Zero-Pollution Infrastructure – Implications for water and land use planning

The seminar Zero-Pollution Infrastructure – Implications for water and land use planning, jointly organised by the Ministry of Housing, Community and Local Government (MHCLG) and DEFRA, was an occasion to discuss systems modelling approaches for integrated land use planning and sustainable water management. This modelling is based on a systems approach to infrastructure, which identifies complex modelling, systems integration and net-zero thinking as key research themes that can improve our understanding of the environmental impacts and multifunctionality of infrastructure interventions and operational decisions.

The seminar was opened by Professor Alan Penn, Chief Scientific Advisor, MHCLG, who welcomed participants explaining that this specific event was part of a series of events aimed at shaping policy. He added that systems thinking is key in this context. He then introduced Dr Ana Mijic, Centre for Systems Engineering and Innovation (CSEI) Co-Director and keynote speaker.

Dr Mijic started her talk by presenting the systems thinking around zero pollution that CSEI has developed to tackle the multiple challenges we face, specifically:

• Climate crises and environmental degradation.
• The role of infrastructure for human flourishing and managing natural environment.
• The role of system use, operation and evidence-based decision-making.

 These challenges need researchers to answer the following questions:

• How do we envision future built-natural environment systems?
• How do we evaluate the performance of our existing systems and redesign them in the context of the future vision?
• How do we integrate decisions on how to regulate, operate, design and build for the future using systems approaches?

Dr Mijic then moved on to discuss water systems and their links to people and the environment more specifically, explaining that we need a holistic approach with the natural system setting the boundaries. H talk focused on the following key ideas:  

• ‘Zero-pollution infrastructure’ (ZPI) is an adaptive system of systems intrinsically linked to people and the natural environment
• This holistic systems view will help to:

– better understand and offset its environmental impacts
– improve resilience through operation and regulation
– set development goals within the capacity of natural systems

• The application of ZPI to water systems and land planning through the concept of Systems Water Management (SYWM)

The presentation was followed by a lively Q&A session which touched upon many interrelated topics, such as:

• How to evaluate the performance of existing systems in order to improve them and future systems.
• The transferability of models.
• The value of bringing systems thinking as close as possible to stakeholders.
• The link between water and systems thinking and the link between water and land use.
• The role of governance in relation to systems.

To close, Dr Mijic reminded participants that water quality is an excellent indicator when it comes to systems as it can inform what will be happening on the land. She also reminded participants to always beware of unintended consequences.

At a time of system shocks, significant underlying challenges are revealed in current approaches to delivering infrastructure: these include the need for holistic assessment and that infrastructure users in some societies feel distant from nature. In response to these challenges, we advocate for an approach that sees the natural environment as all pervasive, where the built infrastructure is inseparable from it and an adaptation of the natural environment to suit societal needs, using its materials and resources. We refer to this concept as the Infrastructure-Environment Nexus. 

The concept of Infrastructure-Environment Nexus in the context of water management can help us address two long-standing scientific and practical challenges of broadening the scope of water management from an engineering to a sociotechnical process: (1) integrated assessment and (2) collaborative decisions. In cities, the biggest challenge for future water planning is the impact of housing development on water sustainability. The concept of water neutrality holistically addresses this challenge as it promotes developments designed to offset adverse impacts on water resources, water quality and flood risk by promoting solutions such as water efficiency and green infrastructure. Current state-of-the-art approaches to strategic land use planning are based on spatial optimisation or indicator-based assessments. These approaches, however, cannot assess feedbacks between water and land use systems (e.g., impact of housing on water quality and implications for wider ecosystems), which have to be evaluated to develop truly water neutral solutions. Tools that can deliver holistic water neutral planning are still to be developed.

CSEI is looking more closely at sustainable ways of delivering infrastructure which is seen as a system of systems. Specifically, the aim is to bring Systems Engineering and Innovation to Civil Infrastructure through changing how cross-sector infrastructure challenges are addressed in an integrated way using principles of systems engineering to maximise resilience, safety and sustainability in an increasingly complex world.

Check our website and our newly launched report for more details on our ambitious research programme into innovative ways to achieve sustainable and environmentally positive infrastructure. 

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For more information or to get involved in our research contact Jeni Giambona, j.giambona@imperial.ac.uk.