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Urban Planning Opportunities in the Changing State of Utah’s Natural Resources

Urban Planning Opportunities in the Changing State of Utah’s Natural Resources. Prof. Philip C. Emmi Department of City & Metropolitan Planning University of Utah ------ Utah Chapter, American Planning Association Conference Salt Lake City, October 6, 2012. Three Questions to be Addressed.

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Urban Planning Opportunities in the Changing State of Utah’s Natural Resources

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  1. Urban Planning Opportunities in the Changing State ofUtah’s Natural Resources Prof. Philip C. Emmi Department of City & Metropolitan Planning University of Utah ------ Utah Chapter, American Planning Association Conference Salt Lake City, October 6, 2012

  2. Three Questions to be Addressed • Where does it seem we are headed? • What limits are we likely to encounter along the way? • And what opportunities do these trajectories open to the practice of urban planning?

  3. Trajectories and Constraints • Demographic trends • Changing climate resources • Changing land use • Energy resources

  4. A New Look at Demographic Projections • We look at projections to 2060 for the State of Utah and its 4 most urban counties. • Current projections show a declining rate of growth • This implies a distant future when net growth is zero. • When is this implied to occur? • What are the implied peak populations? • For Utah • For its 4 most urban counties

  5. Realism and Constraints • Current projections shape the future we are now preparing to construct over the next 50 years. • Does this future have a realistic long-term outcome? • Will natural resources be sufficient to carry us along?

  6. Implied: Population levels reach a maximum of about 7.5 million in about 2.5 centuries Implied: Growth rate reaches zero In about 2.5 centuries

  7. So, we’ve arrived at a new perspective from which to consider the path current projections prepares us for. Does this suggest a confrontation with resource constraints? --------------------------------- Tough question! Let’s look at what we know

  8. Utah’s Climate Resources • Temperature • Long-term trend • Cooling degree days • Precipitation • Long term trend • Variation in precipitation • Drought • Palmer drought index

  9. Utah Temperature 60-month moving average A 2.1° F increase per century is the 2nd highest among Intermountain states

  10. A 2.5% increase per decade implies a similar increase in electricity demand for residential and commercial cooling

  11. Utah Precipitation 60-month moving average Precipitation is increasing with limited reliability at about 11% per century

  12. Variation in precipitation is increasing. What happens year-to-year is less stable. This is bad news for flooding, plowing and planting.

  13. There is no obvious trend in drought intensity, but ...

  14. But the intensity of droughts varies cyclically and with increased variation. This means the intensity of dry periods and wet periods has been increasing.

  15. Changing Land Use • Trends in cropland acres • And in irrigated cropland • Other selected land use trends • Trends in wetland habitat

  16. Threatened Farmland, 2002

  17. Desertification Vulnerability USDA, Soil Survey Division

  18. Permitted Animal Unit Months (AUMS) of Grazing on BLM Land, Utah, 1940-2006 Cows & Horses Sheep & Goats

  19. Almost 30 percent of America’s bird species are in “significant decline,” a situation that signals seriously degraded environmental conditions in the habitats these birds call home. “State of the Birds” Report, 2004 Source: Audubon Society

  20. Utah’s Traditional Energy Resources • Coal • Crude oil • Natural gas • Electricity transmission

  21. Electricity Transmission Providers Reach to all Statesof the US Western Interconnection

  22. Electricity Transmission Providers Now Mediate between Supply and Demand • Transmission Providers were once fully-integrated generation, transmission and distribution utilities. • With deregulation, Transmission Providers have now changed focus to mediate between power generators and power consumers. • The Transmission Providers develop and maintain an Open Access Transmission Tariff process that receives and acts on requests for transmission service according to supply and demand.

  23. Planned Transmission Additions through 2018,Northern Tier Transmission Group

  24. Planning Opportunities:Planners Will Be Among the First to ... • Understand the need for increased diversity and resiliency in the provisioning of energy and food. • See the futility ofusing capital-intensive investments to overpower one resource constraintonly to impose diminished financial capacity to address the next resource constraint. • Anticipate the impacts of population growth plus resource constraints on the state’s economy, environmental quality and labor force dynamics. • Appreciate the socialvalue of distributing equitably the burden of economic and environmental change.

  25. Questions will be takenafter Wayne Martinson’s presentation. The most simple example of a dissipative structure that we can evoke by analogy is the city. A city is different from the countryside that surrounds it; the roots of its individuation lie in the relations it entertains with the adjacent countryside. If the countryside were eliminated, the city would disappear. Ilya Prigogine, The End of Certainty, 1997.

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