ADVERTIMENT. Lʼaccés als continguts dʼaquesta tesi queda condicionat a lʼacceptació de les condicions dʼús establertes per la següent llicència Creative Commons: http://cat.creativecommons.org/?page_id=184 ADVERTENCIA. El acceso a los contenidos de esta tesis queda condicionado a la aceptación de las condiciones de uso establecidas por la siguiente licencia Creative Commons: http://es.creativecommons.org/blog/licencias/ WARNING. The access to the contents of this doctoral thesis it is limited to the acceptance of the use conditions set by the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en Ph.D. Thesis Evaluation of urban sustainability through the metabolic study of nutrient food flows: The case of the Grand Nador, Morocco, city-region. Marta Dinarès Fernández September, 2016 Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA) Research Group on Coastal and Marine Resources, Territories, Landscapes and Migrations (SGR INTERFASE), Department of Geography Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) Ph.D. Programme in Environmental Science and Technology Directors: Dr. David Saurí i Pujol Catedràtic d’Universitat. Departament de Geografia. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Dra. MªRosa Rovira i Val Professora titular. Departament d’Empresa. Àrea d’Economia Financera i de Comptabilitat. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. i ii A la meva família iii iv Acknowledgements First of all I would like to thank Dr. David Saurí, Dr. Jaume Fons and Dra. Françoise Breton for giving me the opportunity to work on the MEDINA project, for having trust in me to carry out and participate on this interesting and very challenging project. They not only afforded me a chance to do my Ph.D. research but also allowed me to learn more about working in European research international projects. In this regard, I am also very grateful to Anna Marín, Maialen Garmendia, Françoise Morisseau and Marc Baeta. Thanks to all of you for your companionship and professionalism, for your friendship and all the great and fun times spent together in Tunis, Tangier, Algiers, Nador, Casablanca and in the UAB. My sincere gratitude go to my supervisor Dr. David Saurí, for his guidance and advice, unrelenting support and motivation, critical reading, constructive comments, dedication and trust. He has always been there fully committed with his students and his work. Thank you David for the friendship, which I would cherish for many years beyond this accomplishment, for your enthusiasm and positive attitude, and for being not only an excellent academic but for being a caring and very human person. I have personally experience that unfortunately it is exceptional to find supervisors so good at both professional and personal level. Thanks to Dra. MªRosa Rovira who encouraged me to enroll in the Ph.D programme and live this adventure. This project would not have been possible without the kindness and excellent collaboration with the people I met in Nador, Morocco. They all dedicated me their time and knowledge of the city of Nador and its region, facilitating the sharing of valuable information and contribution to my research. My gratitude go to M. A. Bourjilla, Chef de l’Environnement de la Province de Nador; M. O. Kada, chercheur à l’Institut National de Recherche Halieutique – INRH-; M. A. El Kadi de l’Agence Marchica Med; M. M.Oulbacha et M.M. Jebbari, Chef d’Agence de Service de l’ONEE- Branche Eau à Nador; Mme. O.Bouchra de l’Observatoire lagune Marchica; M. A. Kaychouh, ingenieur Béni Ensar et trésorier de l’asociation FUED; M. El Haouari, Chef de l’unité commercial de l’ONNE Branche Electricité à Nador; M. H.Kazdar, Chef de l’unité de distribution de l’ONEE Branche Electricité à Nador; M.H. Jaroudi, President de la Chambre de Commerce d'Industrie et de Service de Nador; Mme. S. Bensalah, Chef de département des études de l’Agence Urbaine Nador, M. L. Aït.Ougram de l’ Agence Urbaine Nador et Pr. A. Chafi, de l’Université d’Oujda. I also thank Laura Leite, my confidant and friend with whom I shared my feelings and first impressions as a woman alone in an Arab city. I show my greatest gratitude towards M. Hassan Metaich, Coordinateur du Groupement des communes pour l’Environnement de la municipalité de Nador, et former chef du service urbain de Nador, and manager of the first waste water treatment plant in Nador. His sound knowledge of “how things work” in Nador, especially in the areas of water and waste handling, but also in other sectors and domains, as well as his great enthusiasm and humor, and passion for his city and work, were at all times very useful. Thank you Hassan for all the time you dedicated me and for sharing your passion and knowledge of the city of Nador, for all the field visits to the new WWTP, the landfill, the Gourougou mount that you organized, and for giving v me so many valuable information from different sources. A very warm thanks also goes to his family who welcomed and invited me to share a little more of their culture and way of life. My gratitude is also extended to colleagues and friends at the SGR INTERFASE, thank you for all the support and resources, and for making me feel welcome and part of the SGR INTERFASE research group, you created a very nice working environment with wonderful and up-beating Interdesfase dinners and going outs. I also wish to thank to colleagues and friends from the PhD candidates, senior researchers, technical and administrative staff and others at the Department of Geography and the ICTA institute met along these years in doing my research. Thank you for the uncountable inputs, scientific support and exchange of ideas, useful comments, encouraging words and motivation, your help and smile. They all have formed an inspiring working community with a good spirit, making it nice to come to work every day. Many warm thanks especially go to Núria, Anna, Elena, Sandra, Madá, Miquel, María José, Jovanka and Gabriel, for the vital coffee and the enjoyable lunch breaks. Thank you for always being there. You created a lot of happiness in my daily work. I also wish to thank all of my lovely friends for just being there and providing me a life outside of science. All who have been involved in any sense, along the way of my work, deserve my deepest gratitude, and apologies to all of those whom I have not mentioned by name. This thesis was developed in conjunction with the MEDINA -“Marine Ecosystem Dynamics and Indicators for North Africa”- project (http://www.medinaproject.eu/) funded by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 282977. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support received by the MEDINA project by awarding a grant for doctoral studies of employed persons. I am also grateful to the European Topic Center -ETC- and the SGR INTERFASE research group which also supported this study. I kindly thank the three funding organizations for their respective contributions, this economic support has offered me the opportunity to undertake many research activities, including travels, working with other institutions, universities and research institutes, and the final elaboration of this doctoral dissertation. Without this crucial support I would have hardly accomplished any of the present research. Finalment, gràcies mil a la meva família, parents i amics per ser-hi i donar-me una vida plena més enllà de la ciència i el treball. Vull agrair especialment als meus pares i a les meves germanes el seu amor i suport incondicional, ells em recorden i em fan tenir sempre present les petites grans coses realment importants en aquesta vida. I a tu, amor meu, per la teva eterna paciència i comprensió,pel teu support i respecte absoluts, i per donar-me la força i l’energia per seguir endavant en els moment difícils i durs. Ti amo amore, sei la mia vita. I a vosaltres Júlia i Nicolò que tot i ésser tant i tant petits sou enormement considerats, gràcies per donar-me una motivació addicional per acabar, i fer-me gaudir de la màgia de ser mare. Gràcies mil a tots i a cadascún de vosaltres. vi Abstract For the first time in history a majority of the global population live in urban areas. In the coming decades, most of the world’s population growth is expected to be absorbed by coastal urban areas -specifically in small and medium cities and urban peripheries- of the developing world. In the last decades, anthropogenic food-related activities and urbanization have been identified to contribute altering the natural nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) nutrient cycles, as well as exhausting P-mineral resources. These alterations have caused a myriad of pollution and environmental problems resulting from nutrient accumulation and loss to the soil, waters and air. Both macronutrients are critical for regional and global food security, by virtue of being essential inputs for agricultural food production. In an increasingly urbanized world, urban areas and their development are at the centre of all discussions on sustainability and/or sustainable development. Yet, the role played by cities as drivers of environmental change at multiple scales, e.g. as agents in the flow of energy and materials, stays poorly recognized, and thus grossly understudied, remaining even more scarce (even least available) when it comes to studies of cities in developing countries. The latter are significantly constrained by limited data availability, access, and data collection resources. The notion of Urban Metabolism (UM) provides a conceptual framework to study how a city functions, and hence, a way to address the sustainability of a city.