2. sustainable cities

• Ecological Footprint


  The amount of biologically productive land and water necessary to sustain natural resources for a given population. It includes the measurement of land area needed to absorb human generated waste.
• I=P x A x T


  Mathematical notation of a formula to describe the impact of human activity on the environment (Human Impact = Population, Affluence, and Technology)
• Cradle to Cradle

  Cradle-to-cradle design is a biomimetic approach to the design of products and systems that models human industry on nature's processes viewing materials as nutrients circulating in healthy, safe metabolisms.
• Ecological Debt

  The accumulated debt of Northern countries (from a defined date in the past until present) for having plundered Southern countries by the exploitation of their resources, the degradation of their natural habitat, the beggaring of local people and/or the free occupation of environmental space for waste discharge
• Carrying Capacity


  The size of the population that can be supported indefinitely upon the available resources and services of that ecosystem.
• Three Pillars (3 e's) of Sustainability

  • Economic
  • Environmental
  • Social
• Urban Revolution


  The process by which small, kin-based illiterate agricultural villages were transformed into large, social complex, urban societies
• Coupled Human-Nature Interactions


  The connection or link between humans and their environment, expressed as a feedback loop, many of humans' action affect the environment and in turn changes the env. affect the human population
• Problem Solving in Antiquity

  • Mobility of people to available resources
  • Ecosystem management to secure enhanced local growth of produce
  • Increasing social complexity encoded in formal institutions that guided an ever-expecting range of activities
• Collapse

  When the present regime fails, the social activities cause environmental collapse
• The Brundtland Commission

  Defines water sustainability and is the modern paradigm of sustainability. It is significant for demanding ethical issues such as gender and economic equality to be part of sustainability's definition. Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs.
• Dust Bowl

  One of America's first major socio-ecological disasters caused by drought and the over farming of the Central Plains
• Limits to Growth

  A book that suggest we would soon reach the earth's carrying capacity and launching the term sustainable development into modern sustainability discourse
• Love Canal


  Located near Niagara Falls in upstate New York 1978, was a nice little working-class enclave with hundreds of houses and a school. It just happened to sit atop 21,000 tons of toxic industrial waste that had been buried underground in the 1940s and '50s by a local company. A film that provides significant insights and impacts substantial knowledge concerning the need of sustainable urban land practices and is one of the worst examples of land ethics and practices.
• EPA (NEPA)

  Environmental Protection Agency; The National Environmental Policy Act is a United States environmental law that promotes the enhancement of the environment and established the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The law was enacted on January 1, 1970.
• Vulnerability


  Registered not by exposure to hazards alone but also resides in the sensitivity and resilience of the system experiencing such hazards
• Green Networks


  Broad term referring to processes used to optimize networking or make it more efficient. This term extends to and covers processes that reduce energy consumption, as well as processes for conserving bandwidth or any other process that will ultimately reduce energy use and, indirectly, cost.
• Urban Ecology


  The scientific study of the relation of living organisms with each other and their surroundings in the context of an urban environment. The urban environment refers to environments dominated by high-density residential and commercial buildings, paved surfaces, and other urban-related factors that create a unique landscape dissimilar to most previously studied environments in the field of ecology.
• Ecosystem Services


  Benefits attributed to society by ecosystems and can be measured
• Hockey Stick


  Refers to the shape of a graph where one variable rises steadily over a period of time and then dramatically increases towards the end of the period; concerns a well-known study that characterized the state of the earths climate over the past 1,000 years and seemed to prove a recent and unprecedented global warming.
• IPCC

  International Panel on Climate Change which assesses the state of the climate and the science being undertaken to understand it
• Adaptation/Mitigation

  • Adjustments and measurements undertaken by natural or human systems in response to current and possible future impacts of climate change; mitigation strategies focus primarily on global and national scales and require international cooperation
• Climate-Change Scenarios (Future)

  Global temperatures, precipitation patterns, impact on water security, uncertainty in climate change projections
• Institutional Capacity


  The ability of an institution, such as the federal government, to perform functions, solve problems and set and achieve objectives that will reduce the threats and impacts of climate change
• GHG

  Greenhouse gases trap the energy inside the earth's atmosphere and sends parts of it back to from the surface; over time, the atmosphere and the earth surfaces warm up and cool down less; gases in the atmosphere that absorbs and re-emit radiation back to the earth's surface; the four most common are CO2, CO4, halocarbons, nitrous oxide
• Albedo


  A measurement used to determine how much solar energy is reflected from earth back to space
• Anticipatory Governance


  A system of institutions, rules and norms that provide a way to use foresight for the purpose of reducing risk, and to increase capacity to respond to events at early rather than later stages of their development
• Smart Growth


  An urban planning term that focuses on compact growth in walkable urban areas. Urban sprawl is its antonym.
• Energy Landscapes


  Social and technical aspects of energy production; energy is a social issue with technical components' supply impacts acceptance and land use
• Highest Carbon Intensity

  Coal has the highest carbon intensity among fossil fuels, resulting in coal-fired plants having the highest output rate of CO2 per kWh
• Colorado River Compact


  An agreement signed in 1926 that allocated to Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona California and Mexico different portions of the Colorado's normal and stored water flow
• Normative vs. Exploratory Scenarios

  Exploratory methods begin from the present and see where events and trends might take us; normative methods begin from the future, asking what trends and events would take us there.
• Reclaim/Recharge Water

  • Reclaimed water is water extracted from sanitary sewage; wastewater that has been used in homes, businesses or as a part of an industrial process. There are 2 basics types of wastewater – black water and grey water; recharged water is the flow of water into an aquifer, typically from the land surface
• Groundwater Resources


  Water found underground in aquifers
• Attributes of Resilient Cities

  • Reflecting
  • Robust
  • Redundant
  • Flexible
  • Resourceful
  • Inclusive
  • Integrated
• Biophilia Hypothesis


  The extent to which humans need connection with nature and other forms of life
• Biophilic Design


  A city should that puts first nature into its designs, planning and management; it recognizes the essential need for humans to connect with nature
• Normative methods


  Begin from the future, asking what trends and events would take us there
• Reclaimed water


  Water extracted from sanitary sewage; wastewater that has been used in homes, businesses or as a part of an industrial process
• Recharged water


  The flow of water into an aquifer, typically from the land surface