Desert reclamation, a management system for sustainable urban expansion

Urbanisation is occurring at an unprecedented scale worldwide, with developing countries claiming the biggest share. Developing countries are increasingly facing enormous pressures to manage their urban and rural areas challenged by limited resources, exploding numbers of population and rising expectations for a higher quality of life. Sustainability is central to the management of existing and newly developed areas. It can offer a comprehensive discourse for understanding the functioning of cities and their hinterlands, with an aim to achieve a balance between environmental, economic and social issues for current and future generations. Managing the urbanization of newly developed areas requires innovative thinking and an ability to predict and evaluate the impacts of possible futures. As the new map of Egypt is redrawn and much hope lies on the development of its deserts constituting 95% of the total land area, an efficient process of directing and facilitating urban development is urgently required. This paper presents an Urban Sustainable Management System (USMS) using the process of Integrated Assessment to assess three possible development scenarios based on different economic bases for new developments on desert reclaimed land. Indicators of a quantitative and qualitative nature are used to describe environmental, social and economic capitals of three scenarios as well as setting targets towards the aim of sustainability. Pressure points hindering the sustainable development of reclaimed land are drawn under the three different scenarios. The USMS provides an urban management system that overcomes difficulties of data availability, combines interdisciplinary knowledge and deals with uncertainties of future developments; struggles decisionmakers confront across the divide but more so in developing countries.

► The paper provides an Urban Sustainable Management System for new developments on desert reclaimed land in Egypt.
► Similar areas in the South can find the targets and methodology useful because of the identifiable measures and transparent method of reasoning and informed judgement.
► The USMS has contributed to the paradigm of sustainable urban management in three significant ways. (1) It has provided a consistent set of indicators, prioritised according to settlers’ needs and local issues. (2) It has overcome data unavailability by using comparable national, international and local figures. It has overcome the obstacle of knowledge sharing by collating and synthesizing different forms of knowledge (expert, sectoral and tacit). Using scenarios creatively and varying the economic base is a departure from other studies. (3) The USMS not only measures, it provides an evaluative framework, implements it and engages with questions of sustainable levels and values.
► When applying the USMS to the study region the magnitude of the pressure points was far greater than expected, providing valuable information for decision makers.
► The low priority accorded to the environment is clear under any economic base, where the economic dimension is the most influential.
► The concept of urban sustainability in a southern context remains relatively vague. The study shows that provision of basic needs, equitable distribution of resources, and the priority accorded to the economic dimension largely shape the understanding of sustainability.