Peter J. Marcotullio

Urban land teleconnections and sustainability

This paper introduces urban land teleconnections as a conceptual framework that explicitly links land changes to underlying urbanization dynamics. We illustrate how three key themes that are currently addressed separately in the urban sustainability and land change literatures can lead to incorrect conclusions and misleading results when they are not examined jointly: the traditional system of land classification that is based on discrete categories and reinforces the false idea of a rural–urban dichotomy; the spatial quantification of land change that is based on place-based relationships, ignoring the connections between distant places, especially between urban functions and rural land uses; and the implicit assumptions about path dependency and sequential land changes that underlie current conceptualizations of land transitions. We then examine several environmental “grand challenges” and discuss how urban land teleconnections could help research communities frame scientific inquiries. Finally, we point to existing analytical approaches that can be used to advance development and application of the concept.

Energy and material flows of megacities

Significance Our quantification of energy and material flows for the world’s 27 megacities is a major undertaking, not previously achieved. The sheer magnitude of these flows (e.g., 9% of global electricity, 10% of gasoline; 13% of solid waste) shows the importance of megacities in addressing global environmental challenges. In aggregate the resource flows through megacities are consistent with scaling laws for cities. Statistical relations are established for electricity use, heating/industrial fuels, ground transportation, water consumption, waste generation, and steel production in terms of heating-degree days, urban form, economic activity, and population growth. Analysis at the microscale shows that electricity use is strongly correlated with building floor area, explaining the macroscale correlation between per capita electricity use and urbanized area per capita. Understanding the drivers of energy and material flows of cities is important for addressing global environmental challenges. Accessing, sharing, and managing energy and material resources is particularly critical for megacities, which face enormous social stresses because of their sheer size and complexity. Here we quantify the energy and material flows through the world’s 27 megacities with populations greater than 10 million people as of 2010. Collectively the resource flows through megacities are largely consistent with scaling laws established in the emerging science of cities. Correlations are established for electricity consumption, heating and industrial fuel use, ground transportation energy use, water consumption, waste generation, and steel production in terms of heating-degree-days, urban form, economic activity, and population growth. The results help identify megacities exhibiting high and low levels of consumption and those making efficient use of resources. The correlation between per capita electricity use and urbanized area per capita is shown to be a consequence of gross building floor area per capita, which is found to increase for lower-density cities. Many of the megacities are growing rapidly in population but are growing even faster in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) and energy use. In the decade from 2001–2011, electricity use and ground transportation fuel use in megacities grew at approximately half the rate of GDP growth.

Asian urban sustainability in the era of globalization

Abstract The process of achieving urban sustainable development is uncharted. We only know that plans should address the economic, environmental and social health of the city and this task can only be accomplished by approaching each of these issues at different scales. For rapidly developing world cities, “sustainability” is becoming an increasingly elusive objective, in part, because of impacts by forces beyond their borders. Using the Asia-Pacific region as a case study, a framework relates regional transnational flows to the state of the urban environment and the social conditions of linked rapidly developing cities. The “functional city system” within the Asia-Pacific increasingly is both the engine of urban growth and the force behind differentiating urban environmental and social issues. At the same time, while globalization forces have been particularly strong within cities in the Asia-Pacific, local factors also play a crucial role in urban development. Globalization driven growth has not translated into a single path of development, rather localities have demonstrated contextually specific paths.

It's Time for an Urbanization Science

Today, urban areas generate more than 90% of the global economy, are home to more than 50% of the world population, consume more than 65% of the world’s energy; and emit 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions.1 The science and policy communities increasingly recognize that cities, urban areas, and the underlying urbanization process are at the center of global climate change and sustainability challenges. Policymakers need facts, empirical evidence, and theories on how to plan and manage cities and urbanization during the contemporary era of rapid change and environmental uncertainty. by William Solecki, Karen C. Seto, and Peter J. Marcotullio

Stewardship of the Biosphere in the Urban Era

We are entering a new urban era in which the ecology of the planet as a whole is increasingly influenced by human activities (Ellis 2011; Steffen et al. 2011a, b; Folke et al. 2011). Cities have become a central nexus of the relationship between people and nature, both as crucial centres of demand of ecosystem services, and as sources of environmental impacts. Approximately 60 % of the urban land present in 2030 is forecast to be built in the period 2000–2030 (Chap. 21). Urbanization therefore presents challenges but also opportunities. In the next two to three decades, we have unprecedented chances to vastly improve global sustainability through designing systems for increased resource efficiency, as well as through exploring how cities can be responsible stewards of biodiversity and ecosystem services, both within and beyond city boundaries.

Urbanization and Global Trends in Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

This chapter introduces patterns of urbanization, biodiversity, and ecosystem services at the global scale. Underpinning the goals of the chapter is the notion that cities are inextricably linked to the biophysical world, although these linkages are increasingly difficult to clearly identify. The chapter starts by introducing the idea that cities both impact and depend upon the biophysical environment. We go on to discuss how urbanization is both the cause of societal or environmental problems and the solution to many problems, depending on the time-scale and scope of the analysis. Finally, we provide a global overview of cities’ relationships with two key facets of the environment: biodiversity and freshwater ecosystem services.

A critical knowledge pathway to low‐carbon, sustainable futures: Integrated understanding of urbanization, urban areas, and carbon

Independent lines of research on urbanization, urban areas, and carbon have advanced our understanding of some of the processes through which energy and land uses affect carbon. This synthesis integrates some of these diverse viewpoints as a first step toward a coproduced, integrated framework for understanding urbanization, urban areas, and their relationships to carbon. It suggests the need for approaches that complement and combine the plethora of existing insights into interdisciplinary explorations of how different urbanization processes, and socio-ecological and technological components of urban areas, affect the spatial and temporal patterns of carbon emissions, differentially over time and within and across cities. It also calls for a more holistic approach to examining the carbon implications of urbanization and urban areas, based not only on demographics or income but also on other interconnected features of urban development pathways such as urban form, economic function, economic-growth policies, and other governance arrangements. It points to a wide array of uncertainties around the urbanization processes, their interactions with urban socio-institutional and built environment systems, and how these impact the exchange of carbon flows within and outside urban areas. We must also understand in turn how carbon feedbacks, including carbon impacts and potential impacts of climate change, can affect urbanization processes. Finally, the paper explores options, barriers, and limits to transitioning cities to low-carbon trajectories, and suggests the development of an end-to-end, coproduced and integrated scientific understanding that can more effectively inform the navigation of transitional journeys and the avoidance of obstacles along the way.

Globalization and urban environmental transitions: Comparison of New York’s and Tokyo’s experiences

This article argues that urban environmental transitions (McGranahan et al. 2001) are experienced differently by cities, such as New York and Tokyo. While New York has experienced shifts in its environmental burdens over long periods of time and in sequential order, Tokyo, which developed rapidly under the forces of globalization, has experienced shifts in environmental burdens over shorter periods and simultaneously. Starting from the viewpoint that associates long waves of development with the Western experience, the paper demonstrates that there were different transitions among sets of environmental conditions within the United States in general and New York City in particular. Then, the focus turns to the contemporary urban development of Japan and Tokyo. David Harveys (1989) notion of “time-space compression,” helps to explain the compressed and telescoped transitions. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2003

Urbanization Forecasts, Effects on Land Use, Biodiversity, and Ecosystem Services

Several studies in recent years have forecasted global urban expansion and examined its potential impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. The amount of urban land near protected areas (PAs) is expected to increase, on average, by more than three times between 2000 and 2030 (from 450,000 km2 circa 2000) around the world. During the same time period, the urban land in biodiversity hotspots, areas with high concentrations of endemic species, will increase by about four times on average. China will likely become the nation with the most urban land within 50 km of its PAs by 2030. The largest proportional change, however, will likely be in Mid-Latitudinal Africa; its urban land near PAs will increase 20 ± 5 times by 2030. The largest urban expansion in biodiversity hotspots, an increase of over 100,000 km2, is forecasted to occur in South America. The forecasts of the amount and location of urban land expansion are subject to many uncertainties in their underlying drivers including urban population and economic growth. Nevertheless, the direct impacts of urban expansion on biodiversity and ecosystem services will likely be significant. The forecasts point to the need to reconcile urban development and biodiversity conservation strategies. Urbanization will also have impacts on food and food security. While the direct loss of cropland to urban expansion is of concern to the extent that high-yielding croplands are lost, the indirect impacts of urbanization due to dietary changes to more meat-based food products can also be substantial. Presently, regional and global studies that forecast impacts of future urban expansion on biodiversity and ecosystem services are in their infancy and more analyses are needed especially focusing on interactive effects of factors that drive urbanization. We conclude by highlighting the knowledge gaps on implications of future urbanization and suggest research directions that would help fill these gaps.

Understanding energy transitions

Transitions to cleaner, renewable energy are at the heart ofpolicies in many countries. The focus on renewables has, ifanything, become greater recently as uncertainty growsabout the viability and acceptability of alternatives toachieve low-carbon growth, including nuclear power andcarbon capture and storage (REN21 2010). The Fukushimaaccident has forced many governments to rethink theirnuclear energy plans—Japan has just shutdown their lastnuclear power plant, and Germany announced last year itwill be nuclear free by 2022. But transitions away fromfossil fuel-based energy systems have proven slow despitethe potential of renewable energy sources and advancingtechnologies to utilize them.Recent research in ‘Transitions Studies’ argues thattransitions will not be a technological fix but will requiresome combination of economic, political, institutional andsocio-cultural changes (Berkhout et al. 2009; Cohen et al.2010; Stephens et al. 2008). Without doubt, these transi-tions must be guided by an ethics that brings togethertechnology and sustainability. In the introductory messageto this special issue, Jean-Louis Armand calls for such anethic of long-range responsibility—one that is properlyembedded in sustainability science as a guide for ourfuture.In response to this complex issue, Sustainability Sciencehas organized a special issue on two related themes—thecosts of mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions andthe diffusion of clean energy technologies. The first fourpapers model abatement costs for world regions andsectors with a focus on medium term GHG emissiontargets (2020 and 2030)—a key step in stabilizing long-term climate change under the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These studiesfind that transitions toward a low-carbon society are notan extension of the current trends, and far greater GHGreductions—both on national and global scales—arerequired in the mid-term. A further five papers explore thebarriers and opportunities of energy transitions on theground, using transition management theories to explainempirical cases in India, Japan, Malaysia and the UnitedStates.Hanaoka and Kainuma conduct a comparison of GHGmarginal abatement cost (MAC) curves from 0 to200 US