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This is the accepted manuscript published at the Sustainable Cities and Society journal (Elsevier)
1
An urban planning sustainability framework: Systems approach to blue green
urban design
Pepe Puchol-Salort
a
*
,
Jimmy O’Keeffe
b
, Maarten van Reeuwijk
a
, Ana Mijic
a
a
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, Imperial College Rd,
SW7 2BB, UK
b
Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, 16-18 Princes Gardens, London, SW7 1NE,
UK
*
Corresponding author: Pepe Puchol-Salort. Email: j.puchol-salort18@imperial.ac.uk. Address: Room
302, Skempton Building, Imperial College London, Imperial College Rd, SW7 2BB, UK
Received 13 October 2020; Received in revised form 16 December 2020; Accepted 17 December 2020; Available
online 26 December 2020 (Find it at:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2020.102677)
Highlights:
• Theoretical framework incorporating blue-green solutions in the urban planning system.
• Urban natural capital evaluation, providing a common language for urban stakeholders.
• Quantification of urban natural capital indicators using a GIS tool.
• Case study showcasing the framework’s sustainable design approach.
ABSTRACT
The climate emergency and population growth are challenging water security and sustainable
urban design in cities worldwide. Sustainable urban development is crucial to minimise
pressures on the natural environment and on existing urban infrastructure systems, including
water, energy, and land. These pressures are particularly evident in London, which is
considered highly vulnerable to water shortages and floods and where there has been a
historical shortage of housing. However, the impacts of urban growth on environmental
management and protection are complex and difficult to evaluate. In addition, there is a
disconnection between the policy and decision-making processes as to what comprises a
sustainable urban development project.
This is the accepted manuscript published at the Sustainable Cities and Society journal (Elsevier)
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We present a systems-based Urban Planning Sustainability Framework (UPSUF) that
integrates sustainability evaluation, design solutions and planning system process. One of the
features of this master planning framework is the spatial representation of the urban
development in a Geographical Information System to create an operational link between
design solutions and evaluation metrics. UPSUF moves from an initial baseline scenario to a
sustainable urban development design, incorporating the requirements of governance and
regulatory bodies, as well as those of the end-users. Ultimately, UPSUF has the potential to
facilitate partnership between the public and the private sectors.
Keywords: Urban sustainability framework, Systems approach, Urban planning, Blue green
urban design, Urban ecosystem services, Urban natural capital
1. Introduction
Human activities linked to urbanisation have significant impacts on the natural environmental.
Currently, more than 50% of the world's population live in urban areas; a figure that will reach
66% by 2050 (United Nations, 2014). Globally, this has led to unsustainable development
patterns as cities are forced to cope with a rapidly growing population and increasing societal
requirements
such as fresh water and sanitation, clean air, good transport links and new
facilities (housing, education, recreation, etc.; Shao, 2020). In the UK, this level of growth will
be particularly critical in London, where population is projected to increase by 70,000 people
every year, reaching 10.8 million citizens in 2041 (Committee on Climate Change, 2019; GLA,
2019). This unprecedented urban growth and housing demand is putting pressure on the
capital’s land, housing, infrastructure and natural environment. London is also one of the most
at-risk urban areas to climate change, facing water supply challenges (i.e. a rapidly increasing
supply-demand gap), heat waves, flooding and air pollution (Environmental Agency, 2009;
Clark et al., 2018; Ford et al., 2019; GLA, 2019). This is particularly evident in the water
management field. Clark et al. (2018) suggested that one of the main priorities for the UK
Government should be to protect their citizens from flooding and to reverse the decline of
nature urgently. While the revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and 25-Year
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Environment Plan (25YEP) already provide some good ideas, more ambitious and specific
targets are needed together with a strong and clear regulatory framework (Clark et al., 2018).
While managing the effects of urban growth represents a significant challenge, it also provides
an opportunity to rethink how we plan and design our urban spaces to support sustainability,
both in terms of new urban development projects and in retrofitting existing urban spaces.
An urban development project includes the design of built grey infrastructure (i.e. buildings
and supporting civil infrastructure such as roads, pavements, etc.) along with associated green
and blue space around it (generally nature-based solutions, which include vegetation, blue
spaces,
i.e. rivers and lakes, and other types of natural surfaces: Erell et al., 2015; Wu et al.,
2019). While definitions of urban sustainability vary (see Oke and Stewart, 2012;
Erell et al.,
2015), overarching principles include offsetting increasing pressures on the natural
environment or infrastructure systems, while providing the same opportunities that we
currently have to future generations (Brundtland, 1987; Riera Pérez et al., 2018; Barbier,
2019). Blue green urban design integrates sustainable construction and sustainable urban
form concepts in the design of buildings; and where possible, the use of Blue Green
Infrastructure (BGI) in the open space areas (Kilbert, 2013; Bozovic et al., 2017; Davoudi and
Sturzaker, 2017; Opoku, 2019). BGI is understood to be a strategically planned network of
nature-based urban features that provide a wide range of Urban Ecosystem Services (UES;
Brears, 2018; Mijic and Brown, 2019). Some examples of BGI are: street trees; permeable
paving; engineered stormwater controls; blue and green roofs; green façades; parks and open
spaces; ponds and waterways; urban gardens; etc. (Kabisch et al. 2017; Nesshöver et al.,
2017; Keeler et al., 2019).
However, defining sustainable urban development indicators within an urban planning policy
and decision-making context is difficult, both in research and in the professional practice fields.
This is largely due to the complex interactions between many different types of systems in
urban settings (Batty, 2008; Pandit et al., 2017; Boeing, 2018; Yeo and Lee, 2018). These
include social, built and natural systems which intersect and interact in numerous complex
ways that represent new urban pressures (land use change, air and soil contamination, green
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space reduction, etc.) and critical challenges (social equity, wellbeing, administrative
cooperation, etc.; McPhearson et al., 2016). Developing whole-system understanding is
central to: 1) integrating multiple aspects of sustainable development for blue green urban
design (Oke and Stewart, 2012; Russo and Cirella, 2020); 2) evaluating and justifying design
sustainability for multiple stakeholders (Pandit et al., 2017; Bide and Coleman, 2019); and, 3)
utilising the multiple benefits provided by the natural environment through ecosystem services
evaluation (Ossa-Moreno et al., 2017; Mijic and Brown, 2019). In the context of decision-
making, investment in natural ecosystems versus traditional engineering solutions is under-
researched and there is little evidence to prove their key role for urban sustainability
(Nesshöver, 2017). Achieving urban sustainability, therefore, requires an appropriate
methodology with shared evaluation metrics which links planning, ecological and engineering
design perspectives within urban environments. These perspectives can be linked using a
systems thinking approach, employed by engineers and researchers to develop quantitative
models and new forms of integration to understand urban complexities (Whyte et al., 2020).
There is a growing interest to develop sustainability evaluation frameworks at different urban
scales (regional, city or district scales). Some examples include: the conceptual framework for
water net-positive buildings from Joustra and Yeh (2014); the sustainability framework for
trade-offs in ecosystem services from Cavender-Bares et al. (2015); the conceptual framework
for urban water sustainability from Yang et al. (2016); the Nature-Based Solutions assessment
framework from Raymond
et al. (2017); or, the Urban Integrated Assessment Framework from
Ford et al. (2019); among others. Mellino et al. (2014) combine the use of Geographical
Information System (GIS) software with spatial planning evaluation. However, little evidence
is available about fully integrated and systems thinking frameworks that integrate planning
system process and align urban design solutions with the actions happening at the decision-
making level. Bozovic et al. (2017) placed a strong emphasis on a highly structured pre-
planning phase as part of their Blue Green Systems approach; however, they did not specify
in detail how to achieve this.
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In this paper, we present an Urban Planning Sustainability Framework (UPSUF) to address
these challenges; we combine evaluation methods with the UK planning process to facilitate
a common understanding of the opportunities for sustainable urban design. The conceptual
framework combines sustainability evaluation, GIS-supported design solutions and planning
system process; enabling improved assessment and decision-making for a multi-stakeholder
urban development projects. The sustainability evaluation is based on the UES assessment,
which combines benefits provided from natural spaces within the urban boundaries (Tan et
al., 2020). This is aligned with the concept of Natural Capital as a human-centred approach
based on understanding nature’s assets and their real value for human well-being (Barbier,
2019; Bright et al., 2019; Bateman and Mace, 2020). An important feature of UPSUF is the
spatial representation of the urban development within a Geographical Information System
(GIS) tool, linking the design solutions and its integrated evaluation toolkit in a more
comprehensive way. Visualisation makes the process for sustainable design more effective
and reliable, leading to better planning decisions (Mellino et al., 2014).
The paper is organised as follows: firstly, a general description of UPSUF is provided; followed
by a detailed explanation of its three main components: a) Planning System Process, b)
Sustainable Design Solutions and, c) Integrated Evaluation Toolkit. Secondly, the main case
study area is presented, where the framework is conceptualised and tested. Thirdly, results
comparing four urban design scenarios are presented and discussed. Finally, potential future
work is presented, followed by the closing remarks.
2. Methodology:
2.1 General description of UPSUF
2.1.1 A systems approach to urban planning
To achieve sustainable urban design, it is necessary to look at a city holistically (Pandit et al.,
2017); building an understanding of many interdependencies and operational risks inherent
within urban built, natural and social systems. Viewing a city as a ‘system of systems’ (Kotov,
1999; Little et al., 2019) presents a significant challenge, but one which can be addressed
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through systems thinking (see Keating et al., 2003; Williams et al., 2017). In this work we apply
systems thinking as an engineering approach which provides a framework for integrated
analysis of land and building systems that require stakeholders’ coordination, and can help
decision-makers achieve objectives of the system as a whole (Pandit et al., 2017; Whyte et
al., 2020). Sustainable urban development requires a balance of several objectives and
opportunities such as affordable housing, good transport links, clean air and water, biodiversity
or community services (education, recreation, etc.); although these are sometimes in
disagreement and present serious challenges (Keeler et al., 2019). Additionally, a systems
approach is the best way to reliably compare Blue-Green versus grey approaches to address
urban sustainability challenges, evidencing their real value from a long-term perspective
(Keeler et al., 2019). For all these reasons, systems thinking lies at the core of UPSUF, which
is defined by two key elements: 1) improved urban development design and evaluation
process through integration of the built and natural system components using the concept of
UES; and, 2) improved system understanding and decision-making through integration of
multiple stakeholder perspectives in the planning and co-development process.
2.1.2 The Urban Planning Sustainability Framework (UPSUF)
The UPSUF (Figure 1) is based on the UK’s planning system and addresses the ambition of
city councils to grant more planning applications to urban development projects that are
considered ‘sustainable’ (HM Government, 2015; Clark et al., 2019). Hence, this framework is
primarily aimed at two stakeholder groups: 1) those involved in development and construction
(housing developers, urban planners, and designers, i.e. engineers, architects, etc.); and, 2)
those involved in planning and use (Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) or City Planners, and
residents). This is in addition to statutory consultees which include water companies, as part
of the private sector, and the Lead Local Flooding Authorities (LLFAs), as part of the public
sector. While all stakeholders have specific objectives and look at urban planning through a
different lens, all share a common challenge: an incapacity to collectively determine whether
an urban development project can be considered ‘sustainable’ or not (HM Government, 2018).
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Fig. 1: General diagram of the Urban Planning Sustainability Framework (UPSUF). Its three
components are: 1) Planning System Process (in grey); 2) Design Solutions (in green); and, 3)
Integrated Evaluation Toolkit (in blue). The governance and decision-making actions are represented
by black arrows, while the five steps indicated by the framework are represented by numbered red
arrows.
UPSUF is comprised of five steps (red arrows in Figure 1) based on the UK’s planning
system’s process (black arrows in Figure 1). These steps help guide the user from an existing
urban development baseline to a new validated and sustainable development project. These
five steps operate across three framework components: 1) Planning System Process; 2)
Design Solutions; and, 3) Integrated Evaluation Toolkit (grey, green, and blue clusters in
Figure 1, respectively). The application of UPSUF is an iterative process, linking the design
solutions with an evolving integrated evaluation toolkit, which are all spatially represented in
a GIS tool to achieve more reliable and accurate results. This process is designed to reflect
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current planning phases, mirroring the different design-cycle actions that an urban
development project undergoes at governance and decision-making level until the planning
application is granted.
2.1.3 UPSUF application
The framework’s operation consists of five distinct steps (see Figure 1). Establishing the
baseline conditions of the development site, or the pre-development scenario, forms an
essential first step of any new urban development design. The type of information required is
dependant on the type of redevelopment but may involve surveys of site ecology, current
infrastructure, land use and hydrology (Jabareen, 2006). As previously explained, blue-green
urban design includes the combination of Blue Green Infrastructure (BGI) with sustainable
urban form and sustainable construction principles (Kilbert, 2013; Erell et al., 2015; Oke et al.,
2017). Urban form includes building dimensions, shape, orientation, and spacing, as well as
the characteristics of artificial surfaces and the amount of green space. Urban form associated
with infrastructure influences climate adaptation and is crucial to achieve sustainability (Ford
et al., 2019). Whereas sustainable construction makes an efficient use of local materials and
natural resources (water, energy, etc.) during the construction process and the lifetime of the
building. Once these new integrated design solutions are combined and applied to the existing
baseline, a new urban development is obtained in step 2.
The third step of the framework is comprised of an integrated evaluation process to assess if
the proposed development is considered sustainable under planning guidelines. The UPSUF
has capacity to integrate a series of tools, including NCPT (Natural Capital Planning Tool;
Hölzinger et al., 2019) or B£ST (Benefits Estimation Tool; Ciria, 2019), among others. These
tools combine an UES assessment method with BGI cost-benefit evaluation; however, UPSUF
is designed as an adaptable and extensible system allowing continual improvement during its
application on real case studies, where approved certifications such as BREEAM
Communities (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method; BRE
Global, 2017), LEED-ND (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design; USGBC, 2012),
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CASBEE-UD (Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency; IBEC,
2014) and PASSIVEHAUS (Passive House Institute, 2020) could be added. In step 4, the
evaluation process will combine UPSUF’s visual representation of the urban development
using GIS with a series of sustainability indicators.
Finally, the fifth step of the framework application involves a comparison of the outputs with
established sustainability metrics. If results indicate that the proposed development is
sustainable, this may be the final stage of the design process. However, if the metrics suggest
the proposed development is unsustainable, or not sustainable enough, the process continues
by modifying the design solution based on the indicators feedback (back to step 2). The
iterative process of the UPSUF application provides a standardised sequence which take the
user from an initial baseline scenario to a sustainable urban development plan, incorporating
the requirements of governance and regulatory bodies, as well as those of the end-users –
predominantly the residents. This approach also facilitates the exploration and quantitative
evaluation of scenarios and testing different design options, all of which can then be compared
to the baseline and the sustainability metrics.
2.2 Planning System Process
The planning system process is the first component of the UPSUF. Early engagement with
the planning system and local stakeholders is crucial to delivering sustainable urban
development (UNISDR, 2017; Clark et al., 2019). In some cases, engagement may take place
prior to land purchase; allowing developers to assess the costs (profitability) and viability of
the development project. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the sustainability
credentials of the development proposal to Local Planning Authorities. Typically, there are a
number of urban stakeholder groups involved in the planning application process. These
include private and public sector actors, although there is often overlap between the two
groups, for example the same stakeholder (e.g. developers) might be either in the private or
the public sector. A graphical representation of the UK’s planning process and the five stages
explained below is shown in Figure 2.
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Fig. 2: Overview of the urban planning application process in the UK’s planning context. Urban planning
stakeholders are divided between private and public sectors; and between two decision groups:
decision-makers and statutory consultees. The compulsory stages for planning application are
represented with black arrows and red numbering; while pre-application advice is not compulsory and
it is represented with blue dotted double arrowed line. In case planning application is not granted,
developers can appeal the decision or move back to stage 1 (red dotted arrow).
Stakeholders can be divided into ‘decision-makers’ (those who are responsible for decisions)
and ‘statutory consultees’ (who advise other stakeholders and collaborate to produce Local
Plans). Decision-makers may include developers, urban planners and designers, Local
Planning Authorities (LPAs) and neighbours; while statutory consultees include water
companies, and Lead Local Flooding Authorities (LLFAs).
Developers typically produce and submit urban development projects using the expertise of
designers and urban planners, as well as a team of engineers and architects specialised in
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urban systems design and infrastructure (Clark et al., 2018). Development plans (stage 1) are
based on developers’ specifications while also soliciting advice from statutory consultees such
as water companies, who produce the Water Resource Management Plans, (WRMP; Bide
and Coleman, 2019). Their advice is generally focused on best water management strategies
and viability for BGI.
Following draft production of the urban development project (stage 2), developers have the
option to obtain pre-application advice from LPAs (stage 3). While this stage is not compulsory,
it provides a cost-effective way of assessing the viability of the development prior to the
planning application submission (HM Government, 2019).
Once all relevant sustainability and economic variables have been assessed and addressed
by developers, the planning application can be submitted to the LPAs (stage 4). LPAs produce
the Local Plans incorporating advice, where necessary from statutory consultees such as
water companies, who produce the WRMP, and from residents, who contribute to the
Neighbourhood Plans (HM Government, 2015, 2019).
Developers and urban planners can then move to more detailed design and building
specifications if planning is granted (stage 5). If planning permission is not granted, developers
are able to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate or change the design of the urban development
project, effectively returning to stage 1. A clear alignment between the UPSUF’s actions (black
arrows in Figure 1) and the planning system process (Figure 2) is evident at this stage.
Many councils in the UK own strategically important land, which they may wish to develop, for
example, as affordable housing or publicly accessible space (Bide and Coleman, 2019). To
ensure full transparency under such circumstances there should be a differentiation of
functions between Local Authorities and Local Planning Authorities, where LPAs in
conjunction with residents decide if planning should be granted.
It is not uncommon that sustainability becomes a secondary goal to project viability and
profitability for developers (Clark et al., 2018; HM Government, 2019; Bide and Coleman,
2019). The main aim of UPSUF is to express the real benefits of sustainable design solutions
using evaluation tools and metrics. Therefore, both private and public sectors can benefit from
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UPSUF guidance at the early stages of the design process, both in terms of the proposal
viability and provision of a platform for the co-production of potential solutions.
2.3 Sustainable Design Solutions
The second component of the UPSUF involves integrated principles for sustainable urban
design solutions. These are applied to the initial pre-development case study and involve a
mixture of built grey and Blue Green infrastructures. In the long term, the benefits provided by
BGI can outweigh those of traditional grey infrastructure (Bozovic et al., 2017), but achieving
urban sustainability requires facilitating the flow of UES while including sufficient grey
infrastructure to achieve the goals of the development in terms of housing, transport, water
infrastructure, etc. (Kapetas and Fenner, 2020;
Newton and Rogers, 2020). As a result, it is
necessary to determine what the optimal combination of BGI vs grey interventions should be.
We explore this link by integrating BGI with urban form and construction concepts. From
sustainable urban form concepts, we specifically focus on: i) building dimensions and spacing,
avoiding overly compact or sprawled urbanisation; ii) building density and use, supporting
mixed-use buildings and a healthy number of habitants/m
2
of the building; iii) surface
properties, avoiding impervious and paved areas; and, iv) the amount of green space around
the buildings, placing as much green space as possible in the open spaces. While from the
sustainable construction perspective, we include the use of local and natural materials, and
an efficient use of resources during construction and life cycle of the building (water, energy,
etc.). Table A.1 in Appendix A compares sustainable with more traditional design solutions
supported by the UPSUF’s blue green urban design solutions. Depending on the selected
combination of solutions, a different number of UES will be provided. A comparison based on
several sources of literature (Keeler et al., 2019; Bozovic et al., 2019) guided the selections
of ten UES to be included in UPSUF evaluation (Table A.2 in Appendix A): air quality; Urban
Heat Island effect mitigation; water quality; water supply; stormwater management; recreation
and well-being; urban agriculture; biodiversity; aesthetics; and, resources efficiency.
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Blue green urban design solutions are generally assessed individually and a holistic approach
that studies the UES provided by integrated design solutions is still lacking (Carmona et al.,
2010). Hence, one of the innovations of UPSUF is the ability to quantify the impact of a
combination of blue-green urban design solutions, increasing the number of UES provided.
The UES provided by combinations of blue-green urban design solutions are described in
Table 1 (e.g. street trees combined with sustainable urban form and sustainable construction
provide seven UES, that are: 1) aesthetics, 2) UHI mitigation, 3) flood mitigation and
stormwater management, 4) urban air quality, 5) recreation and well-being, 6) resources
efficiency and, 7) urban water supply). Those UES will be crucial to offset the negative impacts
of the new urban development in the form of housing, pollution, urban heat island effect or
climate change, among others (Mijic and Brown, 2019).
Before moving to the evaluation stage, a series of design scenarios need to be developed.
The comparison between these design scenarios forms an essential part of UES assessment
(Mace et al., 2011); while it does not try to predict the future, it helps to recognise a range of
future possibilities under different assumptions. This aligns with the UPSUF’s approach
because the framework has the capacity to explore different potential urban development
options which are then compared to the existing baseline’s conditions. Outputs can highlight
potential options where urban development projects can more appropriately fit existing or
future sustainability policies.
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Table
1
:
UES
provided by the combi
nation of the UPSUF blue green urban design solutions. BGI solutions are combined with sustainable urban form and
sustainable construction principles.
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2.4 Integrated Evaluation Toolkit
The third component of the UPSUF is an integrated evaluation toolkit - a flexible and evolving
cluster that has the capacity to select different evaluation tools and models depending on the
specific case study. The various combinations of blue-green urban design solutions (Table 1)
will be analysed and assessed using computational tools within the UPSUF’s integrated
evaluation toolkit. There are a number of different tools which can be used for UES
assessment. Some of the most commonly used are: B£ST (Benefits Estimation Tool; Ciria,
2019); InVest (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs; Sharp et al., 2018);
and, NCPT (Natural Capital Planning Tool; Hölzinger et al., 2019). Among them, NCPT is one
of the most commonly used in the urban planning context in the UK. This tool is primarily
aimed at the urban development scale and provides numerical (but qualitative) scores for
several UES, covering most of the ten UES classified in UPSUF (Table A.2, Appendix A). The
only two UES missing in the NCPT compared to UPSUF are: a) urban water supply, and b)
resources efficiency. However, NCPT lacks a graphical representation of land use, reducing
the capacity of the evaluation to generate useful evidence or fully engage with stakeholders.
In order to support planning policies that describe the spatial and temporal interactions of an
urban development project together with its socio-economic factors, new analytical tools are
required (Ford et al., 2018, 2019). UPSUF attempts to upgrade NCPT’s functionality through
the spatial representation of both pre- and post-development land-use areas of the urban
development site using GIS software. This improves the accuracy of results and allows more
flexibility in terms of considering other architectural design parameters, such as orientation or
urban form of buildings, which directly affect the environmental and thermal performance of
the urban development (Jabareen, 2006; Erell et al. 2015; Ahmadian et al., 2019). The
framework currently uses QGIS (Cavallini et al., 2019) for this purpose as it is a free and open-
source tool, and can be easily shared with all relevant stakeholders. While quantification of
benefits provided by sustainable design solutions can be achieved through various metrics,
the inclusion of computational tools with the capacity for a spatial representation has the
potential to provide significant increased benefit (Mijic and Brown, 2019). Including GIS
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capabilities in UPSUF improves its capacity to demonstrate the implications of change,
generating evidence on the benefits of the proposed urban developments to stakeholders and
delivering solutions that achieve maximum sustainability values.
3. Case Study: Thamesmead Waterfront Development Plan
Thamesmead is a 750-ha area in Southeast London currently undergoing a large regeneration
programme that will last for the next 30 years. Located between two London boroughs (Figure
3): Greenwich (Thamesmead Moorings) and Bexley (Thamesmead East), the area contains
a significant number of social housing, originally built by the now-disbanded Greater London
Council (GLC) as part of their 1967 Masterplan (Cherry and Pevsner, 1964). Currently
Thamesmead is home to over 45,000 people in approximately 16,000 households, 5,200 of
which are owned by the Peabody Housing Association (Ford and Baikie, 2016). Peabody also
owns a significant portion of currently unused land, accounting for 65% of the Thamesmead
area (Askew, 2018) of which approximately 150 ha are blue or green-space. This includes 32
ha of water comprising five lakes and 7 km of canals, five neighbourhood parks and 14 Sites
of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI). The total estimated Natural Capital potential value
provided by Thamesmead’s blue and green-space is estimated to be at least £306 million or
£257 per person per year (Askew, 2018; Vivid Economics, 2018). Despite this, most of the
blue and green space remains underutilised with significant portions of the area currently
inaccessible.
Current plans involve developing the area to accommodate significant increase in population:
it is expected that by 2050 more than 100,000 people will call Thamesmead their home. This
will involve improving its environmental and community qualities, turning Thamesmead into a
centre of culture, arts and heritage.
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Fig. 3: Thamesmead’s boundaries map inside the two boroughs: Greenwich and Bexley. Also, the
Thamesmead Waterfront Development Plan area is circled by the blue line.
The Thamesmead Waterfront Development Plan (circled in blue in Figure 3) forms one of the
most important aspects of this new development. The scheme will include more than 11,500
new homes within a 100-ha site, utilising almost 3 km of undeveloped river waterfront. Almost
80 ha of these 100 ha are brown, blue and green space managed solely by Peabody (Royal
Borough of Greenwich, 2014), most of which is currently inaccessible. This generates a unique
development opportunity to provide a diverse range of UES. This £8bn new urban
development will be one of the largest projects of its type in Europe and will be based around
a range of new transport connections, including a new DLR station connected to the Elizabeth
Line (Crossrail) in Strafford and Forest Gate (GLA, 2018).
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4. Results
4.1 Sustainable Urban Design Scenarios
Thamesmead Waterfront Development Plan (TMWDP) will be used to evaluate the
sustainability of design solutions for new urban developments. As part of UPSUF’s integrated
evaluation toolkit, Urban Natural Capital (UNC) and UES accounting will be a starting point to
understand the environmental impact created by new housing developments.
We develop four urban design scenarios for TMWDP in order to compare different levels of
environmental impact. However, before presenting these four urban development design
scenarios, it is necessary to understand the pre-development land-use map, which will act as
the initial baseline. This is represented based on research data previously collected and
supplemented by OpenStreetMap and Google satellite maps.
Approximately 50% of the development site is currently developable brownfield land and
hazardous-waste land-fill (Figure 4). Hazardous landfill cannot be used for building, but it has
other potential uses, including a nature reserve. Under current planning conditions from the
Royal Borough of Greenwich, blue space (lakes and canals), part of the amenity grassland
and the protected wetland inside TMWDP must be preserved as Sites of Nature Conservation
Importance (SNCI). With the exception of the water-pump station, all existing buildings,
predominantly supermarkets, department stores or leisure centres, will be removed and
redesigned in all four design options. Paved areas (including car parks, and play areas) will
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be also redesigned, with the exception of the Thames path pedestrian and cycling trail, which
is also protected by Greenwich planning policies.
Fig. 4: Pre-development land-use map or ‘baseline’ for Thamesmead Waterfront Development Plan
(TMWDP).
Based on the aforementioned constraints, a realistic but unfavourable scenario is developed
(see Scenario 1 in Figure 5), which represents traditional building approaches: relying heavily
on grey infrastructure and building solutions with minimal consideration of sustainable urban
form (e.g. appropriate building orientation, shape, density and natural surfaces, such as green
roofs or green walls); see Table 1). The built-up areas with different types of densities (high,
medium and low) are built with traditional ways of construction. As aforementioned, blue
space, protected wetland and intertidal mud-sand are preserved and have not changed. Other
land-uses, such as mixed woodland and amenity grassland, have been diminished in some
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20
parts and then augmented elsewhere, especially where there is hazardous waste land fill at
the moment.
Scenario 2 represents the same number of built-up hectares of Scenario 1, but instead of
being high-, medium-, or low-density built-up areas; those are exchanged for ‘buildings
covered with green roofs’ or ‘buildings with green walls’ land uses (see Scenario 2 map in
Figure 5). These two land uses are the only sustainable building options given by the NCPT.
This is therefore seen as an important limitation of the tool. In the same way, the previous
‘roads’ have been replaced by ‘local green roads’; while ‘paved areas (car parks, etc.)’ are
transformed into ‘gardens’ (including the Thames path). NCPT does not give specific options
for some of the BGI land uses in Table 1, such as permeable paving or engineered stormwater
controls, which constitutes another important limitation of the tool.
Scenario 3 is based on a completely new urban layout design (Figure 5). In this case, more
green, blue and recreation spaces are arranged around the built-up areas to increase the UES
received. This scenario is based on compact densities and BGI around them, which is
regarded to be a more sustainable option for future cities than low-density layouts (Ahmadian
et al., 2019). Additionally: i) most existing woodland is preserved; ii) more woodland and pond
areas are added inside the parkland; iii) gardens (which represent BGI) are placed around
most of the building blocks; iv) blue space is considerably increased with new lakes and a new
canal network.
Finally, Scenario 4 has a similar ethos to Scenario 3, but represents a more sensible option
that preserves most of the existing natural environment, especially mixed woodland area, and
leaves more space for BGI, represented as ‘gardens’ (see Figure 5). Additionally, buildings
facing the river are envisioned as tall buildings with green roofs, while buildings with green
walls are placed inland and pictured as medium-density buildings of between five and six
floors tall.
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Fig. 5: Four post-development land-use scenario maps for Thamesmead Waterfront Development Plan
(TMWDP) with land-use legends close to them.
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4.2 Impact Evaluation Results
In this section the numerical results obtained from the four spatially represented urban design
scenarios are discussed and compared. These results are in the form of positive or negative
scores for each UES analysed, which are summarised in Table 2.
Table 2: Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital Net-Gains scores obtained from the Natural Capital
Planning Tool (NCPT) for the Thamesmead Waterfront Development Plan (TMWDP) in the four urban
design scenarios studied.
As seen in the first column of Table 2, the Scenario 1 results in only two positive ES, which
are recreation (+139) and global climate regulation (+25). The positive recreation score is
easily explained because the current land is not accessible to the public and as soon as new
green space is open, it directly provides new leisure and outdoor activity space to citizens. All
the other scores are negative, and the aesthetic values in particular (-225), which can be
explained due to the traditional way of building and lots of grey infrastructure systems, such
as roads and paved areas. Regarding Scenario 2, Table 2 reveals that five ES achieve UNC
net-gain, which indicates a significant improvement compared to Scenario 1. However, there
are still some important UES in negative values, e.g. harvested products (-121) or water quality
regulation (-5); which means that built-up areas are predominant and more BGI is still needed.
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In Scenario 3 most UES are positive and achieve NC net-gains, but still harvested products (-
85) and biodiversity (-6) are negative. Having no harvested activity in the post-development
design should not mean a decline in harvested products because no agriculture activities are
present in the pre-development site either. This is interpreted as another limitation of the
NCPT. In addition, biodiversity is negative because the tool sees “gardens” as a decline
compared to the current “poor grassland”, but the tool does not include any other land use
options that could increase the sustainability score. In contrast, Recreation (+228) is still the
biggest positive score. This is explained firstly because the space is currently inaccessible
and, secondly because there is a considerable increase in blue and green space as part of
this urban design. Finally, in Scenario 4, we see all UES scoring positive values, with the
exception of harvested products (-10), for same reasons as in Scenario 3. All the other scores
are soundly positive, which means that preserving the natural environment and creating a
compact distribution with large amount of BGI around the buildings will be the most sustainable
option to select.
The results collected in Table 2 provide a general idea of the TMWDP level of sustainability
based on different design approaches; however, the scores are only an indication of the UES
net-gain and the tool presents a large number of limitations. New land uses and new
sustainable building typologies should be added as part of a new tool, e.g. ‘buildings with
rainwater harvesting’, ‘swales’ or ‘intensive’ vs. ‘extensive’ green roofs. This demonstrates the
necessity to create a new integrated modelling tool that improves these limitations and
enables a more streamlined planning and development process, leading to a better quality
and design for new urban developments.
5. Discussion
Prior work has documented different methods for urban sustainability assessment, trying to
achieve an easy-to-use sustainability evaluation formula at the urban development scale and
enabling urban stakeholders’ collaboration (Joustra and Yeh, 2014; Mellino et al., 2014;
Raymond et al., 2017; Ford et al., 2019; Tan et al., 2020). However, these studies have either
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been unsuccessful in recognising an applicable method to the UK planning system or have
not been focused on the undeniable urban system’s complexity. In this study, a new theoretical
framework that combines urban design solutions with a series of evaluation metrics applied to
the UK’s urban planning system has been presented. The UPSUF aligns design solutions with
the actions occurring at the decision-making and governance level. It aims to facilitate urban
stakeholder partnership at these two levels (design and decision-making) and to generate
factual impact at the early stages of the urban design with participatory engagement.
This engagement will be achieved by sharing activities, such as urban stakeholder or
community group workshops. Collaborative workshops and social engagement events are
proved to be very effective in raising general public awareness and government support
towards sustainable architecture and new urban design solutions (see Puchol-Salort et al.,
2018; Bell and Johnson, 2020).
Facing future work and aiming to increase the usability of UPSUF, one of the potential
directions of this work will be to add approved certifications into the integrated evaluation
toolkit. However, these certifications sometimes present a series of limitations and need a
comprehensive revision (see Kaur and Garg, 2019). There are already some sources in the
literature that looked for a revised method, with the Comprehensive Assessment Method for
Sustainable Urban Development (CAMSUD; Ali-Toudert et al., 2020) being one of the most
attractive ones. CAMSUD reports a detailed study for five of the most widely-used urban rating
systems around the world, comparing their weaknesses and strengths. There are forty urban
sustainability criteria presented in CAMSUD based on these well-established rating systems
and UPSUF’s goal will be to include these criteria in its integrated evaluation toolkit and
examine to what extent the designed urban development project achieves each criterion.
UPSUF’s functionality has considerable potential in systems modelling. Although for now it
only includes a static evaluation of the urban development project based on a ‘before-after’
evaluation, new models that include a more dynamic approach should be considered in the
next stages of the work. These novel models should have the capacity to link with: a) dynamic
population trends; b) Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods applied to the urban scale in
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25
spatial planning (Bidstrup et al., 2015; Mirabella et al., 2018); c) Blue Green Infrastructure
(BGI) cost-benefit analysis in the long term of the urban development; and, d) water
infrastructure tools, such as CityWat (Dobson and Mijic, 2020). The exploration of new urban
models will be part of the improved integrated evaluation toolkit of UPSUF.
Finally, new UPSUF’s models will provide evidence of urban sustainability to urban
stakeholders and decision-makers in the UK’s planning context. Decision-makers have a huge
responsibility to incentivise private developers towards more investment on urban
development projects that combine private and public value. As Bateman and Mace (2020)
suggest, public decision-makers can either create positive incentives, such as subsides or
PES (Payment Ecosystem Services) schemes or, negative disincentives, such as taxes or
deterrent regulations. Hence, the UPSUF will provide a new insight towards these incentives
and help policy-makers to change the existing obsolete urban policies.
6. Conclusion and future outlook
In this paper a new framework for sustainability evaluation in the UK’s urban planning context
has been defined. The Urban Planning Sustainability Framework (UPSUF) is currently at the
proof-of-concept stage and it will be further developed and improved during the next stages
of this work. UPSUF’s application shows potential for better urban planning decisions and
therefore for essential benefits to the society.
Findings from this research applied to Thamesmead Waterfront Development Plan (TMWDP)
indicated that a more compact building distribution with larger areas of Blue Green
Infrastructure (BGI) will increase the level of Urban Ecosystem Services (UES) provided, these
being understood as the number of benefits that citizens obtain from the natural environment
and also representing a good measure for urban sustainability. Conventional design solutions,
however, are in alignment with the traditional urban planning standards, which generally
provide sprawl urbanisation with extensive impervious concrete-based infrastructure areas.
One of the key factors for housing developers are the profitability opportunities of the urban
development, not considering the long-term environmental performance of the project. Thus,
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26
there are research opportunities to expand the evaluation criteria of UPSUF and make it more
dynamic, showing the cost-benefit analysis of the development, both to developers and Local
Planning Authorities (LPAs). In these new scenarios, other variables such as future
maintenance and long-term benefits to businesses and society of the BGI and the water
infrastructure systems will be included (see Winch et al., 2020).
This work is focused on a particular urban development project (TMWDP) where the UNC
value is higher than the average in other similar urban areas. This points to important
directions for future research, such as including new case studies facing different challenges.
These future studies will allow more robust data analysis as well as diverse and more
collaborative research with different types of stakeholders. Additional societal and economic
uncertainties, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the consequences of the lockdown, will be
also included in future urban scenarios simulations. Ultimately, this works supports the urban
sustainability field’s advancement towards a more integrated and multifaceted methodology,
where built and ecological systems are widely seen as an interconnected entity.
Acknowledgments
This work would not have been possible without funding from the Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Sustainable Civil
Engineering. The research reported in this paper was taken as part of the CAMELLIA project
(Community Water Management for a Liveable London), funded by the Natural Environment
Research Council (NERC) under grant NE/S003495/1.
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27
Appendix A
Table A.1: Blue Green urban design solutions used in the UPSUF, divided in three areas of study: i)
BGI (Blue Green Infrastructure), ii) Urban form and, iii) Construction. Comparison of sustainable
design solutions against traditional (grey) solutions.
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Table A.2: Comparison of the most widely assessed UES based on two acknowledged sources of
literature. UES in green are those identified in both sources, while those in orange are only identified in
one of the sources, but considered critical for the UPSUF’s aim. There are also some UES in white that
are not included in this study and some extra comments that justify this selection (ticks are UES found
in both sources without any comments, and crosses are UES that has not been selected). Last column
presents the ten UES included and studied by UPSUF (Urban Planning Sustainability Framework).
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29
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