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A City and Its Hinterland: Vienna’s Energy Metabolism 1800–2006

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Long Term Socio-Ecological Research

Part of the book series: Human-Environment Interactions ((HUEN,volume 2))

Abstract

Cities are centres of resource consumption and urban resource use has a considerable influence on both the economy and the environment in the resource-providing hinterland. This chapter looks at cities from a socio-ecological perspective and investigates the evolution of the energy metabolism of the city of Vienna since the beginning of industrialisation. Based on time series data on the size and structure of energy consumption in Vienna in the period from 1800 to 2006, it analyses the energy transition and how it relates to urban growth. It shows that during the last 200 years, a multiplication of energy use and a shift from renewable biomass towards coal and finally oil and natural gas as the dominating energy source have been observed. This energy transition was not a continuous process, but different phases in the energy transition can be distinguished. Also the spatial relations between the city and its resource-supplying hinterland changed. But growth in urban resource use was not simply causing an equal growth of the spatial imprint of urban consumption. Our results show that the size and spatial location of the resource-supplying hinterland is the combined result of various dynamic processes, including transport technology and agricultural productivity.

The paper shows how energy and transport revolution abolished barriers of growth inherent to the old energy regime.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this chapter, the notion of ‘hinterland’ is understood in a broader sense and is not restricted to the immediate rural, comparatively infrastructure-poor areas surrounding urban centres. Instead, from a socio-ecological perspective, the urban hinterland encompasses the full extent of regions supplying the urban centre with natural resources (cf. Jones 1955; Fischer-Kowalski et al. 1997). In an abstract sense, hinterland is understood as the environmental space or ecological footprint required to sustain the city with material and energy. From this perspective, the extent of the hinterland and the intensity of the relation between centre and hinterland changes over time. During industrialisation, the direct spatial relation between a city and its hinterland has increasingly vanished as the hinterland of the modern industrial city spreads across the globe (Mumford 1956).

  2. 2.

    In energy accounting, this problem is sometimes overcome by calculating primary energy equivalents of imported final energy (e.g. coal required to produce imported electricity). This procedure has not been applied for this chapter.

  3. 3.

    The most significant annual statistical publications are: Tafeln zur Statistik (1828–1865); Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Wien (SJB, 1883-today); Ergebnisse der Verzehrungssteuer im Verwaltungsjahr (1860–1891); Statistische Ausweise über die Preise der Lebensmittel und der Approvisionierung in Wien (1879ff). See Sandgruber (1978 and 1986) and Hauer (2010) for a more detailed discussion of available sources.

  4. 4.

    The reasons for these fluctuations are not fully clear. They partly reflect actual ups and downs in energy consumption (due to e.g. fluctuations in winter temperatures) but they might be partly a result of the peculiarities of the compilation of energy statistics (in particular transport fuel) for urban systems.

  5. 5.

    A large fraction of the energy used in Vienna (as in many other cities) is imported as final energy ready for consumption (e.g. food, fuels, gas for heating, electricity). In practical terms, the energy consumption (DEC) calculated for Vienna is closer to final energy use than to primary energy supply – and for this reason Austrian final energy consumption is used as a reference measure.

  6. 6.

    Feed for draught animals for urban transport is most likely underestimated, as this estimate only includes draught animals reported within the city limits. These numbers seem to be rather low. A significant share of transport services may have been provided by carrying trade located outside the city.

  7. 7.

    The northern and southern railway stations were opened in the late 1830s. It took several decades, however, until Vienna was fully connected to the industrial centres of Moravia, Bohemia, Silesia and Prussia in the north (1848) and Styria and the Adriatic harbour of Trieste (1859) in the south.

  8. 8.

    According to Braudel (in Sieferle et al. 2006), transport costs on horse carriages are by a factor 9 higher than those on natural water ways. Sandgruber (1987) quotes figures for transport costs of fuelwood in 1855 that indicate that transportation on horse carriages is by a factor 10–20 more costly than transport on the Danube per unit of area.

  9. 9.

    The area density of transportation systems changes dramatically with technology: Typical natural and artificial waterways under optimum conditions may reach 10–15 m/km2, railroad systems 80–100 m/km2, and modern road systems up to 2,000 m/km2 (Central European averages, author’s own calculations).

  10. 10.

    The following calculations only refer to major domestic staple foods (e.g. cereals, potatoes, vegetables, meat, and dairy products). The inclusion of areas for special cultivars, such as tea, coffee, tropical fruits, olive oil etc., may have a significant impact on the outcome and increase in particular the food footprint for the contemporary period (see Erb et al. 2001).

  11. 11.

    Calculated as the net output of plant and animal based food per total agricultural area.

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Acknowledgments

The research for this paper was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (Project No. P21012 G11). I want to thank Rolf Peter Sieferle, Verena Winiwarter, Marina Fischer-Kowalski and Simone Gingrich for their support of this research and Marian Chertow and Helmut Haberl for a critical review of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Social Ecology Vienna (SEC), Alpen-Adria Universitaet Klagenfurt, Wien, Graz, Schottenfeldgasse 29/5, Vienna, 1070, Austria

    Fridolin Krausmann Ph.D.

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  1. Fridolin Krausmann Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Fridolin Krausmann Ph.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Klagenfurt, Faculty for Interdisciplinary Studies (I, Institute of Social Ecology, Schottenfeldgasse 29/5, Vienna, 1070, Austria

    Simron Jit Singh

  2. University of Klagenfurt, Faculty for Interdisciplinary Studies (I, Institute of Social Ecology, Schottenfeldgasse 29/5, Vienna, 1070, Austria

    Helmut Haberl

  3. Yale University, Yale School of Forestry and Environmenta, Center for Industrial Ecology, Edwards Street 380, New Haven, 06511, Connecticut, USA

    Marian Chertow

  4. , Ecosystem Research and Monitoring, Federal Environment Agency, Spittelauer Lände 5, Vienna, 1090, Austria

    Michael Mirtl

  5. University of Klagenfurt, Faculty for Interdisciplinary Studies (I, Institute of Social Ecology, Schottenfeldgasse 29/5, Vienna, 1070, Austria

    Martin Schmid

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Krausmann, F. (2013). A City and Its Hinterland: Vienna’s Energy Metabolism 1800–2006. In: Singh, S., Haberl, H., Chertow, M., Mirtl, M., Schmid, M. (eds) Long Term Socio-Ecological Research. Human-Environment Interactions, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1177-8_11

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