On the Environmental Anthropogenic Metabolism of Urban Settlement
Year
Status
Principal Researcher
Research Team
2023
Research
Peter Rowe
Claire Soussard (Ecole Special d’Architecture, Paris), Guo Boya (GSD), Yona Chung (GSD), Rolando Girodengo (GSD), and Priyanka Kar (GSD)
It is widely recognized that entry into the Anthropocene Era will require vigilance and action regarding the negative environmental externalities of urban settlements such as those associated with building material, water and energy use, and waste management. Theoretically, a useful way of regarding these impacts is by way of metabolism and a system’s view in the manner of stock-flow models over prescribed life cycle of “cradle to grave” and representation by Sankey diagrams of relative temporal distributions of material, energy and water characteristics for each settlement type. In this research, four domains of settlement co-existence were identified and analyzed. They were compact urban settlements as in an area of Paris, France; dispersed settlement as in Westwood, USA; informal or organic settlement as in La Campana, Monterrey, Mexico; and desakota development as in Chencun, China. These stock-flow models were prepared for each case using available data. Also from these models, other environmental aspects, such as embodied energy and carbon, could be identified using appropiate multipliers. Results showed an ordering of average embodied energy (MJ/Kg./Yr.) for La Campana at 2.8, Paris at 3.2, Chencun at 4.0 and Westwood ar 5.8.