Vol. 4, No. 2 (2016): Regular Issue

Energy and environmental security are major problems facing our global economy. Fossil fuels, particularly crude oil, are confined to a few regions of the world while the continuity of supply is governed by dynamic political, economic, and ecological factors. Cities and urban systems are largely dependent on local and imported resources in support of both quantitative and qualitative growth. However, modern cities are experiencing shortages of energy, water, clean air, social relations and cohesion, social inclusion, and ultimately lack of participatory governance of city complexity. At present about 50% of the world population (i.e., about 3.5 billion people) live in cities. The resource basis seems to be insufficient and unfairly distributed to support an acceptable standard of living for a large fraction of urban and rural population. In addition, the concentration of resources required to support cities places a huge load on surrounding environment. For these reasons, cities must face the challenge of reorganizing their infrastructures and lifestyles to cope with the decreasing availability of resources. The priority in policy making is to identify suitable policies to reorganize urban life in the presence of a shrinking resource basis. Such reorganization will have to make cities less energy and material demanding, although still providing high quality standards of life. This cannot occur without investments, research, and important and shared choices about lifestyles.

Energy and environmental security are major problems facing our global economy. Fossil fuels, particularly crude oil, are confined to a few regions of the world while the continuity of supply is governed by dynamic political, economic, and ecological factors. Cities and urban systems are largely dependent on local and imported resources in support of both quantitative and qualitative growth. However, modern cities are experiencing shortages of energy, water, clean air, social relations and cohesion, social inclusion, and ultimately lack of participatory governance of city complexity. At present about 50% of the world population (i.e., about 3.5 billion people) live in cities. The resource basis seems to be insufficient and unfairly distributed to support an acceptable standard of living for a large fraction of urban and rural population. In addition, the concentration of resources required to support cities places a huge load on surrounding environment. For these reasons, cities must face the challenge of reorganizing their infrastructures and lifestyles to cope with the decreasing availability of resources. The priority in policy making is to identify suitable policies to reorganize urban life in the presence of a shrinking resource basis. Such reorganization will have to make cities less energy and material demanding, although still providing high quality standards of life. This cannot occur without investments, research, and important and shared choices about lifestyles.

The present study offers a contingent valuation application to explore residents ´ willingness to pay for renewable energy, in a case study in the Italian Alps. Data originated from onsite personal interviews and were analyzed with a Tobit model. Results show that respondents are willing to pay, on average, 5.1€ per month for a 100% of renewable energy supply, corresponding approximately to a 13% increase in the energy bill. Among the factors positively affecting the answers, the personal knowledge about renewable energy plays a key role in predicting WTP, as well as income and the personal perception of future possible development of hydropower plants. On the other hand, age and number of household components negatively affect WTP.

The present study offers a contingent valuation application to explore residents ´ willingness to pay for renewable energy, in a case study in the Italian Alps. Data originated from onsite personal interviews and were analyzed with a Tobit model. Results show that respondents are willing to pay, on average, 5.1€ per month for a 100% of renewable energy supply, corresponding approximately to a 13% increase in the energy bill. Among the factors positively affecting the answers, the personal knowledge about renewable energy plays a key role in predicting WTP, as well as income and the personal perception of future possible development of hydropower plants. On the other hand, age and number of household components negatively affect WTP.

Eco-compensation is used to deal with varying eco-environmental issues associated with possible resources transfer. It aims to translate nonmarket values of any environmental services into real financial incentives for the concerned stakeholders. In this paper, an integrated ecocompensation approach was proposed based on ecosystem health assessment through incorporating the assessment results into the assessment criteria. Compensation ranges were identified and taken as the references to formulate short-, middle- and long-term eco-compensation targets. Then, Xin’an Drinking Water Reserve in China was used as a studying case, the calculated results of compensation amounts were (63.1, 122.9); (128.4, 192.5) and (195.2, 202.1) million RMB Yuan, respectively, under short-, middle- and long-terms. Through comparing results with those of the previous approaches, the developed approach have the following advantages: a) with the aim of ecological reclamation, the results based on the integrated approach could reflect the real costs needed for ecological recovery of the previously contaminated reserves; b) comparatively flexible since it can adjust its eco-compensation targets flexibly according to the practical situation for ecosystem recovery levels; and c) the value intervals could indicate the degrees of compensation inputs on the overall ecological recovery, thus the possible compensation targets could be established accordingly.

Eco-compensation is used to deal with varying eco-environmental issues associated with possible resources transfer. It aims to translate nonmarket values of any environmental services into real financial incentives for the concerned stakeholders. In this paper, an integrated ecocompensation approach was proposed based on ecosystem health assessment through incorporating the assessment results into the assessment criteria. Compensation ranges were identified and taken as the references to formulate short-, middle- and long-term eco-compensation targets. Then, Xin’an Drinking Water Reserve in China was used as a studying case, the calculated results of compensation amounts were (63.1, 122.9); (128.4, 192.5) and (195.2, 202.1) million RMB Yuan, respectively, under short-, middle- and long-terms. Through comparing results with those of the previous approaches, the developed approach have the following advantages: a) with the aim of ecological reclamation, the results based on the integrated approach could reflect the real costs needed for ecological recovery of the previously contaminated reserves; b) comparatively flexible since it can adjust its eco-compensation targets flexibly according to the practical situation for ecosystem recovery levels; and c) the value intervals could indicate the degrees of compensation inputs on the overall ecological recovery, thus the possible compensation targets could be established accordingly.

Brazilian agriculture has become prominent in the world in the last decades, especially by virtue of the expansion of agricultural commodities in the Cerrado biome with about 204 million of hectares in the central part of the country. From the 1960's, the Cerrado has been occupied by migrants from southern Brazil who have converted the native vegetation (mostly woody savannas) into extensive pastures and monocrops. From coffee and cotton in the initial Cerrado’s agricultural occupation to soybean, corn, cattle and swine nowadays, the landscape suffered a huge transformation and several liabilities related to ecosystem services loss are emerging. São Gabriel do Oeste is a typical agricultural municipality of the Cerrado and, therefore, can be considered as representative of the current agricultural model. Along with climate change impacts of the conventional agriculture through greenhouse gas emissions, soil loss is worrying because it is not truly renewable if incorrectly managed. The emergy assessment of the agricultural system, including soil loss as a nonrenewable flow, was compared to the assessment including soil loss as a negative externality to better understand its impact on the emergy indicators. Soil loss and GHG emissions accounts for 95% of the total externalities and soil loss alone, for 46%. Moreover, different levels of soil loss were accounted for to infer its impact on the productive and economic systems. In addition, to conclude the assessment, the native forest area to compensate the dependence of the system on economy resources was calculated. The additional native vegetation area reaches 61% of the municipality area and the cost to the native forestry recovery is estimated in 1,039 EM\$.ha-1·year-1. The results here presented can be useful for new agricultural public policies related to the ecosystem services compensation and payment mechanisms taking into account the extent and magnitude of ecosystem services loss.

Brazilian agriculture has become prominent in the world in the last decades, especially by virtue of the expansion of agricultural commodities in the Cerrado biome with about 204 million of hectares in the central part of the country. From the 1960's, the Cerrado has been occupied by migrants from southern Brazil who have converted the native vegetation (mostly woody savannas) into extensive pastures and monocrops. From coffee and cotton in the initial Cerrado’s agricultural occupation to soybean, corn, cattle and swine nowadays, the landscape suffered a huge transformation and several liabilities related to ecosystem services loss are emerging. São Gabriel do Oeste is a typical agricultural municipality of the Cerrado and, therefore, can be considered as representative of the current agricultural model. Along with climate change impacts of the conventional agriculture through greenhouse gas emissions, soil loss is worrying because it is not truly renewable if incorrectly managed. The emergy assessment of the agricultural system, including soil loss as a nonrenewable flow, was compared to the assessment including soil loss as a negative externality to better understand its impact on the emergy indicators. Soil loss and GHG emissions accounts for 95% of the total externalities and soil loss alone, for 46%. Moreover, different levels of soil loss were accounted for to infer its impact on the productive and economic systems. In addition, to conclude the assessment, the native forest area to compensate the dependence of the system on economy resources was calculated. The additional native vegetation area reaches 61% of the municipality area and the cost to the native forestry recovery is estimated in 1,039 EM\$.ha-1·year-1. The results here presented can be useful for new agricultural public policies related to the ecosystem services compensation and payment mechanisms taking into account the extent and magnitude of ecosystem services loss.

Increasing urbanization, in terms of growth in population as well as geographical spread, in developing countries has significant implications for the transport sector. They are manifested as two important indicators – increases in traffic volume and energy consumption. The energy resource constraints, threat of climate change and infrastructure inadequacies have transformed the above two into serious challenges and thus needing immediate attention of planners and policy makers. Adding to the above challenges, recent times have witnessed creation of more sub-urban centers with dispersed activities and hence requiring increased travel needs with higher traffic volumes. However, there is inadequate research in understanding the casual interactions among various agents (or subsystems) of an urban system in relation to transport system, its impact on energy system and consequently on the sustainability of the system as a whole. In this paper, we discuss an attempt to study such interactions by dividing the urban system into many sub-systems, linking these with mobility (or transport) sub-system and then analyzing its combined effect on energy system. The conceptual framework is developed on the premise that each subsystem will have an input and an output and these can be modeled through indicators. Further, these indicators have been mapped into three dimensions of sustainability, namely, social, economic and environmental. Appropriate indicators are chosen to represent the three dimensions. The framework has been validated using data from 36 Indian cities. The extent of sustainability in each dimension is assessed against energy subsystem represented by output indicators. Overall measure of urban system sustainability is established as an average effect of each dimension of sustainability. We contribute in developing new understanding of the underlying role of urban system dynamics towards sustainability, by disintegrating it into residential, employment and mobility subsystems and their impact on the energy system.

Increasing urbanization, in terms of growth in population as well as geographical spread, in developing countries has significant implications for the transport sector. They are manifested as two important indicators – increases in traffic volume and energy consumption. The energy resource constraints, threat of climate change and infrastructure inadequacies have transformed the above two into serious challenges and thus needing immediate attention of planners and policy makers. Adding to the above challenges, recent times have witnessed creation of more sub-urban centers with dispersed activities and hence requiring increased travel needs with higher traffic volumes. However, there is inadequate research in understanding the casual interactions among various agents (or subsystems) of an urban system in relation to transport system, its impact on energy system and consequently on the sustainability of the system as a whole. In this paper, we discuss an attempt to study such interactions by dividing the urban system into many sub-systems, linking these with mobility (or transport) sub-system and then analyzing its combined effect on energy system. The conceptual framework is developed on the premise that each subsystem will have an input and an output and these can be modeled through indicators. Further, these indicators have been mapped into three dimensions of sustainability, namely, social, economic and environmental. Appropriate indicators are chosen to represent the three dimensions. The framework has been validated using data from 36 Indian cities. The extent of sustainability in each dimension is assessed against energy subsystem represented by output indicators. Overall measure of urban system sustainability is established as an average effect of each dimension of sustainability. We contribute in developing new understanding of the underlying role of urban system dynamics towards sustainability, by disintegrating it into residential, employment and mobility subsystems and their impact on the energy system.

Food is the primary energetic need for humankind. It provides energy and nutrients, but its acquisition requires energy expenditure. This fact is particularly important, when considering the urban environment, since human communities organized within cities almost exclusively rely on the import of resources to meet their daily basic needs. Field-to-fork chain and its energetic cost depends on the organization of the food production and transformation processes, which, in turn, can be influenced by the city-countryside relationship idea and the organization of both the urbanization process and the agricultural production. A solution might come from the urban agriculture development and management. A short review of the state-of-theart about urban agriculture, energy and urban resilience is given, together with an historical overview of the city-countryside relationship idea development, which still influences the evolution of urban agriculture. The results show that urban agriculture in the different forms partially contribute to address food security in urban centres both in developed and developing countries. It also provides many environmental, economic and social benefits. However, in particular the energetic and environmental impacts of the different forms should be widely investigated on-site to understand whether UA is a sustainable option.

Food is the primary energetic need for humankind. It provides energy and nutrients, but its acquisition requires energy expenditure. This fact is particularly important, when considering the urban environment, since human communities organized within cities almost exclusively rely on the import of resources to meet their daily basic needs. Field-to-fork chain and its energetic cost depends on the organization of the food production and transformation processes, which, in turn, can be influenced by the city-countryside relationship idea and the organization of both the urbanization process and the agricultural production. A solution might come from the urban agriculture development and management. A short review of the state-of-theart about urban agriculture, energy and urban resilience is given, together with an historical overview of the city-countryside relationship idea development, which still influences the evolution of urban agriculture. The results show that urban agriculture in the different forms partially contribute to address food security in urban centres both in developed and developing countries. It also provides many environmental, economic and social benefits. However, in particular the energetic and environmental impacts of the different forms should be widely investigated on-site to understand whether UA is a sustainable option.

The Swedish Transport Administration, together with public transport providers, municipalities, transport planners, and other stakeholders, has launched a new concept for transport planning called Local Action Selection Process (LASP). The aim of LASP is to create informed decisions and consensus around alternative accessibility improvements in the transport system through a process of dialogue between public authorities and other stakeholders. On the national scale, Sweden has set some of the world’s toughest climate targets, implying a transport sector independent of fossil fuels by 2030. The aim of this study was to create a structured methodology and process format for integrating the national transport targets at a local scale in LASP by constructing quantifiable and tailor-made target scenarios. The so-called CERO model (Climate and Economic Research in Organizations) for target-oriented travel planning at organization level was reformed in this work to handle scenario generation and prioritization of measures in LASP. In addition, a simulation tool was developed to support the quantitative basis for scenario generation and decision making between stakeholders in the planning process.

The Swedish Transport Administration, together with public transport providers, municipalities, transport planners, and other stakeholders, has launched a new concept for transport planning called Local Action Selection Process (LASP). The aim of LASP is to create informed decisions and consensus around alternative accessibility improvements in the transport system through a process of dialogue between public authorities and other stakeholders. On the national scale, Sweden has set some of the world’s toughest climate targets, implying a transport sector independent of fossil fuels by 2030. The aim of this study was to create a structured methodology and process format for integrating the national transport targets at a local scale in LASP by constructing quantifiable and tailor-made target scenarios. The so-called CERO model (Climate and Economic Research in Organizations) for target-oriented travel planning at organization level was reformed in this work to handle scenario generation and prioritization of measures in LASP. In addition, a simulation tool was developed to support the quantitative basis for scenario generation and decision making between stakeholders in the planning process.

This paper presents the results of a simplified method for reconfiguring a small city and rural county to support its current population on the environmental energies available within the boundaries of the county. It is configured as a game, based on the simplifying assumption that the collection and concentration of renewable energies is almost entirely a matter of surface or land area, so that a renewable economy becomes a matter of competing land uses, of tradeoffs between land used for the production of food, fuel, electricity, and so on. Emergy accounting was used to translate different forms of consumption into equivalent land areas, while the many forms of production and consumption were reduced to 29 parameters that can be varied to test alternate scenarios for the county. The results have been coded into a web site for playing the game.

This paper presents the results of a simplified method for reconfiguring a small city and rural county to support its current population on the environmental energies available within the boundaries of the county. It is configured as a game, based on the simplifying assumption that the collection and concentration of renewable energies is almost entirely a matter of surface or land area, so that a renewable economy becomes a matter of competing land uses, of tradeoffs between land used for the production of food, fuel, electricity, and so on. Emergy accounting was used to translate different forms of consumption into equivalent land areas, while the many forms of production and consumption were reduced to 29 parameters that can be varied to test alternate scenarios for the county. The results have been coded into a web site for playing the game.