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| Rapid global urbanisation trend calls for holistic thinking  The rapid urbanisation of the world's population is the grand challenge that unites all other issues, concluded Prof Dr Uwe Krueger, Atkins' chief executive officer, as he addressed the Royal Academy of Engineering in London last night. In his speech entitled 'Imagination; the key to engineering the future', he said the industry had to demonstrate a step-change in imagination, holistic thinking and levels of cooperation across disciplines due to the complexity of the task that lay ahead.Uwe was delivering this year's Hinton Lecture, named in honour of Lord Hinton of Bankside, the first President of the Academy. He told the audience that dealing with a global population of an expected nine billion people by 2050, with 75 per cent in cities, would lead to the need for urban centres that are environmentally resilient, socially cohesive and as efficient as possible. Uwe said: "We need to focus on urbanisation; it makes us address all allied challenges – energy needs, water infrastructure, transport, food, health and wealth-creation. Urbanisation is not just about building more though; it is about creating smart cities where people want to live. We might be looking 50 or even 100 years ahead and the future depends on what we do now." He highlighted how 95 per cent of city growth is expected to take place in developing countries, and in the next 20 years the urban populations of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa alone are expected to double to over 3.5 billion, roughly half the global population. Dealing with that will need holistic planning as the risks of uncontrolled growth are too great. This requires a mix of disciplines; alongside engineers we need scientists, behavioural experts, planners and academia. He pointed to Atkins' recent report Future Proofing Cities produced in partnership with the UK Government and University College London. The report assessed 129 major cities across Africa and Asia and was developed to help tackle risks to long term prosperity and growth. Uwe drew on the findings from this report and said how "we need to break out of silos and create integrated portfolios of solutions and packages of measures." Uwe concluded: "It is vital now for us to learn from the past in order to inform the present, as only then will we be in a position to inspire the future." write your comments about the article :: © 2013 Construction News :: home page |