Strategic planning for post-disaster temporary housing

Temporary housing programmes suffer from excessively high cost, late delivery, poor location, improper unit designs and other inherent issues. These issues can be attributed in part to a prevalence of ad hoc tactical planning, rather than pre-disaster strategic planning, for reconstruction undertaken by governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the chaotic post-disaster environment. An analysis of the process and outcomes from six case studies of temporary housing programmes after disasters in Turkey and Colombia in 1999, Japan in 1995, Greece in 1986, Mexico in 1985, and Italy in 1976 yields information about the extent to which strategic planning is employed in temporary housing programmes, as well as common issues in temporary housing. Based on an understanding of these common issues, this paper proposes a framework for strategic planning for temporary housing that identifies organisational designs and available resources for temporary housing before the disaster, but allows modifications to fit the specific post-disaster situation.     

Deficit analysis: service capacity assessment and planning in developing countries – case study in the Philippines

Current demand analysis methods do not formally cover the case of chronic deficits in quantity or quality of water and sanitation services. These services include drinking water supply (DWS), wastewater and sewage treatment (WST), and municipal solid waste management (MSW). Formal analysis of this case would, at minimum, define the deficit state and evaluate appropriate options for reducing it. This paper proposes for a formal analytical model for municipal sanitation systems (MSS) that operate with deficits in at least one of the constituent services of DWS, WST, or MSW. The model introduces definitions and notation for describing the deficit state for conducting demand analysis on municipal sanitation systems. This model of demand analysis for systems with chronic deficits will hereinafter be referred to as deficit analysis. A case study for Bacoor, Philippines is presented as an example.     

Critical environmental indicators: performance indices and assessment models for sustainable rural development planning

Sustainable development planning must be based on environmental and biophysical baseline indices that effectively define comparative development potential and environmental constraints. As such, indices must define the comparative advantage of the natural resource base and measure the fundamental capacity to sustain production rates of natural resource goods and services used to create societal well being. Complex biophysical and socioeconomic characteristics affect the identification and selection of sustainable development strategies. When derived from effective baseline indicators, indices may be used to define the spatial and temporal distribution of economically viable production opportunities and may be expressed in derived indices that realistically describe basic production opportunities and guide the selection of feasible, long-term development strategies. Specifically, representative indices are critical in the identification of development goals and realistic objectives and can be used to evaluate, select and implement sustainable development strategies and plans. It is stressed that the relevancy and effectiveness of public policies depend on the identification of representative evaluation models and baseline indices to define development strategies that are both environmentally sustainable and economically viable. In this context, the role of baseline indicators that define natural resource production capacities is discussed. This includes potential resource uses, derived benefits and their economic and environmental impacts. Key thematic indicators are suggested that may be especially useful in identifying development alternatives and impacts. This suggested that clearly defined environmental pollution limits or impact standards be used to define public risk tolerance limits and carrying capacity constraints. It is argued that these measures may be more effective in directing policy choices than economic valuation of non market goods and services that represent environmental externalities associated with resource exploitation options and economic development strategies. To this end, examples of thematic indicators and derived indices are introduced that may prove effective in resource assessment, economic evaluation and strategic development planning.     

论社区可持续发展规划与调控

本文对社区可持续发展规划的原则、步骤、主要内容以及可持续发展系统调控的手段等问题进行了研究。     

A spatially explicit backcasting approach for sustainable land-use planning

General backcasting as a decision support and planning method starts from desired future states and simulates developments backwards until reaching the present state. Development pathways that reveal steps to be taken to reach a certain future state, and milestones that serve as interim goals, are created during the process. Backcasting has hitherto only been applied in workshops or as a theoretical framework and no spatially explicit backcasting model has previously been established. This paper presents the development of a spatially explicit backcasting model. The proposed model first creates a future scenario utilizing an agent-based model and then simulates backwards. It is implemented using the programming language Python. The model has been applied to a case study for sustainable land-use planning in Salzburg, Austria. The results of the model run show a successful backcasting of land-use classes from a future state back to the present, in 10 year time steps.     

Measuring the linkage between strategies on sustainability and institutional forces: an empirical study of Spanish universities

Policy documents are commonly identified as key outcomes that guide initiatives directed by senior university leaders towards sustainability through plans and policies. Many studies have called for a more integration of sustainability into universities. Nevertheless, the interest in sustainability issues has been more recent in the specific case of Spain. This study analyses the strategic plans developed by Spanish universities in the last decade with two different aims: first, we examine the extent to which Spanish universities are incorporating strategies on sustainability. The second goal evaluates whether the presence of strategies on sustainability in Spanish universities could be associated with coercive and mimetic pressures. Findings indicate the low presence of strategies on sustainability in Spanish universities. Moreover, the results seem to suggest that the presence of strategies on sustainability in Spanish universities could be linked with coercive and mimetic pressures emanating from the State performance funding for universities. The results indicate that universities usually incorporate practices and strategies on sustainability as a response of the pressure exerted by institutional forces, such as the funding systems of higher education institutions.     

Ecosystem services assessments in local municipal decision making in South Africa: justification for the use of a business-based approach

The ecosystem services (ES) concept is being increasingly incorporated into environmental policy formulation and management approaches. The Corporate Ecosystem Services Review (ESR) is a framework used to assess the dependence and impact that a business has on ES. The success of the corporate experience of ES assessment provides an opportunity for adaption for local authority decision making. In this paper, the ESR tool was adapted to the South African setting at a local government level, and tested at two sites in the Msunduzi Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal. In testing the tool and gathering feedback from key stakeholders, it was found that there are both opportunities and challenges to this approach. Overall, however, it provides an opportunity for the systematic inclusion of ES assessment into existing regulatory frameworks for land-use planning and Integrated Environmental Management, whether in a strategic application, at a broader spatial (municipal) scale or in a specific locale within the municipality.     

Environmental health in the complex city: a co-evolutionary approach

While public health and urban planning were closely linked in the past, today both domains are institutionally separate. In most cases, health intersects with spatial planning processes only through obligatory evaluations, such as environmental impact assessments, or restrictive environmental legislation. This institutionalisation of health criteria in most western countries has difficulty in dealing with recent environmental health challenges, leading to continual distrust and conflict between citizens and the government. This impasse has recently been discussed by academics who acknowledge the complexity of both city and health issues. It seems, however, that the full extent of the issue has not been covered yet, leading to recommendations and frameworks that are useful but fixed and retrospective. This paper moves beyond those fixed frameworks to develop a better understanding of the complexity of the current disconnect and explores ideas for a future planning approach, grounded on new ideas of co-evolutionary and adaptive planning.     

Assessing local planning capacity to promote environmentally sustainable residential development

Smart growth and sustainability planning have, in recent years, become central issues in planning discourse. Scholars have argued that planning capacity at the local government level is critical for smart growth planning, and that planners have a fundamental role to play in advancing local and regional sustainability. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which local planning capacity enables communities to promote more sustainable, smart growth residential development. Based on a 2013 survey of 38 county and 53 municipal governments in the state of Wisconsin, USA, this study finds that the majority of the sample communities have permitted residential developments characterized as transit-oriented, New Urbanist, mixed use, infill developments, or conservation subdivisions as alternatives to low-density, automobile-dependent conventional developments. The study also finds that jurisdictions with higher planning capacities are more likely to overcome significant barriers to more sustainable residential development.     

Coupling of the Water Cycle with Patterns of Urban Growth in the Baltimore Metropolitan Region,United States

Regional municipal water plans typically do not recognize complex coupling patterns or that increased withdrawals in one location can result in changes in water availability in others. We investigated the interaction between urban growth and water availability in the Baltimore metropolitan region where urban growth has occurred beyond the reaches of municipal water systems into areas that rely on wells in low‐productivity Piedmont aquifers. We used the urban growth model SLEUTH and the hydrologic model ParFlow.CLM to evaluate this interaction with urban growth scenarios in 2007 and 2030. We found decreasing groundwater availability outside of the municipal water service area. Within the municipal service area we found zones of increasing storage resulting from increased urban growth, where reduced vegetation cover dominated the effect of urbanization on the hydrologic cycle. We also found areas of decreasing storage, where expanding impervious surfaces played a larger role. Although the magnitude of urban growth and change in water availability for the simulation period were generally small, there was considerable spatial heterogeneity of changes in subsurface storage. This suggests that there are locally concentrated areas of groundwater sensitivity to urban growth where water shortages could occur or where drying up of headwater streams would be more likely. The simulation approach presented here could be used to identify early warning indicators of future risk.