Estimating Environmental Carrying Capacity of Seoul Metropolitan Area Using System Dynamics and Box Model

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is estimating environmental carving capacity of Seoul Metropolitan Area for a sustainable city management using system dynamics model. A sustainable development requires a society to define sustainability constraints or environmental limits, environmental carving capacity. Environmental carving capacity can be defined as the level of human activity which a region can sustain at an acceptable quality of life level. This concept of environmental carving capacity has several important application to sustainable city planning and management. If the limitation of a human activity can be supported by a scientific data on carving capacity, the resulting decision and actions could more easily win public support for a sustainable development. However, one of the key issues is how to operationalize the carving capacity. In this paper, the environmental carving capacity was operationalized as a maximum number of industry structure, population, and housing that can sustain certain level of environmental quality of Seoul Metropolitan Area. The model developed in this paper consisted off sectors: population, housing, industry, land, and environmental sector. The model limits its main focus on the NO2 level of ambient air of Seoul. Carving capacity Seoul Metropolitan Area was estimated by figuring out the maximum number of population, industry structure, housing at an equilibrium point that sustain a desirable NO2level. Based on the model estimation, several policy implications for a sustainable city management was discussed.