MODELLING URBAN PHYSICS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Urban settlements are the hub of population, economy, employment opportunities and knowledge, and these settlements offer benefits ranging from scale of economies, social integration, efficient land utilization and access to amenities. Considering urban settlement (city) as system, the functioning of city consumes resource and produces the output in the form of refined resources or by-product of the processes, which leads to change in the state of the system. The rate of urbanization is steep in developing countries and urbanization offers higher degree of spread and backwash effects in developing countries in comparison with developed countries, which are already urbanized. These effects include exponential population growth; poor urban services; inadequate infrastructure; uncontrolled and unplanned growth/extensions, large-scale informal settlements; poor administration; urban heat island and environmental pollution. The human settlement systems (urban/rural/regional) are composed of physical, social, economic, infrastructural, institutional, environmental and ecological sub-systems. These sub-systems are further divided into sub-sub-systems or entities depending on the level of information available and the level of modelling required. The complexity of the model will keep on increasing with the increase in levels. The entities of sub-systems are interlinked and interdependent, yet keep on interacting with each other at different levels and functions as a whole. This study is driven by hunger to understand the cities fundamentally in a holistic approach. Therefore, an in-depth assessment of urban settlements including controlling parameters and their inter-relationship is required for such an endeavour with the help of modelling techniques. Urban Physics is an action science aimed at to understand the behavior of human settlements and to develop new knowledge by using the established theories of disciplines and the interactions of different entities, which include spatial organization of anthropogenic activities, transfer of heat and mass, energy interactions aiming at to improve the health and comfort of people, ecology and environment, socio-economic conditions of people over the defined urban space leading to the sustainable development of the urban system. It has been observed that “Urban Physics” suffers lack of definition from the viewpoint of spatial and temporal scales, the disciplines involved, tools used and its application. Like the development of other disciplines, the definition of “Urban Physics” is undergoing modifications with increasing understanding of the subject. Furthermore, there is a shift in the objectives of planning from social to socio-economic and then socio-economic and environment, and Urban Physics forms an integral part of socio-economic and environmental planning process. IV The existing models are either insufficient to handle the complexity or are incapacitated for handling a large number of parameters. The interdisciplinary approaches have taken a lead role and the spatial entities have been dealt with in their metamorphism form to explain the operating phenomenon. The holistic approach capable of taking care of both spread and backwash effects is the requirement of the time. System Dynamics demonstrates an almost perfect application to explain the behavioural processes which make it easy to visualize the mental model by integrating every bit of the mental model for analyzing and forecasting the systems’ behaviour in different alternative conditions. Investigator has done thorough literature survey, studied the entities of Urban Physics, the interaction of entities and bearing parameter of Urban Physics, and found that energy and mass are the two most important parameters, which more of less make the functions of any system. Knowledge “the metaphysical resource” helps in increasing the efficiency of the system. The conceptual representation of systems’ view suggests that entities in form of resources are supplied to the system, these entities interact with the other entities present within the system and provide output in the form of usable and non-usable processes and by product entities. These entities change themselves in different cyclic form in Urban Physics. The other entities present in the system affect and are affected by these two entities, i.e., energy and mass. Water contributes about 65 per cent of the total mass component in urban metabolism. Therefore, for laying the concept of Urban Physics and quantification of its functions over the study area by using System Dynamic technique, the Investigator concentrated on energy and water balance in the system in light of the other entities of the system for sustainable development of the system. Energy and water balance in the system are having bearing in the system and both are threatened resource having both spread and backwash effects in the system. Higher amount of energy and water consumption from conventional sources by using conventional approaches in the urban system have backwash effects on urban climate system. If the backwash affects are unattended, there will be serious impact on the urban system and overall global system in future. All subsystems of the urban settlement interact with atmosphere at different scales ranging from meso to micro scale processes, which impact climate, urban environment, individual building and contribute in augmenting temperature in these settlements. The phenomenon of temperature rise has been observed due to increase in the anthropogenic activities and higher consumption of energy (carbon). This problem exists in Delhi city (hereby referred as the system under study), the capital city of India, also. Therefore, the present investigation focuses on the input of different V entities and their interaction and developing new knowledge for the further studies with the application of System Dynamics over Urban Physics. The research aims at development of Urban Physics as concept and identification of its entities in the system, which is useful to understand the cities fundamentally in a holistic way and for sustainable development of the system (NCT Delhi). Research design which includes application of Survey Research Methods and Techniques, Remote Sensing Technique and GIS Tool integrated with System Dynamics Simulation Technique in applied in the present investigation. Correlation analysis is done to analyse the primary survey data to understand the correlation between variables, while multiple regression models are developed and used to identify the control parameters, which decide the function of the system, and then understand association between various controlling parameters. System Dynamic sub-models are developed by sub-system wise, and subsequently, the integrated model is developed by integrating all sub-models to understand the dynamic functions of the system. The evolved System Dynamic model (base year model) is validated to understand the reliability of the model for further investigation. The validated System Dynamics Model is employed to project the system for the year 2031 A.D., and thereby the projected year model for the year 2031 A.D is developed. Alternative plausible scenarios are developed based on historical development, recent trend analysis, application of Delphi Technique, and assumptions, and the same are tested in the projected year model for arriving decisions at different alternative conditions. Results of all types of analysis, which include, literature review, spatial analysis of Urban Physics in the study area, primary household survey, base year model results, projected year model results and simulation results are discussed in detail to arrive at findings, and further to evolve plausible recommendations. Investigator developed City Development Index by using Delphi, which is further used as tool for arriving at the optimal solution. Many interesting findings have emerged like, the most positively and negatively affecting variables for sustainable development of the system (NCT of Delhi), such as investment in Energy Infrastructure (clean energy and energy efficiency), Water Supply & Sanitation Infrastructure (treatment and efficiency of system), Solid Waste Management (Waste to Energy and management), Transportation Infrastructure and Green Infrastructures. Other parameters like the State Gross Domestic Product, Employment, Fuel Consumption, Emissions, and transportation area unused/wasted are directly or indirectly dependent on the foresaid variables. Based on the simulation analysis of all the parameters, in different interventions, it was established that a composite scenario has a greater positive impact VI on the overall system. Plausible recommendations are made based on the results of the aforementioned analytical works for sustainable development of the system.