Calculating the Demand for Food, Energy, and Water in the Spatial Perspective

Diverse spatial patterns of cities, to a large extent, reflect the quality of life of an area’s inhabitants and the correspondent environmental load their lifestyles impose. This study aims to develop a method to express a design baseline that enables the quantitative evaluation and comparison of the demand and supply of food, energy, and water (FEW), as well as their contribution to environmental load with regard to FEW at the city block level. The demand for and consumption of FEW associated with residences are strongly influenced by household type. The potential production and supply of FEW for a given household are mostly determined by the capacity to install solar panels and home gardens, which are themselves strongly determined by building forms and land use. Therefore, the baseline of a city block for FEW demand and supply can be assessed by identifying household types and building forms. This method was applied to the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area as a case study. This knowledge is helpful to identify the starting point for urban planning and design aimed at zero-carbon emissions and other forms of sustainable urbanism.