GCP Seminar 2020 #01 “Complex-Systems Based Integrated Assessment of Droughts, Floods, Heat Comfort and GHG Emissions in Cities under Climate Change”

Global Carbon Project, Tsukuba office and Future Earth Japan Global Hub are co-organising a lecture by

Dr Roger Cremandes on Complex-Systems Based Integrated Assessment of Droughts, Floods, Heat Comfort and GHG Emissions in Cities under Climate Change at the University of Tokyo Institute for Future Initiatives

Dr Roger Cremandes is a climate change economist and complex systems scientist, he coordinates the project #CLISWELN, which includes two case studies of integrated climate services for cities, where a water-energy-land nexus approach is applied to explore co-benefits and synergies between environmental goals.

The attendant is free of charge, and the lecture will be held in English.

Date: Wednesday 8th January 2020 (14:00-15:15) – Door open 13:30

Address:
The University of Tokyo Institute for Future Initiatives
Conference room, 419 (4F)
(Administration building No. 2)
7 Chome-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo City,
Tokyo 113-0033

You can register here:
https://peeratop.typeform.com/to/ToZkAb

Abstract

Complex systems are necessary to integrate aspects of global change research in a consistent way that can provide useful advice for policy-making. The Integrated Urban Complexity model (IUCm) follows a modular approach with models that can be used together or separately in a “tool box for cities” supporting the overall goal of providing tools and information to find co-benefits and synergies across the multiple environmental objectives pursued in the context of cities under global change.

The IUCm is based on multiple aspects of complex systems science, which help it going beyond other traditional approaches in the quality and detail of the insights provided: mostly big data, cellular automata, system dynamics, and network science, combined with more traditional methods like spatially explicit optimisation. The modular approach helps to tackle issues integrating them as necessary. The modules in development include (i) a land use and energy planning module that is being extended to flood risk and transit networks, (ii) a land use and drought risk module developed in the project CLISWELN, (iii) a human comfort temperature module with a 3D energy budget for buildings that captures long- and short-wave radiation, and finally, (iv) a urban economic performance module is conceptualized and under preliminary analyses.

Overall, the insights provided the quantitative implications of spatially-explicit relation between the urban form and energy for transportation for urban growth and transformation constrained by flood risks and adds other aspects like water consumption and drought risks on the top of that. Particularly, spatially explicit policy recommendations for decreasing urban energy for urban mobility go beyond a 50 % reduction for urban transformation, and the figures are at the same order of magnitude after constraining the analysis with an integration of areas under flood risks. It is recommended that complex systems approaches are implemented in Integrated Assessment Models especially when spatially-explicit features like flood risks or transit infrastructure are involved.