Our cities: centres of disaster or beacons of hope? Our urban problems and our urban solutions

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Cities: Centres of disaster or beacons of hope?

Our urban problems and our urban solutions

Ingo Leusbrock

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Content

The problems of cities

The chances of cities

Linear vs. circular metabolism

How to achieve a circular metabolism? The USE contribution:

●Framework, guidelines, decision support

●Integration and combination of technologies

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Cities and their resource demand

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Development of energy consumption in the last 200 years

www.iea.org

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Peak Oil

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Phosphorus is a finite resource

..

Cordell et al, (2009), Global Environmental Change

2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 20700

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40

60

80

100

Year

Available P resources (%)

2% growth

2.5% growth

3% growth

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Metals

Gordon et al. (2006). PNAS 103(5): 1209-1214

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Water scarcity

Gassert, F., M. Luck, M. Landis, P. Reig, and T. Shiao. 2013. “Aqueduct Global Maps 2.0.” Working Paper. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. Available online at http://wri.org/publication/aqueduct-global-maps-20.

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Current “Waste Management”

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Predictions for 2025

1.8 billion people live in countries with an absolute water shortage (UN, 2007)

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Pollution

Aluminum wastewater spill in Hungary

Deepwater Horizon oil spill,Gulf of Mexico

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Air pollution

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Climate Change

Temperature and climate changes

●Hotter, colder, less rain, more rain...

More extreme weather events

Changes in composition of the oceans

Sea level rise

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Long-term prediction salination of coastal areas

Licht blauwe kuststroken: Regions with increased salination due

to sea level rise

Light blue areas

W A T E R N E X U S

15W A T E R N E X U S

16W A T E R N E X U S

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Population growth und urbanization

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Urbanization

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Regional differences

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Global level of urbanization

• 52 % in 2011

• 67 % in 2050

(United Nations, 2012) stashpocket.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/nairo

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The consequences

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Our footprintTo

n/p

ers

on -

year

~5000 years ~200 years

(Brunner and Rechberger, 2002)

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Current state of our urbanized world

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Cities: beacons of hope

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Cities: beacons of hope

Density = solutions and potential

Unused potential for supply, recovery and production

Unused potential in terms of ambitious people

●Self-sufficiency as motivation

Local technical / socio-technological solutions possible

●Balance between small scale / large scale and centralized / decentralized solutions

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Our vision of future cities

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Circular metabolism

Closed resource cycles

Self-sufficient

Sustainable

●Technical / Environmental

●Social

●Economical

Synergy between humans and ecosystems

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How to achieve?

Frameworks, Guidelines, Decision Support tools

●Urban Harvest

●Cradle to Cradle (C2C)

Integration and combination of technologies

●Greenhouse Village

●Sneek I + II

●Malmo Western Harbour

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Urban Harvest

A framework to organize your ideas to improve water cycles

A tool to quantify and compare your different ideas for water cycles

A tool to quantify urban water flows in high temporal and spatial resolution

“You cannot manage what you do not know”

External Input

Multisource(e.g. rain)

Consumption

Cascading and reuse

Recycle and storage

Export of waste

Export of secondary resources (e.g. nutrients)

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Elements of Urban Harvest

External Input

Multisource(e.g. rain)

Consumption

Cascading and reuse

Recycle and storage

Export of waste

Export of secondary resources (e.g. nutrients)

Agudelo, C. M.; Mels, A. R.; Keesman, K. J.; Rijnaarts, H. H. M., The urban harvest approach as an aid for sustainable urban resource planning. Journal of Industrial Ecology 2012, 16, (6), 839-850.

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The three steps of the Urban Harvest Approach (UHA)

I. minimizing water demand

● water saving measures

II. maximizing water re-use and minimizing outputs

● cascading and recycling of used water streams

III.multi-sourcing of alternative water sources

● Rain

● Brackish and salt water, atmospheric water

Baseline assessment as starting point

Agudelo, C. M.; Mels, A. R.; Keesman, K. J.; Rijnaarts, H. H. M., The urban harvest approach as an aid for sustainable urban resource planning. Journal of Industrial Ecology 2012, 16, (6), 839-850.

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Evaluation of the water cycle on city scale:Baseline

Agudelo, C. M., Dynamic water resource management for achieving self-sufficiency of cities of tomorrow. PhD thesis, Wageningen University, Wageningen, 2012.

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Evaluation of the water cycle on city scale:after water saving measures

Agudelo, C. M., Dynamic water resource management for achieving self-sufficiency of cities of tomorrow. PhD thesis, Wageningen University, Wageningen, 2012.

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Extension to energy cycles and temporal variations

Lieberg, Karla; Improving energy self-sufficiency in building blocksusing the Urban Harvest Approach, MSc thesis, 2014

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Cradle to Cradle

Design concept

C2C principles

●Waste equals Food!

●Use current solar income!

●Celebrate Diversity!

http://epea-hamburg.org/en/content/nutrient-cycles

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Cradle to Cradle

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Industrial Ecology

Industrial operations = natural systems within constraints of local ecosystems and biosphere

●Dynamics and principles of ecosystems as guides in design and management of industrial systems

●High energy and materials efficiencies in production, use, recycling and service will generate competitive advantage and economic benefits

●Network of exchanged resource streams

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Example of Industrial Ecology: Kalundborg, Denmark

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Integration and combination of technologies

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Greenhouse Village

Combination of New Sanitation, Renewable Energy and Storage and Adv. Agriculture

www.zonneterp.nl

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Sneek, the Netherlands: New Sanitation

• Separation of (Waste)water streams at source

• First 32 (phase I), now (II) >200 households

• Vacuum toilets + kitchen grinders

• Benefits:

• Biogas

• Water saving

• Nutrient recovery

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Sneek I: 32 houses

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Sneek II: Neigbourhood level

• Example in Sneek, The Netherlands• 230 households on vacuum toilets; greywater treatment;

grinded kitchen waste

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Prototype vacuum kitchen grinder

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Up-scaling Sneek I – Sneek II 250 houses

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Sneek process

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Beddington, London, UK

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Beddington, London, UK

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Western Harbor, Malmo, Sweden

Western Harbor 175 ha

●Bo01 (the actual site) 25 ha

Former shipyard and wharf area

●Closed during the mid-80’s

●Unemployment and urban degradation

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Applied technologies

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Urban System Engineering

Grietje Zeeman

Grietje.zeeman@wur.nl

Ingo Leusbrock

Ingo.leusbrock@wur.nl

@leusbrocki

For more information:

http://bit.ly/1irbfr8

External Input

Multisource

Consump-tion

Cascading and reuse

Recycle and storage

Waste

Export

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Capita Selecta Urban Environmental Technology and Management ETE 50803

Individual review paper (+/- 3000 words) on a topic of their choice related to the introductory lecture and the field visits.

Use a specific field trip or multiple visits

If in doubt, do not hesitate to discuss your topic with K. Kujawa-Roeleveld before/after the study trip

●katarzyna.kujawa@wur.nl

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Capita Selecta Urban Environmental Technology and Management ETE 50803

Paper structure

Introduction to the topic

Short literature review

Description of experiences incl. on-site discussions from the visit(s)

Critical reflection and discussion (use also literature)

Conclusion

Reference list