Abstract
Research on the human dimensions of global change typically examines the vulnerability of sociotechnical systems to anticipated environmental stresses, most often in non-urban settings. This paper takes a somewhat different track; first it argues that urban areas should receive high priority in global change research and second, it highlights an expanded view of “urban metabolism” as a neglected set of variables that mediate between environmental hazards and human responses. Other researchers have defined “urban metabolism” as the production and consumption of natural resources and physical environments by cities (Stren, White, and Whitney, 1992 [16, p. 9]). In the brief overview that is presented here the term has broader connotations; it includes various means — social as well as biophysical — by which cities acquire or lose the capacity for sustainability in the face of diverse and competing problems. Chief among these is the process by which opportunities for reducing natural disasters are increased or decreased as a result of interactions among different urban issues.
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Mitchell, J.K. (1998). Urban Metabolism and Disaster Vulnerability in an Era. In: Schellnhuber, HJ., Wenzel, V. (eds) Earth System Analysis. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-52354-0_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-52354-0_19
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