Residential Land Use Change in the Wissahickon Creek Watershed: Profitability and Sustainability?

John Sorrentino,Donald Wargo,Mahbubur Meenar

doi:10.3390/su11215933

John Sorrentino, Donald Wargo + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su11215933

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Journal: Sustainability	Publication Date: Oct 25, 2019
License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Temple University, Rowan University

Abstract

The Wissahickon Creek Watershed is one of five major watersheds in the Philadelphia metro region. The main objective of the work in this paper was to determine and compare the energy and environmental impacts of placing housing in the Watershed according to profitability and environmental sustainability criteria, respectively, in the context of increasing urbanization. Future population and employment for the Watershed have been projected by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. Housing requirements for the projected populations in each municipality were computed, and their location was influenced by the local zoning ordinances. Suitability analysis using ArcGIS 10.6 generated areas for development based alternatively on profitability and local sustainability. CommunityViz 5.2 Scenario 360 software was used to place buildings within the appropriately-zoned areas. Using Argonne National Laboratory’s Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation (GREET1 2018) software and water quality monitoring information from the Philadelphia Water Department, impacts were directly estimated. The impacts were related to effects on ecosystem functioning, ecosystem goods and services, and broad value estimated for the latter. The effects were used to indicate what might be appropriate policies to reduce the negative environmental consequences of residential development in the watershed. Unexpectedly, the environmental impacts of the profitable and sustainable scenarios were not very different. This suggests that profitability and sustainability need not be mutually exclusive.

Highlights

In 2018, it was estimated by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations that 55% of the world’s inhabitants live in urban areas
The buildouts using the CommunityViz 5.2 Scenario 360 followed the ArcGIS 6.2 suitability analyses using profitability and sustainability criteria, respectively. These results were examined in terms of profit, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions, and water-quality in the Wissahickon Creek Watershed (WCW)
Demand and supply in the housing market can interact with local governments having control over location through the zoning designated for each area, though Sorrentino et al [11], Sorrentino et al [12], Berg and BenDor [20], and others proposed that regional/watershed planning may be better

Summary

Introduction

In 2018, it was estimated by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations that 55% of the world’s inhabitants live in urban areas. This is projected to rise to 68% by 2050 [1]. The movement to “major urban agglomerations” involves a choice between the cities and their suburbs and ultimate land use change To accommodate this increasing population, residential development can take place on infilled or reclaimed land with higher density and existing infrastructure, or on newly-developed land with lower density and little or no infrastructure. The prior expectations were that the scenario based on profitability would have higher profit, and that based on sustainability would have significantly smaller environmental impacts

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