Urban sustainability indicators for the city of Cuenca-Ecuador: sustainable construction of buildings

Abstract

Introduction. In Ecuador, the urban explosion presents scenes of inequity, which poses new challenges such as recovering urban land, generating adequate housing, and mitigating environmental impacts to provide the inhabitants with comfort and a healthy environment. In Azuay province, 50% of families either do not own a home or dwell in inadequate housing with problems involving vulnerability and riskiness of the materials used for construction, lack of basic services, housing developing in high-risk areas, or poor air quality, among others. In the last two decades in some Latin American cities, the average annual growth of the urban footprint has been 3-4% while in Ecuador; Cuenca is the third city with the largest metropolitan area. Objective. Assess a framework of Sustainable Urban Indicators proposed based on the results from the analysis of the most relevant international techniques and methodologies. Methodology. The level of research is descriptive, the research design was qualitative, prospective and cross-sectional. The most relevant bibliography on the subject was analyzed, a set of indicators validated by expert judgment was obtained. Results. The final document, containing a set of Sustainable Indicators that can be applied to the local context and which come from a process of determination, selection, validation and application of universal indicators, will be a contribution to the community. Conclusion. It was concluded that, in the city of Cuenca, there is no priority for sustainable construction to develop, one of the aspects that influences it is the lack of clear policies and incentives for stakeholders to consider all processes in their projects, which are involved during the life cycle of a sustainable building.