Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Zheng, Heran
• Zhang, Zongyong
• Zhang, Zengkai
• Li, Xian
• Shan, Yuli
• Song, Malin
• Mi, Zhifu
• Meng, Jing
• Ou, Jiamin
• Guan, Dabo

Titel

Mapping Carbon and Water Networks in the North China Urban Agglomeration

Ist Teil von

• One earth (Cambridge, Mass.), 2019-09, Vol.1 (1), p.126-137

Ort / Verlag

Elsevier Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Our future is urban. With more than two-thirds of the global population expected to live in cities by 2050, urban sustainability is an essential part of sustainable development but remains poorly understood for urban agglomerations, which continue to develop and grow. Here, we construct a multiregional input-output table at the city level and investigate the impacts of water and carbon flows on the intercity supply chain of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei agglomeration in 2012. Our analysis reveals an economic-environmental imbalance whereby Beijing and Tianjin prosper at the expense of Hebei cities. Hebei cities work as producers for Beijing and Tianjin, such that services and goods exported from the Hebei region account for more than 60% of the region's carbon emissions and water use. Economic benefits are also exported. In the case of five key Hebei cities, only 38% of the region's gross domestic product is retained within the cities. This disparity has important implications for equality, prosperity, and sustainability and demonstrates the importance of considering supply chains from the city networks perspective. [Display omitted] •Urban agglomeration sustainability with trade-off of carbon and water networks•Upstream and downstream cities in carbon and water networks are identified•Large carbon emissions and water use are from low- to high-efficiency cities•We found an economic-environmental imbalance in the urban agglomeration It is estimated that by mid-century, more than two-thirds of the world's population will live in cities. These cities are becoming increasingly linked, and extended urban areas and the merger of multiple cities are becoming increasingly common. Services and goods are shared between cities, but it remains unclear whether the associated benefits are mutual. Urban sustainability is essential to ensure equality among and the well-being of city citizens, yet most studies focus on individual cities and ignore the vital intercity supply-chain connections. Our research investigates the flows of carbon and water within the Hebei-Beijing-Tianjin urban network in China and reveals a clear imbalance. Goods and services flow from Hebei cities to Beijing and Tianjin, resulting in a local increase in carbon emissions and water loss and an export of economic benefits. Hebei cities are clearly at a disadvantage. The city network approach is essential to ensure sustainable supply-chain management in a future era of urban agglomerations. Global urbanization has led to a range of concerns related to sustainability in different dimensions and scales, where global cities play an indispensable role. However, the emergence of urban agglomerations is transforming the relationships between cities and sustainability. The traditional view focusing on the city center in urban sustainability may lead to sustainability at the individual city scale but unsustainability at a greater scale. Our research focuses on urban agglomeration by scrutinizing the trade-offs of resource networks for supply, demand, and distribution.