Unpacking and re-assembling the urban nexus : Infrastructure coupling for the resource-efficient city

Transcription

1 Unpacking and re-assembling the urban nexus : Infrastructure coupling for the resource-efficient city Timothy Moss IRI THESys Humboldt University of Berlin 1

2 Nexus thinking Nexus: the new buzzword of resource governance (Cairns and Krzywoszynska 2016) Today s global paradigm for integrated approach to resource availability, control and use High expectations of nexus thinking and practice: integrated approaches to resource use that emphasize longer-term social and ecological sustainability while offering operational means to internalize externalities, foresee and mitigate unintended consequences, and above all, strengthen resilience through outcome-oriented open learning and institutional change (Scott et al. 2015, 16) 2

3 Nexus thinking Aspirations: Highlight & reframe connectivity between water, energy, food Promote policy integration for more sustainable development Reduce trade-offs, generate co-benefits Advance resource security Expectation: Better knowledge of connectivity >>> more integrated policies >>> more sustainable resource use Questions: What kinds of interactions are addressed? Which ones aren t? What should be integrated, by whom, for whom, how and where? What is meant by integration? What consensual assumptions underpin nexus thinking? What is new to nexus thinking? 3

4 Urban nexus Role of cities in water-energy-food nexus attracting growing attention Cities are hubs in the global flows of materials and resources (WBGU 2016, 27) Urbanization drives the nexus (Scott et al. 2016, 114) Urbanisation and resource nexus identified as one of three overarching global change problems (Brondzi et al. 2015) Cross-sectoral interdependency and urban dimension central to SDGs Multiple meanings of urban nexus : 1. Water-energy-food nexus in urban areas 2. Integrated approaches to urban metabolism 3. Urban-rural nexus 4

5 Urban nexus Environmental and engineering scientists studying interdependent urban metabolisms using: Life cycle assessment (Nair et al. 2014) Integrated assessment (Hake et al. 2016) Input-ouptut analysis (Chen and Lu 2015) Multi-sectoral systems analysis (Villarroel Walker et al. 2014) Urban nexus: a useful metaphor to investigate mutual dependency of multiple elements in terms of coupled material and energy flows being interlinked and conversion processes embedded in intertwined chains at multiple scales in order to achieve a sustainable city (Chen and Lu: 5). 5

6 Urban nexus Social scientists criticise this techno-managerial approach to nexus for suggesting a panacea and overlooking: Institutional impediments of cross-sectoral decision-making (Scott et al. 2011) Traditional policy fragmentation between sectors (Hussey and Pittock 2012) Selectivity of integration >>> new forms of fragmentation/ disparities New vulnerabilities emerging from integration Political contestation over nexus practices at water/energy/food interface (Williams et al. 2014) Uneven, multiple geographies of nexus (Williams et al. 2014) Existing nexus practices in the informal sector 6

7 Infrastructures and urban nexus Connections: Meanings of urban nexus 1. Water-energy-food nexus in urban areas 2. Integrated approaches to urban metabolism Role of urban infrastructure Interactions between different infrastructure sectors Interdependencies of resource flows; provider/user relations 3. Urban-rural nexus Connecting areas of extraction and treatment to areas of use Limited infrastructural coupling: Basic interdependencies: e.g. electricity for water supply systems, water to cool power plants, general reliance on telecommunications Little attention paid in policy and research on urban nexus to how infrastructures connect production to consumption, cities to hinterland, energy to water and land use 7

8 Nexus in socio-technical perspective Hybridisations: Infrastructures are much more than material artefacts and technologies. Today, conceived as socio-material: Complex configurations, comprising multiple material and human entities Dynamic configurations, involving continuous processes of adaptation, resistance, renewal etc. Hybrid configurations, reflecting spatially and temporally specific circumstances 8

9 An example Re-assembling the wastewater-energy nexus: The initiative: To use treated wastewater on degraded land to grow energy crops in the Berlin-Brandenburg region The nexus aspirations: to connect wastewater disposal to energy provision to connect urban modes of wastewater production to rural modes of energy production Socio-technical challenges encountered: Physical: Finding land close enough to sewage treatment plants, unsuitable for food crops and with no risk of groundwater pollution Institutional: Coping with distinct structures, practices and cultures of infrastructure governance (no wastewater transition to match energy transition ) Spatial: Dealing with territorial jurisdictions unfavourable to a reordering of urban-rural metabolisms of wastewater and energy Political: Unequal distribution of costs and benefits of water reuse >>> local opposition & conflict 9

10 Conclusions 1. Urban nexus targets resource-related interdependencies within and beyond cities 2. These interdependencies are not just material/technical, but also social, political, geographical, economic, institutional, 3. Infrastructures (as socio-technical systems) are valuable for understanding and advancing connectivity between energy, water and food provision 4. Idealised visions of optimal integration of universal benefit overlook major problems in practising nexus thinking 5. More realistic assessment demands critical scrutiny of existing and emerging experiences of cross-sectoral integration 6. There is no urban nexus blueprint: nexus practices are always spatially contingent 7. Effective urban nexus practice depends on inclusive and localised urban governance 10