RECAST Urumqi – Promoting Sustainable Megacity Development through material-efficient management
The objective of the transdisciplinary project under the umbrella of the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) was to develop strategies and tools for the sustainable development of a rapidly expanding metropolis in arid central Asia (Urumqi/NW China), so as to promote and guarantee current and future quality of life in this urban area. To reach this goal, key agents from the fields of research and local administrations as well as business cooperate closely within the project.
The main focal points of the project are directed at the ecologically sensitive and closely interrelated core cycles water, materials and energy. The project is therefore divided into three core cycles: energy, water resource, and material resource efficiency. The core cycle ‘materials’ was handled by IUWA Heidelberg in cooperation with Chinese partners from Urumqi. The focus here is on researching the largest industrial park in western China with its material flows and its potential for industrial symbiosis, on increasing material efficiency and promoting sustainable industrial waste management by developing and implementing a waste management software with standardized classifications of waste substances, as well as on related measures to build up expertise and capacities.
Surveys of relevant actors from companies, authorities and households on the topics of waste, energy, water, and in general on environmental knowledge or environmental education and their evaluation are also the subject of our extensive work on site.
Further Information can be found here