Ecological assessment in urban comprehensive plans

In the 21st century, cities have more than ever been associated with the possibilities of business development, favourable workplaces and residence, yet there is growing concern about the environmental condition of city zones. In cities one faces similar ecological issues and some of them can be named as constant. The assessment of territorial planning document solutions is confirmed by laws; it is, however, known that urban development affects the environment; in Lithuania there is no clear system allowing one to quantitatively assess the essential ecological indicators, and the indicators themselves are not defined.

The object of the work is the ecology of city being understood as a part of general ecology. The aim of the research is to improve the quality of preparation of urban comprehensive plans, incorporating the assessment of ecology of city. The dissertation comprises Introduction, three Parts, general conclusions, the list of literature and author’s published works on the topic of the dissertation.

Part One is dedicated to investigating the primary and essential aspect of planning – to disclose the legal aspect of planning. During the analysis of literature one noticed the absence of the united European policy in terms of cities, indefiniteness of the Lithuanian territorial planning legal basis and plenty of freedom to act in the sphere of planning. In Part Two the model of ecology of city has been proposed which could be suitable for the specialists in the sphere of planning and would allow managing the fundamental issues of city ecology. The model focuses on quantitative assessment and, having regard to the impact trend, comprises the main two parts: external and inner ecology of city. Having determined that the impact of cities on the world’s ecological processes has little been investigated, the external ecology of city has been selected for deeper analysis. Referring to international agreements of legal obligation, exposure limits have been established: reduction of emissions from 8–30 %. Part Three is devoted to integration of waste management and energy sectors into the practice of planning. The emissions of the mentioned sectors are interconnected with quantitative parameters used in planning and with the aims, set in the dissertation, of emissions reduction. It has been estimated that during the validity of urban comprehensive plans the statistical person will generate such amount of municipal waste whose compensation of ecological damage requires the area of 200 m2of green plantations. In the energy sector, having applied the proposed decisions, ecological damage can not only be compensated but also lessened more than 30 %.

The proposed model concretizes the structure of ecology of city and its components, allows integrating quantitative assessment into the practice of planning.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.20334/2167-M