Proposal of a Conceptual Model to Represent Urban-Industrial Systems from the Analysis of Existing Worldwide Experiences

The adoption of Industrial Symbiosis (IS) practices within urban areas is gaining interest due to the environmental impacts entailed by the development of cities. However, there is still a lack of knowledge about how the relationships between industrial and urban areas can be modelled. In this conte...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Carmen Ruiz-Puente
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021-08-01
Series:Sustainability
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/9292
Description
Summary:The adoption of Industrial Symbiosis (IS) practices within urban areas is gaining interest due to the environmental impacts entailed by the development of cities. However, there is still a lack of knowledge about how the relationships between industrial and urban areas can be modelled. In this context, this research aimed at posing a conceptual model to understand and represent Urban-Industrial Systems (UIS). To this end, a set of worldwide previous UIS experiences were overviewed to identify the agents, dynamics, and collaboration opportunities that characterize them. The multi-perspective analysis of these cases indicated that UIS are complex systems, which means that they are autonomous, self-organized, responsive, nonlinear, and willing to consolidate their resilience. As such, Agent-Based Models (ABM) were suggested to be the most suitable approach for their representation.
ISSN:2071-1050