Jaan-Henrik Kain

Key insights for the future of urban ecosystem services research

Understanding the dynamics of urban ecosystem services is a necessary requirement for adequate planning, management, and governance of urban green infrastructure. Through the three-year Urban Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (URBES) research project, we conducted case study and comparative research on urban biodiversity and ecosystem services across seven cities in Europe and the United States. Reviewing > 50 peer-reviewed publications from the project, we present and discuss seven key insights that reflect cumulative findings from the project as well as the state-of-the-art knowledge in urban ecosystem services research. The insights from our review indicate that cross-sectoral, multiscale, interdisciplinary research is beginning to provide a solid scientific foundation for applying the ecosystem services framework in urban areas and land management. Our review offers a foundation for seeking novel, nature-based solutions to emerging urban challenges such as wicked environmental change issues.

Integration of the subsurface and the surface sectors for a more holistic approach for sustainable redevelopment of urban brownfields

This paper presents a holistic approach to sustainable urban brownfield redevelopment where specific focus is put on the integration of a multitude of subsurface qualities in the early phases of the urban redevelopment process, i.e. in the initiative and plan phases. Achieving sustainability in brownfield redevelopment projects may be constrained by a failure of engagement between two key expert constituencies: urban planners/designers and subsurface engineers, leading to missed opportunities and unintended outcomes in the plan realisation phase. A more integrated approach delivers greater benefits. Three case studies in the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden were used to test different sustainability assessment instruments in terms of the possibility for knowledge exchange between the subsurface and the surface sectors and in terms of cooperative learning among experts and stakeholders. Based on the lessons learned from the case studies, a generic decision process framework is suggested that supports holistic decision making. The suggested framework focuses on stakeholder involvement, communication, knowledge exchange and learning and provides an inventory of instruments that can support these processes.

Socio-environmental entrepreneurship and the provision of critical services in informal settlements

This paper contributes to the understanding of processes by which small-scale entrepreneurs who provide household waste collection in informal settlements succeed in formalized co-production of such services. The paper draws on the social and solidarity economy and social and environmental entrepreneurship theoretical frameworks, which offer complementary understandings of diverse strategies to tackle everyday challenges. Two questions are addressed: How do informal waste collection initiatives get established, succeed and grow? What are the implications of this transition for the entrepreneurs themselves, the communities, the environmental governance system and the scholarship? A case study is presented, based on three waste picker entrepreneurs in Kisumu, Kenya, who have consolidated and expanded their operations in informal settlements but also extended social and environmental activities into formal settlements. The paper demonstrates how initiatives, born as community-based organizations, become successful social micro-enterprises, driven by a desire to address socio-environmental challenges in their neighbourhoods.

Assessments of sustainable waste management alternatives: How to support complex knowledge management

Abstract The vision of sustainable development is a driving force for change. To understand more about processes of local policy making, and their prerequisites for such change, it is relevant to examine how individual actors use briefing material and how they make assessments in complex planning situations. This study is about the processing of knowledge in a case of planning of a future waste management system. In this case, the written briefing material was shown to have less impact on the arguments and assessments of participating actors. Consequently, process facilitation for complex planning situations needs to support and strive for collective, reflective and transparent knowledge management. High-quality process support thus needs to have its emphasis on arguments, rather than on particular assessment tools and the written briefing material.

Co-producing knowledge for sustainable urban futures

This chapter examines the range of activities in the sphere of urban sustainable futures that Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University has undertaken with partners over the last five years. It elaborates the strategic direction of RMIT and the rationale behind its urban engagement in Melbourne and in the other cities where RMIT has a presence-Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Barcelona, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai and, soon, Jakarta.At the current time, many issues and problems within sustainable urban development are managed within traditional disciplinary and organizational structures. However, problems such as, climate change, resource constraints, poverty and social tensions all exceed current compartmentalization of policy-making, administration and knowledge production. This book provides a better understanding of how researchers and practitioners together can co-produce knowledge to better contribute to solving the complex challenges of reaching sustainable urban futures. It is written for academic and professional audiences working with urban planning and sustainable cities around the world. Co-producing Knowledge is presented, by way of introduction, as a non-linear, collaborative approach to knowledge production which combines interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, cross sector and policy approaches to societal problem solving. Examples are taken from Cape Town, Gothenburg, Kisumu, Manchester, Melbourne and a selection of cities in Southeast Asia. Each city chapter discusses the drivers and motivations behind knowledge co-production and gives concrete examples of activities and approaches that have been used to promote sustainable urban futures. Each chapter is written to promote mutual learning from the approaches that are already in use. Building upon these city cases, the conclusions outline an international practice and research agenda aimed at strengthening the promotion and implementation of the knowledge co-production for sustainability across diverse urban development contexts. This book provides an overview of the diverse driving forces behind co-production, and their specific contexts and constraints in a variety of cosmopolitan urban contexts. Some of these include institutional and cross-sector barriers to co-production, the need for learning across diverse levels and contexts, and strategies for balancing scientific excellence with the needs of societal change. This book offers valuable lessons regarding the concrete implications and potential impact that co-production processes can have for different user groups, such as planners, politicians, researchers, business interests and NGOs in different urban development contexts.

Bridging Weak Links of Solid Waste Management in Informal Settlements

Many cities in the global South suffer from vast inadequacies and deficiencies in their solid waste management. In the city of Kisumu in Kenya, waste management is fragmented and insufficient with most household waste remaining uncollected. Solid waste enters and leaves public space through an intricate web of connected, mostly informal, actions. This article scrutinizes waste management of informal settlements, based on the case of Kisumu, to identify weak links in waste management chains and find neighborhood responses to bridge these gaps. Systems theory and action net theory support our analysis to understand the actions, actors, and processes associated with waste and its management. We use qualitative data from fieldwork and hands on engagement in waste management in Kisumu. Our main conclusion is that new waste initiatives should build on existing waste management practices already being performed within informal settlements by waste scavengers, waste pickers, waste entrepreneurs, and community-based organizations.

Using role-playing games to broaden engineering education

Purpose – In today’s complex society, there is an increasing demand to include a wider set of skills in engineering curricula, especially skills related to policy, society and sustainable development. Role-playing and gaming are active learning tools, which are useful for learning relationships between technology and society, problem solving in complex situations and communication. However, use of these learning methods in higher education, and in engineering particularly, is limited. The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of a role-playing game for learning about complexities related to sustainable water and sanitation management within a civil engineering curriculum. Design/methodology/approach – The game has been used during three consecutive years in a Masters’ level course. Surveys and course evaluations were used to evaluate the effectiveness of this method from both teacher and student perspectives. Findings – The results show that students gained knowledge on complex subjects, and both teachers and students had positive experiences. Better integration of the game within the rest of the course could strengthen its effectiveness. Originality/value – The experiences gained from this study should assist others in the development and use of such active learning techniques in higher education.

Perceptions of local sustainability in planning sanitation projects in West Africa

The purpose of this study was to examine local perceptions of sustainability in the context of sanitation interventions in Burkina Faso and Mali, West Africa. Through a series of interviews with local actors criteria for sustainable sanitation were defined in the local context. These local criteria were compared with criteria found in international literature and planning practices used in two sanitation projects. The results from the interviews emphasize criteria related to behaviour change processes, while criteria in literature are either oriented toward technical assessments or project guidelines. The case studies show an attempt to merge academic and pragmatic perspectives by addressing both the technical requirements and processes of social change. As we seek to improve results within the sector it is important to start reflecting on what criteria and sustainability definitions are used in specific approaches.

The Urban CoBuilder – A mobile augmented reality tool for crowd-sourced simulation of emergent urban development patterns: Requirements, prototyping and assessment

Policy and research argue for multi-stakeholder inclusion in design and planning to increase urban qualities and resilience. Communicative planning and agent-based modelling are two approaches facilitating such inclusion, but both have shortcomings. In this paper, a third complementary approach is explored: rule-based emergent planning supported through mobile augmented reality (MAR) and gamification. Such an approach would serve to crowdsource data on how people collectively build their city under different types of planning rules, mimicking emergent development patterns but, currently, there is a lack of functioning participative outdoor MAR tools. The objectives of this paper are to a) identify a set of specifications detailing the necessary performance of a MAR tool; b) describe the development of a prototype MAR tool; and c) assess this prototype MAR tool through pilot application. A literature review was carried out to identify tool requirements. An iterative research by design approach was applied to turn these specifications into a functioning MAR tool: the Urban CoBuilder. The tool was then piloted in a series of tests. The findings suggest that the MAR tool makes it possible for multiple stakeholders to design urban environments on site and that crowdsourced data on collective results of individual design and planning decisions can be gathered. Although the immersive qualities of the Urban CoBuilder were highly appreciated, further development is needed. The realism of planning rules, building types and functions has to be strengthened, the techniques for positioning the MAR model in relation to real space need improvement, and the gaming mechanisms should be enhanced to make gameplay attractive for a large number of stakeholders.

Challenges for Sustainable Urban Development

This chapter focuses on the key challenges facing cities in developing countries. Observations from the case study cities of Gaborone, Santiago and Johannesburg have indicated an overwhelming range and scale of challenges with extremely limited opportunities. Deterioration of socioeconomic, environmental and institutional capacity has been noted as a recurrent trend in all three cities. Equally, prioritization of socioeconomic and local environmental challenges has meant that global environmental concerns have not been accepted as urgent local issues. Consequently, the expectation that, through sustainable development, developing countries will catapult themselves into cleaner technologies (smaller ecological footprint with increasing standards of living) cannot be justified on the basis of the prevailing trends in the case study cities at this point. It is therefore clear that efforts to address sustainable urban development in a comprehensive manner will require many more resources and several times the capacity currently in place within such cities.