Understanding slums: analysis of the metabolic pattern of the Vidigal favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Raul F. C. Miranda (), Carolina Grottera and Mario Giampietro
Additional contact information
Raul F. C. Miranda: COPPE, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Carolina Grottera: COPPE, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Mario Giampietro: Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA)

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2016, vol. 18, issue 5, No 3, 1297-1322

Abstract: Abstract This paper illustrates an innovative approach to characterize the metabolic pattern of informal urban settlements or slums with the aim to better understand the factors that affect the material standard of living of slum residents, the dynamics of slum development and the interaction of the slum with its wider socioeconomic context. The proposed system of accounting, multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM), integrates socioeconomic and spatial data and studies energy and monetary flows in relation to the pattern of human activities and land uses. The theoretical basis of the approach is illustrated with data from Vidigal favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In particular, we show how to construct taxonomies of accounting categories to characterize: (1) the set of activities carried out by the slum dwellers, to which to link assessments of flow rates per hour; (2) the set of land uses or spatial elements making up the slum, to which to link assessments of flow densities per hectare. The analysis of the interaction of Vidigal with its wider socioeconomic context focuses on monetary flows and transport (job commuting).

Keywords: Slum; Favela; Metabolic pattern; Commuting; Vidigal; Rio de Janeiro (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-016-9810-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:endesu:v:18:y:2016:i:5:d:10.1007_s10668-016-9810-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-016-9810-y

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().