ITS3.15/HS12.3 | Critical zone in urban areas - Characterisation of urban sprawl and its impact on the environment
EDI
Critical zone in urban areas - Characterisation of urban sprawl and its impact on the environment
Convener: Fabrice Rodriguez | Co-conveners: Wei ChenECSECS, Anaëlle Simonneau, Stefano Albanese, Boris Rewald, Zulin Zhang

In light of the continuous expansion of urban areas worldwide, coupled with the backdrop of global change, there is a pressing need to advance the sustainability of these regions. Cities are transforming to deal with this, through desealing strategies and the growing role of vegetation in the city. In urban areas, the infrastructure, facilities and buildings, are components of the critical zone which is consequently influenced by human activities and usage. These have a considerable impact on the movement and balance of water, energy and pollutants.
Among these impacts, extensive expansion of human activities has resulted in the huge demands for wide range of synthetic organic chemicals and increases their discharge into the environment. These organic chemicals, collectively termed emerging organic contaminants (EOCs). include ingredients of PPCPs, pesticides, hormones, and industrial ingredients (such as flame retardants, PFASs, and plasticizers). The extensive application and presence of EOCs in our daily consumer products and the nature of these substances results in their widespread distribution and discharge primarily to the aquatic and soil environment. As a result, they have become ubiquitously detectable and pseudo-persistent in environments across the world with the potential for accumulation in food chains.

In this session, we will examine (i) the particular biophysical processes of the urban critical zone in interactions with anthropogenic processes controlled by human activities and stakeholders, and (ii) transport, interactions and biogeochemical process of pollutants, and especially EOCs in sole surface water, groundwater and soil systems, and their interfaces.

The objective of the session is
- to offer insights into the urban critical zone, particularly those that include observations, measurements of fluxes, descriptions of biogeochemical, physical and human resilience processes, and the development of models to address these cross-cutting issues.
- to facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue in order to establish the urban critical zone as a unifying concept.
- to explore the state of the art in sampling methodologies, and lab scale, field and modelling studies for transport, interactions and biogeochemical process of EOCs between water-soil interfaces/systems, to provide a comprehensive perspective for understanding their environmental fate and behavior in the aquatic environment, for the further assessment of their potential risk.