Improving urban resilience in coastal eco-cities: system integration

Abstract

What is a Coastal Eco-City and what are the core issues that need to be addressed? These were the questions we asked ourselves at the beginning of the eight week Lloyd’s Register Foundation Collegium. A key point of leverage seems to be the growing demographic sector of the urban poor, who are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Improving the resilience of this sector is an investment that benefits the whole city. The challenge for city planners is to balance the people’s needs for an improved quality of life with the planetary needs for a light ecological footprint.

Background research points to the need for a systems approach to planning that engages both private and public sector in the shaping of a vision for Eco-cities. What is lacking is the process and vocabulary to articulate the project values that will determine the course of action for a project.

We have developed a decision support tool that correlates project values with sustainability improvement activities. An index matrix was selected for the accessibility for the user and the data transparency. The initial correlation data was developed by the research team, and statistically analysed to identify the matrix variables which needed to be better defined in order to normalize the data.

The tool was tested with a case study application of the Weston Towers housing, in Southampton. Based on the values and weighting provided by the planning department, a list of activities were generated. A cluster analysis provided systems links to related activities, and can identify synergies that result in project savings.

Feedback from the planning department confirmed that this tool could be used to facilitate dialogue among city officials, developers and service providers. The listing of indicators used in the tool could serve as the vocabulary to define a project value brief that could serve as a guide for value management throughout the project.

The use of the tool could also catalyse innovative ideas. Our group worked with the concept of a coastal farm, which would combine the economic activities of aquaculture with the public use for entertainment and food production, as well as marine research.

A business case for the tool suggests a positioning in the design phase of the BREEAM program, and research to develop the tool from an indexed spread sheet to a web-based tool. The research also provides a solid body of knowledge for contributions to several academic areas, including value management, planetary resilience research and decision- making analysis.

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Identifiers

ORCID for P.A. Wilson: orcid.org/0000-0002-6939-682X

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