Short Report: The River City 2050

Hello everyone,
Here is our short report 'The River City 2050'.
Thank you to everybody involved in this case study process and we hope to see you in the final presentations!
- Case Study 2010 project members
/posted by Tohori Tsuchiya

Week 8: The Week of Handels

21st of May 2010
Anders Smith
Emma Josefson

This week has been quite different from the other ones. First of all, we gave up our 'home' at GVC for a week moving to Handels. It has also been a week of individual work since commencing our chapters for the upcomming anthology. The short report The River City 2050 is almost finished and next week the printing will start!

Today, we had the traditional Fredagsfika where Anders treated all to a Strawberry R0ller cAke^ whilst Emma tried to impress with a sweet Apple Cak3^. Anders' cake won the poll 2-1... The week was summed up and all seemed to be pleased with the week's work, but missed our class room and coffee maker at GVC. So next week we'll be back and the tasks of preparing for not less than three presentations during the last week will be looked into. The anthology chapters are also to be finished and put together, but with two weeks left we're confident we'll make it in style!
//sM1th0^ & 3M0^
(Anders & Emma), chair wo/men week 8

Scenarios, Meetings and Parties

Samira Heshmatzadeh

Jonas Wilson

Week 6 : Scenario processing

Chairpersons’ report

Monday the 3th of May

The week we had in front of us was kind of hard and packed week since the second reference meeting was included and also the three scenarios should have been finished. As chairpersons, me and Jonas tried to make a schedule for the whole week and give the members their tasks for the entire week. From the morning meeting the reference group gathered together and discussed the structure of the meeting. They decided to have one paper with a short description of each scenario as a handout for the reference meeting. After that the whole idea were discussed in the class and then the scenario groups started their work for the whole day keeping the deadline of 5 pages of PowerPoint and also 15 bullet point for the reference meeting by the end of Tuesday.

My sustainable friends have also surprised me by giving me a very nice purple well-smelling flower for my Birthday ;)

Tuesday the 4th of May

We started our meeting by celebrating Jonas Birthday.

After that we explained the schedule which me and Jonas had made the day before. So by having this schedule everyone was clear with their task for the whole week. All groups started their work direct after eating a very tasty birthday cake which had been made by me J. At the end of the day all groups submitted their part for reference meeting and we decided about what other should do on Wednesday since some of us should have attend the reference meeting the other took the responsibility of revising the project aim, sustainable development definition and background and also we agreed on that each group should prepare some feedback on other scenarios.

Wednesday 5th of May

This Wednesday was kind of busy day for me. I was one of the reference group meeting and also a chairlady which I was responsible for the project and reference meeting simultaneously. The reference meeting group; Samira, Adelina, Rita, Riffat, Nining and Islam, started the work by the first minuets of the day and we didn’t have lunch either. So the reference meeting was started at 13 pm directly.  The stockholders introduced themselves as well as the students. Per joined us as one of the project advisors. The meeting was held perfectly and we got a very nice idea and comments from them.

After meeting we came back to the whole group and we started with Emma’s birthday, celebrating it with another perfect cake baked by me ;)

After the short celebration, we discuss the  feedback from the stockholders as well as the scenario groups. After the school we all went to Jonas place and celebrate his birthday once more.

Thursday 6th of May

As we thought we need to change or kind of restructuring our scenarios putting stockholder’s opinion into it, me and Jonas came 8 am to school and started to brain storm the new structure for our scenarios. Per joined us 8:50 and he gave us some perfect idea which we share it later in the class. Also we discussed the editors’ task and talked about the anthology and how students should participate on that.  So the scenario goal keepers gathered together and brought a good idea, then we started our work and it took the whole day.

Friday 7th of May

From the beginning, me and Jonas decided not to have a fika since we should have finished our 6 pages text by Monday.  So from the start of the day after a very short meeting, all groups started to work hard on their scenarios. Some of them continued during the lunch as well. So by the end of the day all groups submitted their text on Gmail documents and we didn’t have fika which made me a bit sad because I was looking forward for this meeting to get feedback on my work. Any way we had a new version of fika which Jonas bought some cookies and we had kind of working fika.

Personally, I thought the week was kind of productive week in which we finally started writing the short report and as I talked to some of the students, they said that finally we wrote the text for report. So for me the serious part of the course starts in this week. So good luck for the project and of course for the next week chairman who is Nam and he take the responsibility of chairman alone.

Sustainable Development Definition

Since being introduced in the Brundtland report in 1987, sustainable development has been acknowledged as one of the most important issues of our time. However, broad consensus regarding how the concept should be defined and the relation between different dimensions needed for a sustainable development is yet to be achieved.

For the sake of our project, we believe that sustainable development is a process based on equity and equality, to create and hand down a society that enhances a good quality of life, in which economy is just used as a mean to accomplish this. All actions are confined on the limitations provided by ecological boundaries.

This way of visioning sustainable development have guided our work with the scenarios since all three of them must meet the demands in the definition in order to be sustainable. When evaluating the scenarios, a number of conditions which contribute to a good quality of life have been considered.

  • A long and healthy life; can be measured by the Life Expectancy rate in Human Development Index (HDI).
  • Knowledge level; can be measured by the Education Level in HDI.
  • A decent standard of living; can be measured by the Nutrition level, 2100 kcal/day.
  • An equal society; can be measured by the Gini Coefficient.
  • Good neighborhood cohesion; can be measured by quantity and quality of interaction among neighbors.

In order to keep the development of the riverside within ecological boundaries, the following measurements are considered:

  • Ecological footprint
  • Carbon footprint
  • Water footprint
  • Eutrophication
  • Biodiversity protection
For more detailed information about the sustainable development definition and the measurements of it, see the Anthology.
Sustainable Development Definition Group
Jonas, Adit, Tohori, Quy, Rita

Invitation to the second reference meeting 5 May 2010

Currently we are in the phase of scenario construction of the Gothenburg rivercity.
We have three scenario:
1. River Community
2. Göta Spirit
3. TechKnowledgy
Therefore, we invite you all for attending the reference meeting where we can discuss more about the strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats of each scenario. 

The meeting will be held at Wednesday, 5 May 2010,

Geovetarcentrum Gothenburg University,
Guldshedsgatan 5A (Wavrinsky Plats Hallplats)
Kl.13-15,
Room Tronben, Floor 4

Thank you for your cooperation and hope to see you soon.
Project Management for Sustainable Development
========

SWOT of the River Area

To begin with the project we compile SWOT analysis of the river area from three source:

1. Ourselves

2. Stakeholders through phone and direct interview

3. Stakeholders through reference meeting.

To these three cluster of source, we pose several question such as;

1. What is your connection to the river area? How do you use it?

2. What is good about the river area today?

3. Do you see any problems in the river area?

4. How would you like the area to develop in the future?

5. What are the challenges you may face in the future?

6. How is the present transport system working for your company?

7. Do you profit from the river, economically?

8.  Do you see any environmental concerns in the river area? Today or in the future? In what way are you or might you be affected?

9.  Are there any social concerns? Education, health, integration…

 

After getting the data; we compile and summarize the SWOT as below;

 

Strengths

- The Water

- Harbor

- Exporting industries

- Road resources

- Local competence, knowledge city.

- Tourism

- Gothenburg spirit in terms of society/social attractiveness

 

Weaknesses

- Inefficient use of land (industries)

- Inaccessibility to the river

- Traffic and transport infrastructure

- governance issues (flexibiliy, participation, lack of coherence with comprehensive and detailed plan)

- Poor connection between the riversides

- Social exclusion

- Water quality

- high per capita footprint (eco, CO2, water)

- badly mixed urban structue (activities, people)

- Pollution

 

 

Opportunities

- Space for development

- Developing public transportations/infrastructure and new modes

- Renovate -sustainablizing of million project

- Renewable energy/fuel (local production)

- Urban agriculture

- eco tourism

- Waste management,

- Strengthen the Gothenburg spirit

- Use of Knowledge

 

Threats

- Climate change (Sea Level Rise)

- Landslides

- segregation

- Risk of industry accidents

- vulnerable fresh water supplies

- Energy dependency (peak oil)

- Loss of biodiversity


Furthermore we squeeze those SWOT into four important aspect we need to prioritize with;
1. Mitigation and Adaptation of Climate Change (Sea Level Rise)
2. Resource issues (regarding peak oil and alternative renewable energy)
3. Transportation
4. Social concern
Currently we are in the process of scenario construction that deal with those four aspects and also bearing in mind of the interview results.
Posted by Aditya Muharam

The Bill - short film - Germanwatch

One of the three winners of the Germanwatch screenplay competition about Climate Justice. In this four-minute movie produced by Peter Wedel the CO2 intensive lifestyle of an urban dweller (played by Benno Fürmann) is put in contrast to the people in developing countries which are affected most by Climate Change. Further information on this topic:
www.germanwatch.org

This short film was recently nominated for the Viral Video Awards and has been presented at the Annual Conference of the German Council for Sustainable Development in Berlin.
Posted by Aditya Muharam and Tohori Tsuchiya

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