Urban Metabolism

Drivers and dynamics of the urban metabolism: the resource and energy flows which pass through a city.

Cities account for ¾ of the global human resource consumption and CO₂ emissions. Already more than half of the global population live in cities and the urban population is projected to further increase in the future. Understanding urban sustainability issues and developing solutions to overcome them is therefore essential for a societal sustainability transition.

We study the drivers and dynamics of the urban metabolism – the resource and energy flows which pass through a city. On the one hand, we are interested in how these flows are related to urban characteristics such as size, income, spatial organisation etc. On the other hand, we are interested in how these flows are related to social organisation. It is thus an interdisciplinary project that combines approaches coming from complexity and systems science, environmental engineering, sociology and urbanism.

Methods consist of the analysis of big data, the collection and analysis of qualitative interview data, the analysis of temporary interventions in the public space and statistical comparisons of urban metabolic data on different scales. This multiplicity of methodological and theoretical approaches renders justice to the complexity of urban systems.

I contributed to this research with my doctoral project –On the drivers and dynamics of the urban metabolism: Practice transitions in urban systems–.