CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

In the next 10 years, cities will house 60% of the world´s population, where in agro-urban frontier territories,mainly in semiarid regions, problems associated with land use and water distribution will arise. Therefore, amodel of growth that contemplates the lowest use of resources must be proposed. The aimof this study is to determinethe environmental impact of the use of resources in agro-services frontier territories of semiarid regionsin three urban growth scenarios, linear and circular systems. The study is focused on Luján de Cuyo in Mendoza,Argentina. Through a life cycle assessment, environmental performance was evaluated for the current scenarioand the three proposed ones. In addition, an ecoefficiency analysis was performed in relation to climate changeand water consumption and the cost of surface uses, as well as an assessment according to themultifunctionalityof surface use. Scenario 1 is a linear diffuse urban system, scenario 2 a circularwater agro-urban system, and scenario2 green plus energy a circular water and energy agro-urban system. The outcomes illustrate that scenario 2green plus energy has the least environmental impacts. Compared to the linear scenario, both circular scenariosshow a substantial reduction in water consumption (38?40%) and marine eutrophication (32?47%) and curtailfreshwater eutrophication impacts. Furthermore, household energy impacts are reduced by 39% in scenario 2green plus energy with photovoltaic panel implementation, and maximum ecoefficiency in response to climatechange is reached. Additionally, the impacts of scenario 2 green plus energy are more than 42% less than thoseof scenario 1 in terms of the multifunctionality of surface use. This study shows that it is possible to achievemore sustainable semiarid urban frontier territories with local water and regional energy circularity

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