Elsevier

Building and Environment

Volume 47, January 2012, Pages 272-287
Building and Environment

Combining system dynamics model, GIS and 3D visualization in sustainability assessment of urban residential development

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2011.07.012Get rights and content

Abstract

Constructing and improving urban residential areas is an eternal critical subject in the process of the whole urban development which is connected with a series of challenges and problems. During the past decades, urban residential development has speed up extremely with massive population mobility in cities. The purpose of this study is to propose an integrated approach for sustainability assessment of urban residential development, considering sustainability indicators, housing equilibrium and building visualization. Firstly based on merging DPSIR (Driving Forces, Pressure, State, Impact and Response) framework and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), the indicators were systematized for the sustainability modeling. Due to the urban activities cause impacts not only on local level but also a broader scale, a simulation model, using System Dynamics (SD) methodology, was structured to quantitatively investigate the developmental tendency of the indicators. And then the estimated results were displayed in 2D density maps in ArcGIS and 3D visualization in CityEngine. A real case study was presented for the Stuttgart Region of the state of Baden-Württemberg in Southern Germany and its Plieningen district to experience the usefulness and feasibility of the developed approach. The integration of GIS, SD model and 3D visualization, called GISSD system here, can better explain the interaction and the variation of the sustainability indicators for residential development. Hence it is able to support the Decision Maker to view the sustainable level of urban residential areas more comprehensively.

Highlights

► We integrate System Dynamics and GIS in a study of urban residential development. ► We forecast the future development of the sustainability indicators using SD model. ► 2D density maps and 3D views are created based on the geographic data and SD results. ► We simulate the future spatial distribution of residential buildings in urban areas. ► The methodology assists evaluation of residential development both in time and space.

Introduction

Sustainability is a multi-dimensional concept that takes into account different elements of territorial development, such as economic growth, well-being of population, environmental quality, etc [1]. Since the early ‘90s many countries and international organizations have been working on sustainable development assessment by means of specific indicators [2], [3], [4]. With specific reference to urban areas, the indicator approach is useful to give information about the sustainability condition of the system under examination and it can be used in order to make previsions about future sustainably trends [5], [6], [7]. Urban residential areas, facing restriction by social-economic level, environmental pressure, population pressure and traffic pressure, etc, also attract growing attentions nowadays as an important component of sustainability study. This is of particular importance in the context of emerging countries, where large urban development are going on very quickly and the necessity of tools being able to predict the future sustainability levels is real.

This paper proposes an integrated GISSD analysis system (GISSD) mainly consisting of Geographical Information System (GIS) analysis, System Dynamics (SD) model and 3D visualization. GISSD system covers sustainability assessment of urban residential development and spatial distribution analysis of residential buildings based on sustainability indicators categorized in four groups, namely housing, society, economics and environment. The GISSD approach is characterized by three main advantages: (a) its capacity to explore the housing equilibrium utilizing sustainability indicators. (b) its economic-social-environmental features especially on residential buildings. (c) the visualization of the simulation data in GIS technology.

System Dynamics is a realistic tool for sustainability assessment, utilized to better understand the sustainable development in a considered period and forecast the future trends, while GIS provides a consistent visualization environment for displaying the input data and results of a model which is a very useful ability in a decision-making process. Although this is a hard task to forecast the future evolution for assisting policy makers due to the hypercomplexity of the systems, it is necessary to provide the decision makers with assessments regarding the future [8]. In the context of housing supply as the connection between the two different methods GIS and SD, the paper attempts to provide a tool that is able to inform the Decision Maker on whether residential urban areas develop sustainably or not, and provide more information about housing equilibrium.

After the introduction, the structure of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 briefly introduces the structure of GISSD system and review the general application of System Dynamics (SD), GIS and 3D visualization. Section 3 describes the characteristics of study area – Stuttgart Region in the state of Baden-Württemberg in Germany and its Plieningen district, and lists the related investigation data and statistic data used in this paper. Section 4 firstly illustrates the main sustainability indicator systems that are available in the context of residential urban areas, and then describes details of the integration between SD model and GIS-based analysis in the GISSD system. Section 5 discusses the results of the application performed containing the main conclusions derived from the work done.

Section snippets

Methods and approaches

Although Sustainable Development might seem to be entirely unconnected to mathematical reasoning and ignorant of the quantitative results within its scale at first sight, the growing concern for environmental issues and the goal of sustainable development have moved the relationship between sustainable development and mathematics to the forefront of the sustainability study. Actually many important mathematical approaches have already been popularly applied in the related field for a long time.

Study area and data

The Stuttgart Region, as one of the four administrative regions (Regierungsbezirke) of the state, is located in the north-east of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is sub-divided into the three regions Heilbronn-Franken, Ostwürttemberg, Stuttgart, among which Stuttgart is the capital city of the state of Baden-Württemberg and the sixth-largest city in Germany with a total of 23 city districts, 5 inner districts and 18 outer districts. The population of the Stuttgart Region rose from

Sustainability indicators selection in DPSIR framework

An indicator is a parameter which is associated with an environmental phenomenon, which can provide information on the characteristics of the event in its global form [3].

Many indicators are available for sustainable development assessment. Among the several indicator systems, mention can be made to the following three indicator sets related to international and European organizations that work in the field of sustainable development.

  • The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

Conclusion

Residential development, from the small to the large, all make a long-term impact on our communities and the surrounding environment. With the majority of new residential buildings and houses to be built in urban areas, it is extremely important to achieve residential development in a sustainable way. The main contribution of this study is the GISSD application. System Dynamics was applied to construct a sustainability model for urban residential development and then integrated with GIS

Acknowledgement

This study was partly supported by SCUOLA INTERPOLITECNICA DI DOTTORATO (SIPD) a special project whereby the three Italian Technical Universities, the Polytechnic of Torino (coordinator of the project), the Polytechnic of Bari and the Polytechnic of Milano (2010–2011).

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