desirable and viable operating spaces. Cities outside these boundaries risk system failure in the short-term, due to lack of security and resilience, or face longterm consequences of unsustainable governance strategies. We discuss these risks in the context of poverty and rigidity traps. Our findings have strong implications for policy-making, strategic management, and for designing systems to operate sustainably at local and global scales.

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Section: Desirable and Viable Operating Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Krueger

Borchardt

Jawitz

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…Through its focus on polycentric, modular, and flexible systems, the emerging adaptive water governance paradigm is suggesting a change in the role of the state in water governance. However, the understanding of the role of power, and particularly political power, remains relatively nascent in work on water resilience (i.e., the review did not identify papers that questioned or challenges the roles of the state or water managers in resilience building efforts), despite the fact that urban scholars and planners increasingly recognize its role in social systems (e.g., Cote & Nightingale, 2012;Eakin et al, 2017;Rodina et al, 2017;Ziervogel et al, 2017). Similar concerns apply for conflict and legitimacy, are raised only in very few papers (e.g., Galaz, 2005;Robards, Schoon, Meek, & Engle, 2011).…”

Section: New Governance and Institutional Arrangementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining “water resilience”: Debates, concepts, approaches, and gaps

Rodina

2018

WIREs Water

101

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Resilience is increasingly applied the context of water systems, and water governance more broadly, in response to climate change impacts, hydrologic variability and uncertainty associated with various dimensions of global environmental change. However, the meanings, applications and implications of resilience as it relates to water governance are still poorly understood. Drawing on a systematic scoping review of the peer‐reviewed academic literature, this paper addresses the questions: how is resilience framed in relation to water systems and water governance, how are diverse resilience framings (re)shaping ideas and trends in water management, and what are the associated implications? The analysis found that the resilience‐informed water governance literature remains fragmented and predominantly centered on conventional approaches and framings of water planning, with a predominant focus on engineering resilience in water supply infrastructure. A recently emerging engagement with resilience in the water governance literature, however, draws on more diverse framings and theories and calls for a shift towards more integrative and ecologically‐centered thinking in water governance. Despite this, significant empirical and conceptual gaps remain, particularly around the integration of the various subsectors of water governance and, more importantly, around the institutional and governance dimensions of building water resilience. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Planning Water Human Water > Water Governance

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“…In the process, it is essential to focus on solutions that are consistent with place-based desired outcomes-'a sustainability wish list'-of urban policymakers and residents. These can accelerate the transition towards urban resilience and reduce risks due to a lack of understanding of the socio-political infrastructure (Eakin et al 2017). This makes sustainability science relevant to city needs, consistent with its goal to be 'use-inspired' and 'action-oriented' (Turner et al 2007, William and Clark 2007.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Urban agriculture’s bounty: contributions to Phoenix’s sustainability goals

Aragon

Stuhlmacher

Smith

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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With over half of the world's population living in cities, there is mounting evidence indicating that investments in urban sustainability can deliver high returns on socioeconomic and environmental fronts. Current scholarship on urban agriculture (UA) reports a wide range of benefits which have been shown to vary with the scale and type of benefit examined. Notably, most city-scale studies do not align benefits of UA with locally meaningful goals. We fill this gap by conducting a city-scale analysis for Phoenix, the fifth largest city in the USA by population, and evaluate these benefits based on their ability to contribute to select desired outcomes specified in Phoenix's 2050 Sustainability Goals: the elimination of food deserts, provision of green open space, and energy and CO 2 emissions savings from buildings. We consider three types of surfaces for UA deployment-undeveloped vacant lots, flat rooftops, and building façades-and find that the existing building stock provides 71% of available UA space in the study area. The estimated total food supply from UA is 183 000 tons per year, providing local produce in all existing food deserts of Phoenix, and meeting 90% of current annual consumption of fresh produce based on national per capita consumption patterns. UA would also add green open space and reduce by 60% the number of block groups underserved by public parks. Rooftop deployment of UA could reduce energy use in buildings and has the potential to displace more than 50 000 tons of CO 2 per year. Our work highlights the importance of combining a datadriven framework with local information to address place-based sustainability goals and can be used as a template for city-scale evaluations of UA in alternate settings.

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Urban resilience efforts must consider social and political forces

Cited by 135 publications

References 5 publications

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

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

Defining “water resilience”: Debates, concepts, approaches, and gaps

Urban agriculture’s bounty: contributions to Phoenix’s sustainability goals

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