Abstract
In recent decades, cities have been experiencing accelerated population growth, associated with an increase in the scales of production and consumption. This fact, combined with deficient management of resources and waste, has led to the loss of biological diversity, compromising the generation of ecosystem services, with disastrous consequences for human health and well-being, but also for the economic system. In the field of civil engineering, the predominance of artificialisation and impermeabilization of cities (called “grey engineering”) is being questioned to be replaced or complemented with new types of infrastructures that represent a transformative change to achieving more sustainable cities. Through system dynamics applied to the economic modelling of the city of Santander (Spain), the aim of this study is to analyse the profitability of investment in ecosystem restoration and in both green and blue infrastructure, and of the implementation of environmental policies based on the relationships of affection established in the model, which represent the interactions between the main actors in urban dynamics. As a main conclusion, it is found that investing in green infrastructures and ecosystem restoration, and environmental policies is highly profitable: EUR 1 spent can produce up to EUR 100 as a benefit.
Highlights
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and by 2030, this figure is expected to reach 60% [1,2]
Once the model has been calibrated, the reliability of the results obtained from the comparison of the demographic evolution in the modelled study area with the future projections for the population of the municipality of Santander has been checked [62]
It shows that population is satisfactorily adjusted to these predictions, with both showing a decreasing trend, and errors being less than 10%
Summary
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and by 2030, this figure is expected to reach 60% [1,2]. Cities are complex ecosystems governed by socioeconomic activities and natural processes simultaneously, and urban ecosystems need integrated, effective, comprehensive, and multifunctional ecological infrastructures [3,4]. The vertiginous process of urbanisation in recent decades has meant that the decisions of the human population living in cities affect the resilience of the entire planet [5]. The urbanisation of cities faces fundamental challenges, and an unprecedented opportunity to achieve resilience and ecological functioning of urban systems [6]. As a consequence of current population growth, cities have experienced, over the last.
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