Industrial Doctorate Centre: Urban Sustainability and Resilience

城市空间的压力逐年增加。19世纪初，3%的世界人口居住在城市，2007年后，将有超过50%的人口居住在城市。这一趋势为我们带来了气候变化、人口增长、疾病和恐怖主义带来的一系列严峻挑战，如果不能应对这些挑战，将对健康、社会凝聚力和经济稳定产生可怕的后果：如何管理和调整我们目前的城市空间和基础设施，以应对施加在它们身上和面临的威胁？如何设计、设计、扩大和维护这类新的生态城市？如何向政府、行业和投资基金宣传这些想法？无论是在英国境内还是在世界其他地方，英国都很容易受到自然和技术灾难的影响。影响国家的主要自然灾害是风暴和洪水(河流和沿海)，这两种灾害近年来都造成了重大损失。1990年1月，冬季风暴达里亚造成的损失给保险公司造成了33.7亿美元的损失，使其成为英国代价最高的天气事件，而在2007年，洪水淹没了4.8万户家庭和7300家企业，给保险公司造成了30亿美元的损失。生物和技术灾害也造成重大损失，2001年口蹄疫疫情造成的损失达80亿美元，2006年邦斯菲尔德疫情造成的总损失为10亿美元。由于伦敦再保险市场(尤其是劳合社)在为世界各地的自然灾害提供再保险方面扮演着核心角色，英国也很容易受到国外重大灾难的影响。例如，英国再保险市场在卡特里娜飓风(新奥尔良)造成的600亿美元保险损失中所占的份额，导致了2005年8月该国有记录以来最严重的贸易逆差。展望未来，到2080年，英国洪水损失可能高达220亿英镑，是今天的15倍，而预计更强大的冬季风暴将增加20%，与风相关的损失可能会大幅增加。在技术方面，H5N1疫情给英国经济带来的损失可能是GDP减少5%或更多，而一场重大核事故的总损失估计在830亿至5.4万亿之间。英国现在牢牢地处于一个国际市场中：脆弱性不仅来自英国国内的事件和趋势，也来自国外的经济和环境灾难。我们高度发达、成熟和以消费者为中心的城市社会已经变得越来越复杂。普通人、企业和公共服务依赖于相互依赖的供应链和行业的深层等级，才能以他们所做的方式运作。随着复杂性的增加，风险和脆弱性也随之增加。城市群中的人口密度以及由此带来的空间压力，在一定程度上加剧了这种脆弱性。该方案侧重于两个关键主题：可持续性和复原力。可持续性是指维持生态系统(大气、水、食物链)，同时使人类能够发展城市环境和周围腹地。复原力是一个较新的概念，涉及如何减轻环境灾害和恐怖主义的影响，包括地震和火山灾害(地震、海啸、山体滑坡)、洪水风险、疾病的传播和控制(水、空气和动物传播)、安全和对情况的认识。这包括四个关键理念：快速(协调应对措施并付诸实施的速度)、机智(拥有多种解决问题方法的重要性)、冗余性(更好地吸收灾难的影响，过度设计以防止系统组件故障)和健壮性(简单而稳健的工程：无论向它扔什么，都能建造出经得起考验的东西)。

Pressure on urban spaces is increasing year on year. At the start of the nineteenth century 3% of the world's population lived in cities, after 2007 more than 50% will do so. The trend presents us with a number of difficult challenges resulting from climate change, population growth, disease and terrorism that, if not met, forebode dreadful consequences for health, social cohesion and economic stability:How to manage and adapt our current urban space and infrastructure to cope with the loading and threats placed on and against them?How to design, engineer, expand and maintain the new class of eco-cities?How to promote these ideas to governments, industry and investment funds?The UK is vulnerable to natural and technological disasters both within its borders and elsewhere in the world. The principal natural disasters affecting the nation are windstorms and floods (both river and coastal), both of which have triggered major losses in recent years. In January 1990, damage due to Winter Storm Daria cost insurers 3.37 billion, making it the UK's most expensive weather event, while in 2007 floods inundated 48,000 homes and 7,300 businesses and cost insurers 3 billion. Biological and technological disasters also have major cost implications, with losses associated with the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak reaching 8 billion, and the total cost of the 2006 Buncefield explosion set at 1 billion. Because of the London reinsurance market's (and particularly Lloyd's) central role in reinsuring against natural catastrophes all over the world, the country is also vulnerable to major disasters abroad. For example, the UK reinsurance market's share of the US$60 billion insured losses from Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans) contributed to the country's worst trade deficit on record in August 2005. Looking ahead, by 2080, UK flood losses could be as high as 22 billion, 15 times higher than they are today, while a predicted 20 percent rise in the more powerful winter storms, could see a substantial increase in wind-related losses. On the technological front, the cost to the UK economy of an H5N1 pandemic could be a GDP reduction of five percent or more, while the total cost of a major nuclear accident has been estimated at somewhere between 83 billion and 5.4 trillion. The UK is now firmly within an international marketplace: vulnerabilities arise not only from events and trends within the UK, but also from economic and environmental disasters abroad. Our strongly developed, sophisticated and consumer-focussed urban society has become increasingly complex. Ordinary people, businesses and public services rely upon a deep hierarchy of inter-dependent supply chains and industries in order to function in the way that they do. With this increased complexity has come increased risk and vulnerability. This vulnerability is, in part, exacerbated by population density in urban conglomerations and the resultant pressure upon space. The programme focuses upon two key themes: sustainability and resilience. Sustainability addresses the maintenance of an ecological system (atmosphere, water, the food chain) whilst at the same time enabling human development of the urban environment and the surrounding hinterland. Resilience is a newer concept dealing with the issue of how to mitigate the effects of environmental disasters and terrorism, incorporating seismic and volcanic hazard (earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides), flood risk, the spread and control of disease (water, air and animal borne), security and situational awareness. This includes four key ideas: rapidity (how rapidly a response can be coordinated and put into effect), resourcefulness (the importance of having multiple ways of tackling a problem), redundancy (to better absorb the effect of disasters, over-engineering to protect against failure of system components) and robustness (simple robust engineering: building stuff that stands up irrespective of what is thrown at it.