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Socio-environmental consideration of phosphorus flows in the urban sanitation chain of contrasting cities

Understanding how cities can transform organic waste into a valuable resource is critical to urban sustainability. The capture and recycling of phosphorus (P), and other essential nutrients, from human excreta is particularly important as an alternative organic fertilizer source for agriculture. How...

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Autores principales: Metson, Geneviève S., Powers, Steve M., Hale, Rebecca L., Sayles, Jesse S., Öberg, Gunilla, MacDonald, Graham K., Kuwayama, Yusuke, Springer, Nathaniel P., Weatherley, Anthony J., Hondula, Kelly L., Jones, Kristal, Chowdhury, Rubel B., Beusen, Arthur H. W., Bouwman, Alexander F.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6448357/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31007594
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10113-017-1257-7
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author Metson, Geneviève S.
Powers, Steve M.
Hale, Rebecca L.
Sayles, Jesse S.
Öberg, Gunilla
MacDonald, Graham K.
Kuwayama, Yusuke
Springer, Nathaniel P.
Weatherley, Anthony J.
Hondula, Kelly L.
Jones, Kristal
Chowdhury, Rubel B.
Beusen, Arthur H. W.
Bouwman, Alexander F.
author_facet Metson, Geneviève S.
Powers, Steve M.
Hale, Rebecca L.
Sayles, Jesse S.
Öberg, Gunilla
MacDonald, Graham K.
Kuwayama, Yusuke
Springer, Nathaniel P.
Weatherley, Anthony J.
Hondula, Kelly L.
Jones, Kristal
Chowdhury, Rubel B.
Beusen, Arthur H. W.
Bouwman, Alexander F.
author_sort Metson, Geneviève S.
collection PubMed
description Understanding how cities can transform organic waste into a valuable resource is critical to urban sustainability. The capture and recycling of phosphorus (P), and other essential nutrients, from human excreta is particularly important as an alternative organic fertilizer source for agriculture. However, the complex set of socio-environmental factors influencing urban human excreta management is not yet sufficiently integrated into sustainable P research. Here, we synthesize information about the pathways P can take through urban sanitation systems along with barriers and facilitators to P recycling across cities. We examine five case study cities by using a sanitation chains approach: Accra, Ghana; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Beijing, China; Baltimore, USA; and London, England. Our cross-city comparison shows that London and Baltimore recycle a larger percentage of P from human excreta back to agricultural lands than other cities, and that there is a large diversity in socio-environmental factors that affect the patterns of recycling observed across cities. Our research highlights conditions that may be “necessary but not sufficient” for P recycling, including access to capital resources. Path dependencies of large sanitation infrastructure investments in the Global North contrast with rapidly urbanizing cities in the Global South, which present opportunities for alternative sanitation development pathways. Understanding such city-specific social and environmental barriers to P recycling options could help address multiple interacting societal objectives related to sanitation and provide options for satisfying global agricultural nutrient demand. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10113-017-1257-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-64483572019-04-17 Socio-environmental consideration of phosphorus flows in the urban sanitation chain of contrasting cities Metson, Geneviève S. Powers, Steve M. Hale, Rebecca L. Sayles, Jesse S. Öberg, Gunilla MacDonald, Graham K. Kuwayama, Yusuke Springer, Nathaniel P. Weatherley, Anthony J. Hondula, Kelly L. Jones, Kristal Chowdhury, Rubel B. Beusen, Arthur H. W. Bouwman, Alexander F. Reg Environ Change Original Article Understanding how cities can transform organic waste into a valuable resource is critical to urban sustainability. The capture and recycling of phosphorus (P), and other essential nutrients, from human excreta is particularly important as an alternative organic fertilizer source for agriculture. However, the complex set of socio-environmental factors influencing urban human excreta management is not yet sufficiently integrated into sustainable P research. Here, we synthesize information about the pathways P can take through urban sanitation systems along with barriers and facilitators to P recycling across cities. We examine five case study cities by using a sanitation chains approach: Accra, Ghana; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Beijing, China; Baltimore, USA; and London, England. Our cross-city comparison shows that London and Baltimore recycle a larger percentage of P from human excreta back to agricultural lands than other cities, and that there is a large diversity in socio-environmental factors that affect the patterns of recycling observed across cities. Our research highlights conditions that may be “necessary but not sufficient” for P recycling, including access to capital resources. Path dependencies of large sanitation infrastructure investments in the Global North contrast with rapidly urbanizing cities in the Global South, which present opportunities for alternative sanitation development pathways. Understanding such city-specific social and environmental barriers to P recycling options could help address multiple interacting societal objectives related to sanitation and provide options for satisfying global agricultural nutrient demand. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10113-017-1257-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2017-12-19 2018 /pmc/articles/PMC6448357/ /pubmed/31007594 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10113-017-1257-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Original Article
Metson, Geneviève S.
Powers, Steve M.
Hale, Rebecca L.
Sayles, Jesse S.
Öberg, Gunilla
MacDonald, Graham K.
Kuwayama, Yusuke
Springer, Nathaniel P.
Weatherley, Anthony J.
Hondula, Kelly L.
Jones, Kristal
Chowdhury, Rubel B.
Beusen, Arthur H. W.
Bouwman, Alexander F.
Socio-environmental consideration of phosphorus flows in the urban sanitation chain of contrasting cities
title Socio-environmental consideration of phosphorus flows in the urban sanitation chain of contrasting cities
title_full Socio-environmental consideration of phosphorus flows in the urban sanitation chain of contrasting cities
title_fullStr Socio-environmental consideration of phosphorus flows in the urban sanitation chain of contrasting cities
title_full_unstemmed Socio-environmental consideration of phosphorus flows in the urban sanitation chain of contrasting cities
title_short Socio-environmental consideration of phosphorus flows in the urban sanitation chain of contrasting cities
title_sort socio-environmental consideration of phosphorus flows in the urban sanitation chain of contrasting cities
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6448357/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31007594
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10113-017-1257-7
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