An Interdisciplinary Framework for Evaluating Urban Soil Transformation
(2023) Beyond Metropolization, Exploring new hybrids — ISBN: [978-2-931069-10-3], p. 378-395, published
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- Abstract
- In the field of urbanism, the question of the soil is being recognised over the last years as a key to the transition toward more resilient cities. This paper presents a methodology to analyse the impacts and constraints of soil transformation, by classifying soils according to their unsealing constraints and to the improvement of the water cycle potentially achieved by their transformations. This methodology calls upon different disciplines, such as urbanism, hydrogeology and pedology, to allow a decompartmentalised and ‘hybrid’ analysis of soils in the urban system. Urban soils are analysed as a three-dimensional system, composed of different strata: (a) the soil cover, defining if the soil is sealed, built-up or unsealed ; (b) the soil itself, the stratum filling the function of hosting life if this function is not threatened by human activity; (c) the subsoil, the hydrogeological structure and its role in many urban functions. Based on the existing literature, the interactions between these strata are then studied to highlight different categories of urban soils, according to the constraints and impacts of their transformation. The case of the Brussels-Capital Region is studied, as this region is facing multiple challenges related to its soil: from pollution inherited from its industrial past to major water dysfunctions resulting from urbanisation and increasingly revealed by climate change. Soil remediation, projects of green spaces and soil unsealing are also multiplying in Brussels, but generally without any monitoring of their environmental benefits and often at a high environmental cost: using energy intensive remediation technics, requiring the reconstruction of artificial soils (technosols), generating exports of polluted soil… The purpose of this paper is to explore a classification of Brussels’ urban soils, based on a three-dimensional approach, to favour transformations based on soil assessment. Thus, this work aims to draw attention to repercussions of urban soil transformation, both from an operational point of view and from an environmental perspective.
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Bossard, A. (2023). An Interdisciplinary Framework for Evaluating Urban Soil Transformation. In Chiara Cavalieri, Bénédicte Grosjean, Lucas Lerchs, Maarten Gheysen, Roman Lassalle, Thaïs Delefortrie (eds.) (ed.), Beyond Metropolization, Exploring new hybrids (p. p. 378-395). Louvain research institute for Landscape, Architecture, Built environment - UCLouvain. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/242601