Cities and Environmental Security

February 16, 2012

Cities and Environmental Security

"Urbanization... is the world's most important phenomenon."

- Hoornweg et al. 2010, p. 7.

Humankind recently crossed a historic threshold: over half of all people now live in cities. Our species is therefore an urban one. Urban growth, particularly in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, is swift and ongoing. Demographers predict that by 2050, over 6 billion people will live in cities-a figure roughly equal to the world's total population in 1999-and over 5 billion of these will live in developing-country cities. These statistics relay an important truth. During the twenty-first century, cities will increasingly shape social, political, economic, and environmental conditions everywhere on earth.

Cities are powerful drivers of environmental change at the local, regional, and global scales. Urban processes of all kinds create local water and air pollution. Regionally, cities draw natural resources from far-flung hinterlands (energy, water, wood and forest products, fish, and agricultural products to name only a few). Globally, cities consume 60-80% of all energy used on earth and release about the same share of CO₂ into the atmosphere. At the same time, however, cities and their inhabitants are also highly vulnerable to the environmental changes that they help create. Local pollution burdens, for example, most often fall heaviest on the poorest residents of poor cities. A city's demand for regional resources places strains on ecosystems hundreds or even thousands of miles distant. Global climate change adds to the mix of problems, increasing coastal flooding risks for low-lying cities, exacerbating urban heat island effects, and increasing the frequency of heat wave-related mass fatalities.

Given the swift pace and enormous scale of urbanization, cities must become an increasingly important part of the security discussion. Urbanization intersects with multiple security issues, including food security, energy security, climate change, freshwater use, public health and disease, and natural disaster planning and relief (e.g., drought, flooding, and coastal emergencies). Unfortunately, however, little attention has been paid to the urbanization-security nexus. While there are some advanced research and policy arenas that address parts of this nexus (as with communicable diseases and urban poverty), as yet there has been no systematic attempt to integrate the global reality of urban growth and development into the security paradigm.

While this situation is unfortunate (as events are proving to be far ahead of the discourse), there is also much opportunity for crafting a dialogue that recognizes the centrality of urbanization for security issues during the twenty-first century.

The following is a partial list of challenges arising from global urbanization trends:

Climate change: Cities are amongst the most important drivers of climate change (see the energy discussion), but cities and their populations are also highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Examples include:

• Climate change will cause longer and hotter heat waves in cities, for instance, increasing both heat-related mortality and energy demand for cooling. (Cities are much warmer than rural areas due to the Urban Heat Island [UHI] effect, where pavement and other hard surfaces act as heat sinks; temperatures can be several degrees Celsius warmer in cities than in surrounding areas).
• Climate change will alter rainfall, snowmelt, and storm patterns, hence cities can expect either more damage from river flooding or more frequent and intense droughts-and, in the case of some cities, both, depending on seasonal factors. The ramifications for cities range from longer water supply shortages to more frequent sewage overflows.
• Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of oceanic storms. Southern and Southeastern Asia cities are particularly vulnerable because of the region's frequent tropical storms (cyclones, monsoons, typhoons). Many cities sit either directly on the coast or on large river floodplains, both of which expose low-lying cities to storm damage and surges.
• The loss of coastal wetlands and mangroves due to urban growth and other land use changes will compound the storm vulnerability problem. These local ecosystems act as buffers for storm surges. Example: Hurricane Katrina's impact on New Orleans was likely made much worse by the loss (over decades) of southern Louisiana's coastal wetlands.
• Low-lying cities will need extensive coastal infrastructure to protect themselves from storm surges and rising sea levels. The planning and construction of such infrastructure often requires thirty years or more to complete (hence planning needs to begin now to have infrastructure in place by the 2040s) and is expensive. Poorer countries and municipalities often do not have the funds required.

In this context, urban scholars often speak of system "resiliency," by which they mean building the capacity for cities to resist climate-induced changes. Resilient cities are those that can absorb and recover from climate-based shocks.

Energy: 60-80% of the world's primary energy supply is consumed in cities, and cities account for about the same share of the world's CO₂ emissions. As cities have been the drivers of economic and population growth in many developing countries, cities (specifically the firms, municipalities, utilities, and residents located in them) are also the most important reason why energy demand has increased rapidly in these countries-urban residents consume more energy per capita than rural residents. Continued urbanization and economic growth will increase energy demand well into the future. India, for example, must find ways to provide electricity and motor fuel for hundreds of millions of newly wealthy urbanites while at the same time providing basic energy services to hundreds of millions of underserved poor people who exist in 'energy poverty' (meaning no/low access to modern forms of energy). Practitioners in architecture, city planning, and related fields argue that cities can fundamentally reshape the energy demand side of this equation through an emphasis on energy efficiency-energy-saving buildings, for example, or containing motor vehicle use (thus oil consumption) through farsighted planning of transportation investments.

Fresh water: Urbanization has created problems with respect to both the supply and the quality of fresh water. The size and number of cities places enormous strains on fresh water supply. Those cities that are located on or near rivers can draw from these sources, but here upstream water withdrawals (dams, irrigation, other cities, etc.) can affect both the amount and quality of water reaching the city. River flows are also subject to seasonal changes and thus are not always reliable sources. Where cities face a fresh water shortage from inadequate surface sources, most often they are forced to make up the shortfall by relying on groundwater withdrawals. As cities grow, groundwater withdrawals can outstrip groundwater recharging rates-a form of water 'mining' that is unsustainable over the long run. Finally, the pace of urbanization in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere often outstrips the provision of new fresh water infrastructure. The supply of potable water and sewerage thus falls well short of demand in many if not most cities. As is true in almost all other respects, the burden falls mostly on poor residents who reside in informal settlements; wealthier residents are able to locate in areas serviced by such infrastructure or can purchase potable water on the open market.

Migration: The UN estimates that by 2030, 5 billion people will live in cities, of which 1.4 billion will live in slums. Migration is one source of this growth, to both megacities such as Cairo or Mumbai and to hundreds of smaller cities. Migration is a major source of urban poverty and a potential source of violence and unrest. Most rural-to-urban migration is driven by economic factors (e.g., lack of rural employment, availability of urban employment) or political ones (civil and international conflict, e.g., the Somalian civil conflict driving refugees to Kenya and Nairobi). Climate change-related problems are expected to drive rural-to-urban migration in the future. Drought, sea-level rise, and storm-related displacements will create "climate refugees." In Bangladesh, sea-level rise and more frequent cyclones may create up to 20 million displaced persons by 2050. Cyclones Sidr (2007) and Aila (2009) made hundreds of thousands of rural people homeless, many of whom migrated to cities, mostly to Dhaka. These added to Dhaka's extremely high rate of in-migration (in 1974, the city had about 175,000 people; it now has 12 million). The great majority live in the city's slums; Dhaka has a slum population of about 3.5 million.

Human security: A literature exists that focuses on human wellbeing in cities, often falling under the "urban security" and "human security" labels. According to USAID, "the goal of urban security is to improve basic development needs in urban and peri-urban areas: food, shelter, water, services, employment and livelihoods" (For more information, see USAID's website on this issue). Practically, this paradigm focuses more on violence, conflict, crime, illegal trafficking, and personal insecurity, although another strand of the literature concentrates on terror and terrorism. The international programs that exist tend to concentrate on poor people living in the largest megacities in majority-world countries. UN-Habitat has a longstanding program, Safer Cities, focusing on urban violence.

State fragility: Rapid urban growth and poverty may overwhelm the ability of local and national governments, thereby undermining governance structures and contributing to state fragility. The security literature in this area focuses on a handful of megacities in Latin America, Asia, and Africa that have been epicenters of urban violence and/or are rapidly expanding megacities in weak states with weak economies. While Latin American cities have had significant problems associated with slum violence and crime (Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Medellin), Africa is the source of much of the concern about state fragility. African countries often are urbanizing at rates as high as any in the world (by 2015, Cairo will have 13 million people, Lagos 12 million, Kinshasa 11 million), but the economic growth that accompanies rapid urbanization, as in many Asian countries, is low or even absent. African cities therefore are growing rapidly in population but are often not prospering economically. The formation of illegal and informal settlements in cities is ongoing. (By 2025, more poor people in Africa will live in cities than in rural areas, 300 million will lack proper sanitation, and 225 million will have no potable water.) African states and localities often lack the economic resources or the political will to alleviate problems associated with urban poverty, in particular for the large numbers of youths who face bleak employment prospects. The potential for political violence is made more significant in Africa because megacities are often capital cities-Cairo, Kinshasa, and Nairobi, for instance. As a result, outbreaks of widespread violence in these cities can threaten national political stability. As occurred after the December 2007 Kenyan elections, large-scale slum violence emerged when the chronic conditions of daily life met frustration with national political processes (government corruption and preferences for some ethnic groups over others). 

Public Health: The modern disciplines of city planning and public health arose in tandem from concern about unhealthy cities during the 19th century. Sewage and effluent treatment systems, drinking water filtration systems, and street sweeping, to name only a few nineteenth-century advances, all stemmed from a desire to prevent communicable and infectious diseases in industrial cities. Today, the international public health community emphasizes communicable disease prevention in developing-country cities. It recognizes that cities are important contributors to global pandemics: intercity exchanges of all kinds can transmit diseases swiftly throughout the global system.

There are many other public health/urbanization/security linkages. A few examples:

• water pollutants are often dumped directly into urban water bodies without filtration;
• air pollutants (outdoor and indoor) create respiratory diseases of all sorts in cities;
• housing patterns influence residents' health in diverse ways (e.g., in slums and informal settlements, disease-carrying 'vectors' such as rats compound sanitation problems; conversely, low-density suburbs may induce physical inactivity, contributing to obesity and other public health problems that are typically associated with higher incomes);
• UHI effects compound heat wave mortality.

The urban poor have the most difficulty avoiding exposure to health hazards. Their surroundings often create multiple health threats simultaneously (e.g., dangerous drinking water, absence of sanitation systems, and indoor air pollution) that act as threat multipliers.

Public health experts contend, despite all of the above, that cities can be efficient spaces for delivering social, sanitation, and medical services. Because cities concentrate people into small spaces, health service providers typically can reach and service more people more quickly in cities compared with rural areas.

Governance: In many majority-world countries, national governments often have been disinterested in urban issues, seeing them as by-products of economic growth, or have refused to delegate important authority and responsibility to lower levels of governance. For their part, local governments often lack both the revenues and the technical capabilities to deal with the problems created by rapid urbanization. As a result, cities can be governed by complex and poorly coordinated governmental authorities at all levels (national, state, local), thereby creating confusion, bureaucratic infighting and turf wars, and the shifting of responsibility from one authority to another. Yet competent governance is fundamental to solving urban problems. Good governance can provide the array of services, infrastructure, and amenities that make cities safe, sustainable, and habitable, create a positive environment for economic development, and enable broad public and civil society participation in democratic decision-making processes.

Peter Engelke, Ph.D.

February 16, 2012

 

Sources:

Mozaharul Alam and MD Golam Rabbani. "Vulnerabilities and responses to climate change for Dhaka," in Jane Bicknell, David Dodman, and David Satterthwaite, eds., Adapting Cities to Climate Change: Understanding and Addressing the Development Challenges (London: Earthscan, 2009), pp. 93-110.

Stephen Commins, "Urban fragility and security in Africa," Africa Security Brief 12 (April 2011), pp. 1-7. http://africacenter.org/2011/04/urban-fragility-and-security-in-africa/.

Jack A. Goldstone, "The new population bomb: the four megatrends that will change the world," Foreign Affairs, January/February 2010, pp. 31-43.

Daniel Hoornweg et al., "Cities and Climate Change: An Urgent Agenda" (Washington, D.C.: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, Dec. 2010). http://climatechange.worldbank.org/content/new-report-sees-cities-central-climate-action.

R.J. Nicholls et al., "Ranking Port Cities with High Exposure and Vulnerability to Climate Extremes: Exposure Estimates", OECD Environment Working Papers, No. 1, (Paris: OECD Publishing, 2008). http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/environment/ranking-port-cities-with-high-exposure-and-vulnerability-to-climate-extremes_011766488208.

Brian Roberts and Trevor Kanaley (Eds.). Urbanization and Sustainability in Asia: Case Studies of Good Practice (Asian Development Bank, 2006). http://www.adb.org/publications/urbanization-and-sustainability-asia-good-practice-approaches-urban-region-development.

John Tibbetts, "Louisiana's wetlands: a lesson in nature appreciation," Environmental Health Perspectives 114, 1 (January 2006). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1332684/.

United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), Strategic Plan for Safer Cities 2008-2013. Summary Document (October 2007). http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?cid=5524&catid=375&typeid=34&subMenuId=0.