The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 aims to "Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable." This goal acknowledges the growing importance of urban areas, as it's projected that by 2050, nearly 70% of the world's population will live in cities. Consequently, cities bear significant implications for sustainability, economic growth, and societal wellbeing.
Inclusivity is a key feature of sustainable cities. This refers to equitable access to opportunities, public services, and amenities, regardless of a person's background or circumstances. It implies the availability of affordable and adequate housing, thus addressing issues of homelessness and substandard living conditions.
Safety in cities means ensuring urban environments that protect their inhabitants from both physical harm and psychological distress. This involves addressing crime rates, traffic accidents, and potential hazards from poor infrastructure, while also considering the impacts of noise, pollution, and overcrowdedness on mental health.
Resilience is another important aspect, particularly in the face of climate change. Resilient cities can withstand and quickly recover from shocks such as natural disasters or economic crises. This involves aspects such as resilient infrastructure, disaster risk reduction strategies, and adaptive capacities at the community level.
Sustainability, finally, requires cities to function in a way that doesn't compromise future generations' ability to meet their own needs. This includes sustainable urban planning to reduce environmental impact, promote energy efficiency, and conserve resources. It also considers the importance of green spaces for biodiversity and the wellbeing of urban residents.
SDG 11 is interconnected with many other SDGs. For example, sustainable urban transport systems contribute to SDG 13 (Climate Action) by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, ensuring access to green and public spaces supports SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being).
Achieving sustainable cities and human settlements requires cooperation and participation from various stakeholders, including government authorities, urban planners, businesses, and citizens. Through their collective efforts, cities can be transformed into hubs of sustainability, resilience, and inclusivity, contributing significantly towards the realization of the SDGs.
Aquaponics is an innovative smart and sustainable production system for integrating aquaculture with hydroponic vegetable crops, that can play a crucial role in the future of environmental and socio-economic sustainability in smart cities. These cities aim mobilize all knowledge centers and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into innovation hubs in order to strengthen the socio-economic progress.
Water harvesting is an ancient practice that has been used, mainly in dry environments, to increase efficiency of water collection and use by directing water from a large natural watershed or man-made collection surface into a small basin where the water can be stored in underground reservoirs or to be used directly for irrigation or domestic uses. In modern era water harvesting has been neglected, particularly at the developed countries, due to the technological achievements in the fields of water production and transport.
Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) infrastructure are conventionally designed based on historical climate data. Yet, variability in rainfall intensities and patterns caused by climate change have a significant impact on the performance of an urban drainage system. Although rainwater harvesting (RWH) is a potential solution to manage stormwater in urban areas, its benefits in mitigating the climate change impacts on combined sewer networks have not been assessed yet.
The sustainability of urban water systems is often compared in small numbers of cases selected as much for their familiarity as for their similarities and differences. Few studies examine large urban datasets to conduct comparisons that identify unexpected similarities and differences among urban water systems and problems. This research analyzed a dataset of 142 cities that includes annual per capita water use (m3/yr/cap) and population. It added a 0.5 ° grid annual water budget value (P-PET/yr) as an index of hydroclimatic water supply.
This paper uses ‘Medieval’ drought conditions from the 12th Century to simulate the implications of severe and persistent drought for the future of water resource management in metropolitan Phoenix, one of the largest and fastest growing urban areas in the southwestern USA. WaterSim 5, an anticipatory water policy and planning model, was used to explore groundwater sustainability outcomes for mega-drought conditions across a range of policies, including population growth management, water conservation, water banking, direct reuse of RO reclaimed water, and water augmentation.
Water reuse networks have been emerging globally for the last 50 years. This article reviews the economic, social and environmental issues related to implementing water reuse networks in cities. This is reflecting the fact that globally many cities are categorised as water scarce areas, where there is growing imbalance between water demand and availability. In this sense, there is a need for sustainable water supply solutions in the imminent future to provide and maintain service reliability, particularly in the face of climate change.
