Matching Items (3)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Mexico City
- All Subjects: climate change impact
- Creators: Georgescu, Matei
- Creators: Eakin, Hallie C.
Description
Protest has been both a practice of citizenship rights as well as a means of social pressure for change in the context of Mexico City's water system. This paper explores the role that citizen protest plays in the city's response to its water challenges. We use media reports of water protests to examine where protests happen and the causes associated with them. We analyze this information to illuminate socio-political issues associated with the city's water problems, such as political corruption, gentrification, as well as general power dynamics and lack of transparency between citizens, governments, and the private businesses which interact with them. We use text analysis of newspaper reports to analyze protest events in terms of the primary stimuli of water conflict, the areas within the city more prone to conflict, and the ways in which conflict and protest are used to initiate improved water management and to influence decision making to address water inequities. We found that water scarcity is the primary source of conflict, and that water scarcity is tied to new housing and commercial construction. These new constructions often disrupt water supplies and displace of minority or marginalized groups, which we denote as gentrification. The project demonstrates the intimate ties between inequities in housing and water in urban development. Key words: Conflict, protest, Mexico City, scarcity, new construction
ContributorsFlores, Shalae Alena (Author) / Eakin, Hallie C. (Thesis director) / Baeza-Castro, Andres (Committee member) / Lara-Valencia, Francisco (Committee member) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Urbanization, a direct consequence of land use and land cover change, is responsible for significant modification of local to regional scale climates. It is projected that the greatest urban growth of this century will occur in urban areas in the developing world. In addition, there is a significant research gap in emerging nations concerning this topic. Thus, this research focuses on the assessment of climate impacts related to urbanization on the largest metropolitan area in Latin America: Mexico City.
Numerical simulations using a state-of-the-science regional climate model are utilized to address a trio of scientifically relevant questions with wide global applicability. The importance of an accurate representation of land use and land cover is first demonstrated through comparison of numerical simulations against observations. Second, the simulated effect of anthropogenic heating is quantified. Lastly, numerical simulations are performed using pre-historic scenarios of land use and land cover to examine and quantify the impact of Mexico City's urban expansion and changes in surface water features on its regional climate.
Numerical simulations using a state-of-the-science regional climate model are utilized to address a trio of scientifically relevant questions with wide global applicability. The importance of an accurate representation of land use and land cover is first demonstrated through comparison of numerical simulations against observations. Second, the simulated effect of anthropogenic heating is quantified. Lastly, numerical simulations are performed using pre-historic scenarios of land use and land cover to examine and quantify the impact of Mexico City's urban expansion and changes in surface water features on its regional climate.
ContributorsBenson-Lira, Valeria (Author) / Georgescu, Matei (Thesis advisor) / Brazel, Anthony (Committee member) / Vivoni, Enrique (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Energy consumption in buildings, accounting for 41% of 2010 primary energy consumption in the United States (US), is particularly vulnerable to climate change due to the direct relationship between space heating/cooling and temperature. Past studies have assessed the impact of climate change on long-term mean and/or peak energy demands. However, these studies usually neglected spatial variations in the “balance point” temperature, population distribution effects, air-conditioner (AC) saturation, and the extremes at smaller spatiotemporal scales, making the implications of local-scale vulnerability incomplete. Here I develop empirical relationships between building energy consumption and temperature to explore the impact of climate change on long-term mean and extremes of energy demand, and test the sensitivity of these impacts to various factors. I find increases in summertime electricity demand exceeding 50% and decreases in wintertime non-electric energy demand of more than 40% in some states by the end of the century. The occurrence of the most extreme (appearing once-per-56-years) electricity demand increases more than 2600 fold, while the occurrence of the once per year extreme events increases more than 70 fold by the end of this century. If the changes in population and AC saturation are also accounted for, the impact of climate change on building energy demand will be exacerbated.
Using the individual building energy simulation approach, I also estimate the impact of climate change to different building types at over 900 US locations. Large increases in building energy consumption are found in the summer, especially during the daytime (e.g., >100% increase for warehouses, 5-6 pm). Large variation of impact is also found within climate zones, suggesting a potential bias when estimating climate-zone scale changes with a small number of representative locations.
As a result of climate change, the building energy expenditures increase in some states (as much as $3 billion/year) while in others, costs decline (as much as $1.4 billion/year). Integrated across the contiguous US, these variations result in a net savings of roughly $4.7 billion/year. However, this must be weighed against the cost (exceeding $19 billion) of adding electricity generation capacity in order to maintain the electricity grid’s reliability in summer.
Using the individual building energy simulation approach, I also estimate the impact of climate change to different building types at over 900 US locations. Large increases in building energy consumption are found in the summer, especially during the daytime (e.g., >100% increase for warehouses, 5-6 pm). Large variation of impact is also found within climate zones, suggesting a potential bias when estimating climate-zone scale changes with a small number of representative locations.
As a result of climate change, the building energy expenditures increase in some states (as much as $3 billion/year) while in others, costs decline (as much as $1.4 billion/year). Integrated across the contiguous US, these variations result in a net savings of roughly $4.7 billion/year. However, this must be weighed against the cost (exceeding $19 billion) of adding electricity generation capacity in order to maintain the electricity grid’s reliability in summer.
ContributorsHuang, Jianhua (Author) / Gurney, Kevin Robert (Thesis advisor) / Miller, Clark Anson (Committee member) / Rey, Sergio J (Committee member) / Georgescu, Matei (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016