Abstract
Urban resource models increasingly rely on implicit network formulations. Resource consumption behaviours documented in the existing empirical studies are ultimately by-products of the network abstractions underlying these models. Here, we present an analytical formulation and examination of a generic demand-driven network model that accounts for the effectiveness of resource utilization and its implications for policy levers in addressing resource management in cities. We establish simple limiting boundaries to systems' resource effectiveness. These limits are found not to be a function of system size and to be simply determined by the system's average ability to maintain resource quality through its transformation processes. We also show that resource utilization in itself does not enjoy considerable size efficiencies with larger and more diverse systems only offering increased chances of finding matching demand and supply between existing sectors in the system.
Highlights
Cities and their interconnected processes, be it those of their economic or industrial sectors, comprise complex interactions and their dynamics
Following analogies that are often drawn between thermodynamic systems and cities, cities can be thought of as open thermodynamic systems with their consumption mainly relying on incoming supplies of resources and energy from hinterlands outside their boundary
We present an analytical formulation and examination of a demand-driven network model that accounts for the ‘effectiveness of resource utilization’ which enables us to better frame the existing empirical efforts and provide a better understanding and prioritization of available policy levers in addressing resource management in cities
Summary
Cities and their interconnected processes, be it those of their economic or industrial sectors, comprise complex interactions and their dynamics. In part due to urbanization and population growth, cities’ growing demand has ever increasingly come to exceed planetary capacity In this environmental context, and following analogies that are often drawn between thermodynamic systems and cities, cities can be thought of as open thermodynamic systems with their consumption mainly relying on incoming supplies of resources and energy from hinterlands outside their boundary. The development of open system thermodynamic approaches have seen the combination of these methods with exergy analysis in quantifying the effects of organizational behaviours of resource systems in cities on their ability to use resources most efficiently [4] These network analytic formulations of urban resource systems have become some of the most popular tools for investigating the distribution of flows, with an increasing focus on the practical applications in studying resource management in cities through case studies at multi-scale levels [18]. This is followed by a brief conclusion and summary of findings
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