An Integrated Demand and Carbon Impact Forecasting Approach for Residential Precincts

Carbon assessment for urban precincts: Integrated model and case studies

Driving violations at intersections are profoundly prevalent in urban precinct in China. These violations, including failing to stop for a red traffic light or arrow, driving across single continuous dividing line, disobeying traffic lane markings, and illegal parking, have become a major issue not only impacting the overall safety of the cities, but also causing traffic delays and accidents. This article focuses on the behaviors of the driving violations at intersections, and investigates what the influencing factors and characteristics are. A model of Driving Violation Index (DVI ) for these driving violations at intersections has been developed by utilizing the Big Data approach. Based on the actual traffic data from the intersections in the city of Tianjin, a relationship has been fitted and established between the driving violations and the influencing factors, and further yielded the model of calculating the related DVI . This research attempts to provide a mechanism to forecast the driving violations at intersections, and explore new strategies for managing the security and safety of the intersections.

Energy and carbon performance evaluation for buildings and urban precincts: review and a new modelling concept

Life-cycle energy modelling for urban precinct systems

Chapter 5 - Energy Development and Sustainable Monetary Systems

Post-disaster reconstruction projects in areas with high pre-disaster vulnerabilities can lead to both temporary and permanent resettlement outcomes. During this complex process, efforts are centred to the provision of housing and basic infrastructure. In general, the limited land available restricts opportunities for high-quality spatial design within the settlements to optimize the land and provide the maximum number of houses possible. Open spaces in these settlements are rarely considered during the planning and implementation of the projects, and consequently there is little scholarship of community space. However, the importance of open spaces to the community and the liveability of these new settlements depend on the interactions which spontaneously take place in these areas. This study explores the different uses and characteristics of open spaces in temporary and permanent resettlement sites established in the aftermath of major disasters in Japan and the Philippines. This study addresses the limitations of the immediate post-disaster urban planning, compared to the longer-term urban space that emerges spontaneously in an attempt by the residents to improve their community. It was observed that the planning of open and public spaces was not a priority for the governments and the other stakeholders involved in settlement design. Despite these compromises, this study reveals that resettled communities appreciate any available open spaces and transform these spaces to accommodate their needs and cultural preferences reflecting their vital role as urban elements for convergence of the multiple sociocultural activities towards the recovery and revitalization of the disaster-affected communities.

Development of technology and economy is often accompanied by surging usage of fossil fuels. Global warming could speed up air pollution and cause floods and droughts, not only affecting the safety of human beings, but also causing drastic economic changes. Therefore, the trend of carbon dioxide emissions and the factors affecting growth of emissions have drawn a lot of attention in all countries in the world. Related studies have investigated many factors that affect carbon emissions such as fuel consumption, transport emissions, and national population. However, most of previous studies on forecasting carbon emissions hardly considered more than two factors. In addition, conventional statistical methods of forecasting carbon emissions usually require some assumptions and limitations such as normal distribution and large dataset. Consequently, this study proposes a two-stage forecasting approach consisting of multivariable grey forecasting model and genetic programming. The multivariable grey forecasting model at the first stage enjoys the advantage of introducing multiple factors into the forecasting model, and can accurately make prediction with only four or more samples. However, grey forecasting may perform worse when the data is nonlinear. To overcome this problem, the second stage is to adopt genetic programming to establish the error correction model to reduce the prediction error. To evaluating performance of the proposed approach, the carbon dioxide emissions in Taiwan from 2000 to 2015 are forecasted and analyzed. Experimental comparison on various combinations of multiple factors shows that the proposed forecasting approach has higher accuracy than previous approaches.

“Jefoure” refers to a traditional grass-covered road with households settled on both sides in the Gurage socio-ecological production landscape in Ethiopia. We assess Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP) on Jefoure roads for sustainable management. Data were collected using survey tools and orthophoto images, and they were systematically analyzed using qualitative and quantitative methods. The Jefoure roads are beyond transport networks and enhance the people’s quality of life. We identified 12 contributions of Jefoure roads from the reporting categories of material, nonmaterial, and regulating NCP. Over time, the contributions of the roads at different localities decreased due to socio-economic, cultural, and religious changes. Recent trends in infrastructural provisions cause the degradation of Jefoure roads and lead to a decrease in their value. Therefore, sustainable landscape planning and management are essential to preserve and enhance the positive NCP. This study indicates that roads do not solely generate negative ecological impacts, and planners need to work on designing versatile roads, particularly in landscapes where traffic flows are low. Indigenous knowledge has a significant role in bridging the past and future and needs to be integrated into landscape planning and management.

The population changes at different spatial levels with varying velocities due to the influence of different factors. Serbia is a country of distinct spatial-demographic disparities, which have been shaped by various multi-decade political events on its wider territory. For more effective management of space, it is important to know not only the current situation but also the population change in the future, which population forecasting can assist with. This paper adopted a space-time pattern mining to identify the best population forecasting model in Serbia at the local level by 2036 for each year, based on annual population data from 1991 to 2021. Curve fit, Exponential smoothing, and Forest-based model were used to predict the population number for each time-step (year) at the municipal level. Following that, using Evaluating forecast by location, the best forecast population model for each municipality was identified. Finally, the population at the municipality level for the last time step, i.e., 2036 was cartographically presented. To obtain a more precise picture of future demographic trends, we singled out municipalities with a decreasing and increasing trend, as well as municipalities with no clearly expressed trend of population change, based on existing data on the number of inhabitants. Analyses were conducted in Version 3.0 of ArcGIS Pro. In relation to the analysis of available data (1991–2021), the municipalities with a trend of decreasing population are dominant. According to the estimated population by 2036, Serbia's multi-decade depopulation process is anticipated to continue. According to all three forecasts, Serbia will have less than six million inhabitants in 2036. A comparison of multiple forecasting models revealed that Exponential smoothing forecasting is the best fit for the majority of municipalities. This illustrates that most municipalities in Serbia display substantial repetitive patterns. By spatializing the forecasting models, a model that best predicts changes in the population number for each municipality was chosen. Thus, predicted data on population trends can serve local decision-makers to develop resource allocation strategies (construction of roads and other infrastructure, supply of food, energy, etc.) as well as optimal management at the local level.

One of the biggest problems facing urban citizens today is time. In this intense and fast-paced environment, parks are among the most important areas that meet humanity's need to stop and rest. Parks are urban open and green spaces that can appeal to all users. The problems experienced with rapid urbanization significantly affect the physical and mental health of the public. Studies emphasize that urban open and green spaces improve quality of life and contribute significantly to people's physical and mental well-being. While studies focus on the planning, design, implementation, and management phases of open and green spaces, the usage and post-usage evaluation phases are often neglected. However, taking into account the thoughts and desires of park users (children, youth, seniors, etc.) is an important process for the effective management of the area. This research will contribute to identifying the landscape quality of parks, specifically focusing on the New City Park in Isparta's Çünür Neighborhood. It will provide local governments and administrators with insights into which quality criteria to prioritize when improving multifunctional green and open spaces within the context of sustainable development. Furthermore, it will offer an opportunity to evaluate these prioritized criteria for future landscape designs. Thus, through the exchange of knowledge, it aims to provide an effective guide for sustainable and user-oriented landscape design and management by adopting park quality criteria as a reference for strategic spatial planning approaches in other cities as well.

Assessing the greenhouse gas mitigation potential of urban precincts with hybrid life cycle assessment

The main bottlenecks for conservation and management of fauna in the Brazilian Amazonia have been the lack of scientists and of adequate legislation. The hunting of aquatic vertebrates such as turtles, crocodilians, and more recently, the pink river dolphin in the floodplain forest represents the most important illegal wildlife trade in the world. My objective in this chapter is to present a qualitative analysis of the main trends in the use and management of wildlife in the varzea floodplain forests of Amazonia, and the consequent evolution of related legislation. Considering all the Brazilian ecosystems’ conservation policies, wildlife was the component least discussed and for which legislation was not modified in the last 40 years. The proclamation of the National System of Conservation Units (SNUC; Law 9.985) in 2000 became the most important development for the direct use of wildlife in Amazonia, especially in the case of Extractive Reserves and Sustainable Development Reserves. Over the last decade, thousands of projects have claimed to identify themselves as examples of sustainable management in Amazonia. Until better procedures are implemented, regional authorities and environmental agencies should label as sustainable management only those planned human interventions which include some intrinsic compensatory mechanisms for the exploited animal populations, and which through these mechanisms guarantee the genetic variability of the populations. However, we cannot assume that protection efforts constitute effective sustainable management, unless the monitoring shows what the population trends are, and mechanisms exist to alert conservationists in case of unsustainable use. Over the next decades, public policies within Brazilian Amazonia related to the sustainable management of wildlife should include the following: a source-sink system, an adequate monitoring program, satisfactory community involvement, commercial trade focused initially on the Brazilian market and on the MERCOSUL region, supervision of the state government by the federal government and by NGOs, and all of these components monitored by the academic community. The management of crocodilians in the Brazilian varzea floodplain forests of Amazonia is self-defeating and a looming threat to what could have been one of the few and best empirical examples of sustainable wildlife use and management in the Amazon basin.

In order to test the impact of green finance on the low-carbon development level of China's manufacturing industry, this paper takes green finance as an explanatory variable, and chooses the level of fixed asset investment in the manufacturing industry, the intensity of environmental regulations, the proportion of environmental pollution control investment, and the proportion of R&D investment as four control variables. Empirical tests are carried out on the four dependent variables, including manufacturing industry's low-carbon development level, added value growth rate, industrial structure upgrading level, and environmental protection status. The test results show that green finance is positively correlated with the low-carbon development of the manufacturing industry and the growth rate of added value, and inversely correlated with industrial structure upgrading and environmental protection; green finance supports dependent variables in the following order: low-carbon development > environmental protection > economic growth > industrial structure. It can be seen that the main role of green finance is to promote low-carbon development and environmental protection, but it is not the best tool to promote the growth rate of manufacturing industry and upgrade the level of industrial structure. In addition, due to the spillover effect of green finance in the process of promoting the development of the manufacturing industry, it is necessary to increase green financial investment in a long-term and sustained manner to gradually promote the low-carbon and sustainable development of China's manufacturing industry.

Introduction: Proper soil management is essential for sustaining soil fertility and optimizing agricultural productivity. Understanding how soils respond to different land use practices is key to ensuring long-term land sustainability. Objective: This study evaluates the effects of various land use types on soil physicochemical properties in the North-Central Highlands of Ethiopia, establishing a baseline for future research and sustainable land management. Method: This study examined the impact of different land uses on soil fertility and quality by analyzing 108 composite soil samples across four land use types, three depths, and three slope positions, with triplicate sampling for accuracy. Key physicochemical properties were analyzed to assess soil physicochemical property and quality variations. Results: The study showed that cultivated land had significantly lower soil fertility than natural forestland, with lower levels of organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorous, exchangeable bases, and base saturation. Topsoil had a better nutrient content compared to subsoil, with higher levels of organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and micronutrients. Moreover, soils on lower slopes had better chemical properties than those on upper slopes, with higher pH, exchangeable bases, and cation exchange capacity occurring at lower slopes. Conversion of natural forest to cropland led to significant (p < 0.05) declines in organic matter, total nitrogen, and available phosphorus, highlighting severe soil degradation risks. These findings underscore the urgent need for improved land management practices and policy interventions to mitigate soil fertility loss. Conclusions: These findings will offer valuable information for policy makers, researchers and farmers to make well-informed decisions regarding land use planning and soil conservation strategies in the region. Further research is recommended to assess land use change impacts across various scales, from small sub-watersheds to regional and national levels, to support balanced agricultural development and ecosystem conservation.

The planning riverside area can be a solution for the provision of public open space. The planning should promote the special character of the landscape and the community’s social culture. Open spaces in dense settlements use for expansion of the cramped house for daily activities and socializing between residents. The research location is in a settlement around the Ampera Bridge in Palembang. This study aims to present an alternative riverbank open space design based on the specific of the physical conditions and activities of riverside settlement. Observation includes the number of types of users, activities, area, and facilities. The results showed that active points were found in seven open spaces. The intensity and type of activity is influenced by the area, panorama, and facilities. Access to the river is the most important element in designing open spaces on the banks of the river. Residents' activities are often related to rivers. The access will revive the use of open space as a link between the river and the daily activities of residents. The arrangement also needs to be equipped with additional facilities of the daily needs for the resident’s reason to visit open spaces.