Research Workshop: Urban metabolism modelling for sustainable green infrastructure development in rapidly urbanized mid-sized cities in Brazil, 9-13 July 2018.
Dr. Daniela Perrotti (PI), Dr. Vincent Luo, and Dr. Eugene Mohareb (co-Is) have been awarded a Global Challenge Research Fund Pump-Priming Grant to develop the research on ‘Urban metabolism modelling for sustainable green infrastructure development in rapidly urbanized mid-sized cities in Brazil: A case study in Rondonópolis, Mato Grosso’.
The research will be conducted in collaboration with the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT), Brazil, Dept of Geography and of Management and Dept. of Environmental Technologies, and the University of Leeds (UoL), School of Civil Engineering.
The first action of the research consists of an Interdisciplinary Research workshop at the University of of Mato Grosso, Campus of Rondonópolis (9-13 July 2018). The workshop is co-organized by Daniela, Vincent and Eugene and the Brazilian co-Is, Dr. Fabio Angeoletto, Dr. Jeater Waldemar M.C. Santos, and Dr. Normandes Matos da Silva, and will be attended by leading academics at UFMT and UoL and stakeholders at the Municipality of Rondonópolis (Directorates of Environment, Infrastructure, and Housing and Urban Planning).
The project will concentrate on two key challenges in current local policy-making: air pollution due to the heavily industrialized urban environment and fossil fuel transport; tree cover erosion as a result of the rapid urbanization, and poor accessibility to green areas especially in most deprived neighbourhoods of the city. An urban metabolism study of Rondonópolis, using Material Flow Analysis (MFA), will provide the opportunity to apply knowledge of the inputs, outputs and in-boundary flows of the urban system in sustainable green infrastructure planning and management. The project will enhance current research initiatives from the PI and co-Is through collaboration and share of multi-disciplinary knowledge on urban metabolism and green infrastructure, while increasing local urban management capacity to respond to the multiple social and environmental challenges resulting from rapid urbanization. The consortium will focus on research methods and processes that can be applied in other urban regions with similar physical and metabolic characteristics and policy concerns in Brazil and South America.