A bottom-up, context sensitive, and spatially explicit Urban Metabolism analysis. Alternative resource governance systems in Brussels.

Otero Peña, Daniel;Perrotti, Daniela;Vanderstraeten, Pierre
(2022) Conference on Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Development — Location: UCLouvain, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium (24.November.2022)

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The project is embedded in the Urban Metabolism Lab, a novel interdisciplinary research lab at UCLouvain that aims to advance urban metabolism theory and modelling through integrated methodologies building on synergies across: urban, social and industrial ecology, urban planning, urban design and architecture, landscape architecture, environmental and civil engineering, human and environmental geography, data and information science, philosophy of science.Urban metabolism (UM) studies provide valuable insights that can improve resource efficiency in cities and have evolved in recent years by adopting an interdisciplinary and multiscale approach of urban systems (Newell and Cousins, 2015; Castán Broto et al., 2012). Localizing and quantifying urban flows and stocks could be of great value for identifying infrastructure deficiencies and unequal resource accessibility for vulnerable population groups. However, only few studies provide spatially explicit accountings of UM flows (e.g. Wielemaker et al. 2019; Yeow & Cheah, 2019; Smit et al., 2019). Moreover, the integration of refined spatially explicit data from bottom-up, context-sensitive, and practice-based resource collection and management structures can help the development of local planning strategies based on stakeholders involved and socio-ecological dynamics observed (Musango et al., 2020; Perrotti, 2020).This study combines geographical information system (GIS) and qualitative research analyses methods to deeply explore a combined top-down and bottom-up analysis to improve UM application in urban and landscape planning. In particular, integrating finer-scale quantitative and qualitative socio-ecological inputs from alternative resource governance systems (ARGS), i.e., management structures led by groups other than government bodies. Brussels, our case study, is a city-region including 19 communes with a population of approximately 1,2 million (30% living at risk of poverty) and a wide diversity of publicly funded alternative resource governance projects (e.g.,contrats de quartiers durables, among others).First, a GIS analysis of Brussels is presented to highlight (i) resource efficiency hotspots at the city-region scale and (ii) socio-ecological dynamics at the neighborhood scale. The following spatially-explicit datasets were used in the study: resource flows and their infrastructure (water, energy, and solid waste), open space networks, vulnerable communities, and ARGS.Then, we explored the spatial relation and network structure between ongoing ARGSand different stakeholders involved. The research is supported by an extensive literature review, collection of primary spatial data and available datasets, field visits, and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders.This approach allowed highlighting existing ARGSand its relation to public space, and contributed to a better understanding of metabolic and productive dynamics of grassroots resource harvesting groups in Brussels. Furthermore, it revealed the significance of mapping in fostering collaborative projects, that considering the social cohesion of the networks that drive them is key to the successful implementation of resource management projects beyond technical aspects, and its potential impact at the local level on resource consumption and waste generation.The findings of this study can inform UM analysts and planning practitioners to formulate and apply landscape infrastructure design strategies(e.g., integrating resource harvesting ideas into architectural and public space projects) based on a context-and community-specific approach to achieve more resource-efficient and resilient cities.
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Otero Peña, D., Perrotti, D., & Vanderstraeten, P. (2022). A bottom-up, context sensitive, and spatially explicit Urban Metabolism analysis. Alternative resource governance systems in Brussels. Conference on Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Development, UCLouvain, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/105334