Urban Metabolism and Sustainable Cities Research Group

The Research Program on Urban Metabolism and Sustainable Cities is based at the IN+, a multidisciplinary center linking basic and applied research to technology development, and focused on the issues of sustainability, namely in terms of the needs to secure the quality of the environment, together with the management of energy resources and the economic development. The main goals of the UMSC prog

ram consist on strengthening knowledge about the drivers of cities' metabolism, support sustainable management of urban-driven flows and defining policies for urban sustainable management. For this purpose, it is intended to develop a multidisciplinary assessment of the urban area, including impacts of energy and materials use, energy generation within the city, urban spaces outdoors’ quality and issues of materials sustainability, namely life cycle assessment and pollution. The program aims at providing appropriate tools and methods for managing over space and time scales, integrate biophysical and social components, adapt and deal effectively with uncertainty, visualize and identify planning problems and work to identify trade-offs and synergies in undertaking interventions.