Cycling In Urban Areas Research Articles

IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS ON URBAN CYCLING

Little is known about the importance of different variables in shaping cyclists' risk perception when cycling in urban areas. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of environmental and demographic factors on cyclists' perception of risk in urban cycling. We conducted a study in the central area of a large city, Qazvin, Iran. A linear mixed model was developed to predict the cyclists’ angular movement. Twenty-six cyclists were included in this study. The outcome variable was the change in the cyclists' angular movement as a surrogate for risk perception, and the predictors were the personal characteristics and environmental features. Cycling through residential and commercial areas, one-way routes, routes with speed limits, wide routes ≥ 12 m, existing bike lanes, traffic volume, and path elevation (all P≤0.001) are associated with angular movement. However, sex, age, cycling history, psychological distress score, and presence of parks are not significant predictors of the angular movement. While the cyclist characteristics do not show significant correlations with the angular movement, environmental factors have significant effects on the cyclists’ risk perception. Our research provides insight into the factors that influence the cyclists’ risk perception in urban areas. Environmental factors have significant impacts on the cyclists’ risk perception. This study highlights the critical role of cycling infrastructure in shaping the cyclists’ risk perception and it provides implications for urban planners and policymakers.

Trypanosomatid diversity in a bat community of an urban area in Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil

Bats have a long evolutionary history with trypanosomatids, but the role of these flying mammals on parasite transmission cycles in urban areas, especially for Trypanosoma and Leishmania species, remains poorly known. The objective of this study was to evaluate the species richness of trypanosomatids parasitizing a bat community in Campo Grande (CG), a state capital within the Cerrado of the Brazilian Midwest. We evaluated 237 bats of 13 species by means of hemoculture and molecular detection in spleen samples. The bat community of CG appears to participate in the transmission cycles of various species of trypanosomatids. We report an overall trypanosomatid detection rate of 34.2% (n = 81), involving 11 out of 13 sampled bat species. We identified six species of trypanosomatids from 61 bats by analyzing SSU rRNA and/or kDNA: Trypanosoma cruzi DTU TcI, T. c. marinkellei, T. dionisii, Leishmania infantum, L. amazonensis, and T. janseni, with this latter being detected by hemoculture for the first time in a bat species. We also detected a Molecular Operational Taxonomic Unit, Trypanosoma sp. DID, in the phyllostomids Glossophaga soricina and Platyrrhinus lineatus. The highest trypanosomatid richness was observed for Sturnira lilium, which hosted three species: L. infantum, T. dionisii and T. janseni. Given that visceral leishmaniasis is endemic in CG, special focus should be placed on L. infantum. Moreover, L. amazonensis and T. cruzi warrant attention, since these are zoonotic parasites responsible for human cases of tegumentary leishmaniasis and Chagas disease, respectively. In this respect, we discuss how bat communities may influence the Leishmania spp. transmission in endemic areas.

Estimation for Refined Carbon Storage of Urban Green Space and Minimum Spatial Mapping Scale in a Plain City of China

Current cities are not concrete jungles and deserts with sparse vegetation. Urban green space (UGS) appears widely in human activity areas and plays an important role in improving the human living environment and accumulates carbon storage. However, given the scattered distribution of UGS, studies on both the refined spatial estimation of carbon storage and appropriate mapping scale are still lacking. Taking the downtown area of Kaifeng, China, as the study area, this study verified the i-Tree Eco model on the basis of a field survey and accurately estimated the spatial carbon storage of UGS by combining it with remote sensing data, and finally, we obtained the minimum spatial mapping scale of UGS carbon storage by scaling. The results showed that (1) the total area of UGS in study area was 26.41 km2, of which the proportion of total area of residential area and park green spaces was about 50%. The area of UGS per capita in the study area is 40.49 m2. (2) Within the 123 survey samples, the proportion of communities with tree–shrub–herbs structure was the highest, 51.22%. The average carbon density was 5.89 kg m−2, among which the park, protective and square green spaces had the highest carbon density in all land use types. (3) The total carbon storage of UGS in the study area was 114,389.17 t, and the carbon storage of UGS per capita was 175.39 kg. Furthermore, the scaling analysis showed that 0.25 km spatial resolution was the minimum spatial scale for UGS carbon storage mapping. This study improves our understanding of urban carbon storage, highlights the role and potential of UGS in carbon neutrality, and clarifies the importance of estimating urban carbon storage at appropriate scales. This study is also of great significance for rationally understanding the terrestrial carbon cycle in urban areas and improving regional climate simulations.

Preaching to the converted? Socially unequal reception of a bike repair subsidy in France

Various pro-cycling policies emerged around the world with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. France experimented with a €50 bike repair subsidy. Our questionnaire survey (n = 7343) focuses on beneficiaries’ sociological profiles. Despite its success in quantitative terms, the repair subsidy benefited more regular cyclists—who cycle daily—and people who are confident cycling in urban areas. Women were more likely to benefit than men, and people in low-income households more than those in high-income households. Because these populations are usually underrepresented among cyclists in France, the scheme may appear to have reduced inequities in cycling. However, the scheme could have reached out more to the low-income population who were largely unaware of it. This selectivity is partly explained by awareness of the subsidy, which is lower among the younger and the less educated part of the population. Our survey shows that the scheme is selective primarily because of its design. It would have been necessary to accompany it with measures specifically designed for vulnerable groups.

Impact of Human Activities on Disease-Spreading Mosquitoes in Urban Areas.

Urbanization is one of the leading global trends of the twenty-first century that has a significant impact on health. Among health challenges caused by urbanization, the relationship of urbanization between emergence and the spread of mosquito-borne infectious diseases (MBIDs) is a great public health concern. Urbanization processes encompass social, economic, and environmental changes that directly impact the biology of mosquito species. In particular, urbanized areas experience higher temperatures and pollution levels than outlying areas but also favor the development of infrastructures and objects that are favorable to mosquito development. All these modifications may influence mosquito life history traits and their ability to transmit diseases. This review aimed to summarize the impact of urbanization on mosquito spreading in urban areas and the risk associated with the emergence of MBIDs. Moreover, mosquitoes are considered as holobionts, as evidenced by numerous studies highlighting the role of mosquito-microbiota interactions in mosquito biology. Taking into account this new paradigm, this review also represents an initial synthesis on how human-driven transformations impact microbial communities in larval habitats and further interfere with mosquito behavior and life cycle in urban areas.

Enhancing the Urban Atlas Features with the Water Balance Estimates Using the Landsat 8 Imagery

Between climate change and anthropogenic forcing, pressure on water resources is continually increasing all over the world. The growing population is gathering more and more in cities where the artificialization of soils and urban developments of all kinds are modifying the local water cycle. However, knowledge about the hydrological cycle in urban areas is not well developed today. Urbanization in a watershed can produce significant changes to the natural water cycle, mainly because permeable soils have been covered by less permeable surfaces. The consequences of this urbanization can be significant and multiple. The assessment of urban water resources aims to provide a suitable circumstances for planning, conditions for the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of works used for irrigation and sanitation, among other applications. The methodology of the research is based on the data collection, which includes climatic data from June 2021 to June 2022 and the use of Digital elevation model to create a hydrographic network. The second part is land use data processing to create a land cover map using maximum Likelihood Supervised Classification, by combining different band composites of Landsat 8 images and NDVI to differentiate between vegetative and non-vegetative areas. However, CORINE Land Cover database was utilized to distinguish between continuous and discontinuous urban area in this classification. The final step in the process is to determine the hydrological coefficients by calculating the water cycle parameters (Evapotranspiration Runoff and Infiltration) for each land-use class. Furthermore, establishing a link between land use and hydrological behaviour and conducting a precise calculation of water balance-related coefficients in urban areas using Urban Atlas 2018.

Exploring Associations between the Built Environment and Cycling Behaviour around Urban Greenways from a Human-Scale Perspective

The incorporation of cycling as a mode of transport has been shown to have a positive impact on reducing traffic congestion, improving mental health outcomes, and contributing to the development of sustainable cities. The proliferation of bike-sharing systems, characterised by their wide availability and high usage rates, has made cycling in urban areas more accessible and convenient for individuals. While the existence of a relationship between cycling behaviour and the built environment has been established, few studies have specifically examined this connection for weekdays and weekends. With the emergence of new data sources, new methodologies have become available for research into this area. For instance, bike-sharing spatio-temporal datasets have made it possible to precisely measure cycling behaviour over time, while street-view images and deep learning techniques now enable researchers to quantify the built environment from a human perspective. In this study, we used 139,018 cycling trips and 14,947 street-view images to examine the connection between the built environment consisting of urban greenways and cycling behaviour. The results indicated that the greenness and enclosure of the level of greenway were positively correlated with increased cycling on both weekdays and weekends. However, the openness of the greenway appears to have opposing effects on cycling behaviour depending on the day of the week, with high levels of openness potentially promoting cycling on weekends but hindering it on weekdays. Based on the findings of this study, policymakers and planners should focus on the cycling environment and prioritise improving its comfort and safety to promote green transportation and bicycle-friendly cities.

Abstract P648: Flattening the Curve: A Behavioural Economics Approach to Increase Activity in Summer Months

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine if the behavioural economics principle “Fresh Start Effect” was evident within population-based patterns of cycling-specific active transportation (AT). The primary hypothesis was that cycling traffic along AT trails would not exhibit a fresh start effect, compared to cycling traffic along leisure trails. Design and Methods: We triangulated data from three data sources (n=3 million individual data counts) to test this hypothesis. First, the main outcome measure, cycling traffic was captured during summer months (May to September) from 2014 to 2019 with electromagnetic EcoCounters embedded in 5 paved multi-use trails in Winnipeg, Canada. Trails were categorized as AT (bi-modal peaks in traffic in the morning and afternoon) or leisure based on daily patterns of cycling traffic (single peaks of traffic in the afternoon). To confirm trends in AT-based cycling, we used daily bicycle parking data from 2012 to 2019 provided by one of the cities largest companies. To replicate the leisure-based Fresh Start effect trend we used data for fitness centre visits from the largest University in the city between 2017 and 2019. To estimate the weekly trends in occupational attendance we captured sales data from a local coffee shop from 2013 to 2019. Generalized linear mixed effects models compared counts between Mondays and other weekdays for all 4 datasets. Results: Cycling traffic was ~22% lower on Fridays relative to Mondays for both AT trails (-89 counts; 95% CI: -33 to -145counts for AT trails vs -86 counts). Nearly identical trends were observed for leisure type multi-use trails (-86 counts; 95% CI: -38 to -135 counts for leisure trails). Daily rates of occupational bicycle parking (i.e. cycling to work) were 14% lower on Fridays compared the beginning of the week (-7 counts; 95% CI: -4 to -10 counts). Daily rates of fitness centre attendance (i.e. leisure physical activity) were 18% lower on Fridays relative to the beginning of the week (-519 counts; 95% CI: -408 to -630 counts). In contrast to cycling and fitness centre data, daily coffee sales increased 15% on Fridays relative to the beginning of the week, (+42.8 counts; 95% CI: +34.1 - +51.5) suggesting that declines in cycling and leisure physical activity were not related to fewer people working on Fridays. Conclusions: Population-based AT and leisure-based cycling patterns are sensitive to the Fresh Start Effect. These data provide data to guide targeted public health strategies to increase AT and leisure-based cycling in urban areas.

The past future bike - Bicycle with additional pneumatic mechanism

The Past Future Bike is a bicycle with an additional pneumatic mechanism. It is developed according to the characteristics of sustainable economic development in the cities of the future, among which the environmental, social and transport factors are forming. The project aims to use an innovative „fuel“ that is economically and environmentally friendly and to promote safe cycling in urban areas. The inspiration for the development comes from urban transport over the past century and the active development of air used in the transport industry. The prototype is made of a retro bicycle “Ukraine”, which was repaired and tested. The mechanism uses a double-acting pneumatic cylinder, a bottle of compressed air, and an additional mechanism of gears and chains, which coverts reciprocating into rotating motion. The power of the developed pneumatic bicycle is estimated at 0.96 horsepower. The cost of refilling the bottle with compressed air is minimal, and BGN 0,014 are needed for a 1-kilometer distance. The personalization of The Past Future Bike is achieved through its technological and physical additions, including ARM-based system BBC Micro:bit, spy camera, alarm, solar battery, phone stand, reed ampoule-based mileage, and safety supplements.

Where to invest in cycle parking: A portfolio management approach to spatial transport planning

A lack of cycle parking is a known barrier to promoting the uptake of cycling in urban areas. Unlike cars that can be parked on the roadside with little additional infrastructure, bikes usually require dedicated parking facilities. The existing research and guidance on where cycle parking should be provided primarily focuses on key destinations such as train stations or schools. Thus, there is a gap in knowledge about the amount of general-purpose cycle parking required and how it should be distributed across a city. This paper presents a novel method for analysing and prioritising the spatial distribution of cycle parking. The method draws on established portfolio management techniques but applies them in a spatial context. Using the case study of London, we demonstrate that it is possible to identify areas that have a deficit of cycle parking as well as locations that have the most significant potential for increasing cycling uptake by providing additional cycle parking.

Pedaling through a virtually redesigned city: Evaluation of traffic planning and urban design factors influencing bicycle traffic

To achieve the 1.5-degree target of the Paris Climate Agreement, it is of great importance to promote environmentally friendly means of transport. In urban areas, shifting motorized trips to active transport modes (i.e., walking and cycling) is essential. Therefore, knowledge of walking and cycling is indispensable for planning and policy, which is the basis for targeted promotion of active forms of mobility. This paper aims to identify factors that specifically influence cycling and to derive recommendations for action for planning and policy in a virtual testbed. Specifically, the influence of traffic planning measures (i.e., structural infrastructure facilities for stationary and moving traffic as well as traffic regulations) and urban design measures (i.e., the design of public space) on the promotion of cycling will be shown. For this purpose, a virtual reality simulation was used, independent of different external conditions during field surveys and the necessity of time-, cost- and regulation-intensive structural changes. Using an improved bicycle simulator, 93 people cycled through 20 variations of an approximately 680 m long road section, surveying the effect of selected traffic planning and urban design parameters. Special attention was paid to the subjective safety of the cyclists and the attractiveness of the urban environment. Furthermore, three types of infrastructure were differentiated: No bicycle infrastructure (riding on the roadway), a bicycle lane, and a structurally separated cycle path next to the sidewalk. The virtual road section represented a real location. In addition to the findings gained from the physiological optimization of the simulator, the results show that roadside greenery had the highest effectiveness in terms of subjective safety and attractiveness. Other factors with a high influence were a speed reduction from 50 to 30 km/h when riding on the roadway with cars and the red coloring of the bicycle lane, each increasing the perception of safety. In contrast, a lack of a boundary line between the cycle path and the sidewalk was unsettling for those who rarely or never ride bicycles in their daily lives. In addition, restaurant and recreation areas increased the attractiveness of the road section, although entailing a lower perception of safety. Other factors, such as motor vehicle traffic volume or vehicles parked at the roadside, showed no significant effects on the evaluation of cycling.With the help of these findings, the consequences of traffic planning and urban design measures can be better assessed in subsequent virtual testbeds. Also, initial trends can be identified as to which planning instruments should be used as a priority to promote cycling in urban areas. Future work should validate the transfer of these insights into physical urban spaces to support further the mid-term transformation towards sustainable urban mobility using scientific evidence.

The Considerable Water Evaporation Induced by Human Perspiration and Respiration in Megacities: Quantifying Method and Case Study in Beijing.

The water cycle in urban areas is called the natural-social dualistic water cycle, and it is driven not only by natural forces, but also by human activities. As the drivers of the social water cycle, human perspire continuously, and this is often overlooked as a contributing factor to the water cycle. This paper proposes a method for quantifying the water evaporation induced by human perspiration and respiration in megacities. A calculation based on the sweating prediction model was applied to the city of Beijing to evaluate the evaporation from the human body. The results show that the greatest volume of evaporation produced by human occurs in summer, and the least in spring. The total evaporation produced by human was converted to the evaporation on unit area of the city and reached 5075.2 m3/km2 in the six core districts of Beijing. According to the calculation, the total volume was considerable and reached 14.0 million m3 in 2020, which was equivalent to the annual evapotranspiration from an area of 104.9 km2 of Acer truncatum forest (15 cm diameter at breast height, afforestation density 800 plants/hm2), and even twice the annual total water use in Tartu, Estonia. The results of the study provide a reference for dualistic water cycle research and water cycle flux calculation in urban areas.

Experiences of safe and healthy walking and cycling in urban areas: The benefits of mobile methods for citizen-adapted urban planning

Walking and cycling promotes physical activity and mental health. In many European cities, walking and cycling has increased and is a key part of transport planning. However, many cyclists and pedestrians still perceive themselves as neglected road users, face air pollutants, noise and fear travel injuries. Children are in particular vulnerable. The aim of this study is to present mobile interview methods (“go-/ride-alongs”) for promoting safe and healthy cycling/walking in urban transport planning. We present two studies from Berlin (a) and Leipzig (b), Germany. We conducted go-/ride-alongs with cyclists and pedestrians on (a) their commute home from work and (b) children on their way to school. We accompanied them and investigated how they experience commuting, the environment and discover ad-hoc situative behavior. We discuss our findings and transfer our knowledge gained through the mobile method into transport planning strategies. Safety is most often mentioned by all interviewees. Our studies show a high importance of in-situ/ad-hoc experiences for travel behavior, which can be examined with an interviewer accompanying. Our methods encourage interviewees to describe past experiences, how they shape their behavior or factors supporting/hindering active travel. We consider mobile methods important for exploring mobility and successful when complemented by participatory methods and instruments (e.g., participatory mapping, smartphone-apps, group walks). Therefore, the voice of vulnerable road users can be strengthened. In a next step individual local experiences and community knowledge could be incorporated in urban transport planning to improve active travel.

IBikeSafe: A Multi-Parameter System for Monitoring, Evaluation and Visualization of Cycling Paths in Smart Cities Targeted at Cycling Adverse Conditions

The fast transformation of the urban centers, pushed by the impacts of climatic changes and the dramatic events of the COVID-19 Pandemic, will profoundly influence our daily mobility. This resulted scenario is expected to favor adopting cleaner and flexible modal solutions centered on bicycles and scooters, especially as last-mile options. However, as the use of bicycles has rapidly increased, cyclists have been subject to adverse conditions that may affect their health and safety when cycling in urban areas. Therefore, whereas cities should implement mechanisms to monitor and evaluate adverse conditions in cycling paths, cyclists should have some effective mechanism to visualize the indirect quality of cycling paths, eventually supporting choosing more appropriate routes. Therefore, this article proposes a comprehensive multi-parameter system based on multiple independent subsystems, covering all phases of data collecting, formatting, transmission, and processing related to the monitoring, evaluating, and visualizing the quality of cycling paths in the perspective of adverse conditions that affect cyclist. The formal interactions of all modules are carefully described, as well as implementation and deployment details. Additionally, a case study is considered for a large city in Brazil, demonstrating how the proposed system can be adopted in a real scenario.

Analysis of ebike dynamics and cyclists’ anxiety levels and interactions with road vehicles that influence safety

The significance of commuting with ebikes as an integral part of the urban mobility of the future can no longer be ignored. The real and perceived hazards of cycling in urban areas and sharing roads with other motorized vehicles have been identified as a major barrier to wider adoption of ebikes. The objective of this study is to investigate parameters that affect the anxiety level of cyclists, which influences their safety and interaction with other road users. An ebike was instrumented with a variety of sensors and equipment to monitor the speed, balance of bike, type, and proximity of vehicles overtaking cyclists, as well as the events on the road. Thirty-two participants rode the instrumented ebike for 12 km on urban roads in Oshawa, ON, Canada. Participants wore a heart rate sensor attached to their chest and a helmet equipped with a peripheral detection task setup to measure stress and mental workload. This naturalistic study showed that most participants had concerns about the threats and risks of crashes when sharing the road with other vehicles. The data showed that the significant difference in acceleration between ebikes and conventional bikes does not change the perception of safety for cyclists. Additionally, the outcomes indicate that mental workload and average heart rate increase at lower speeds when passing a queue of vehicles in traffic or at intersections. Across all participants, the balance of the bike did not change significantly. Also, neither the heart rate nor mental workload showed a significant effect on the balance of the bike. This study suggests that dense traffic in the afternoon and the demands of riding a bike in complex traffic conditions result in a higher mental workload even though cyclists slowed down their speeds. Furthermore, the majority reported perceived risks of cycling on a shared road with other vehicles regardless of the demographic differences. The findings from this study can be used as a framework for the development of active safety features for ebikes.

Socio-economic and environmental factors associated with the occurrence of canine infection by Leishmania infantum in Teresina, Brazil.

American visceral leishmaniasis (AVL) is a zoonosis caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Leishmania. In Brazil, the disease is caused by Leishmania infantum and the main vector is the phlebotomine sandfly Lutzomyia longipalpis, found both in natural ecotopes and in the rural and urban environments, being very well adapted to the peridomestic environment. The domestic dog has been incriminated as the main reservoir of the parasite in the urban environment, but the control measures based on culling seropositive dogs have not shown to be effective to contain the spread of the disease throughout the country. Many studies evaluated risk factors for human visceral leishmaniasis but few focused on the socioeconomic and environmental factors associated with infection among dogs. Knowledge of these factors might help identify the conditions that contribute to the maintenance of transmission cycles in the urban environment and identify new targets for intervention. The objective of this study was to assess the association between socioeconomic and environmental factors and the occurrence of canine leishmaniasis at Teresina city, Brazil. This cross-sectional study was developed in ten districts of Teresina, involving 532 houses and 810 dogs. Peripheral blood samples were collected by vein punction using vacutainer tubes without anticoagulant for performing serological test (indirect immunofluorescence - IFI). Serum samples with IFI titers ≥1: 80 were considered positive. Owners of the selected dwellings were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire addressing socioeconomic and environment aspects. The association between variables and seropositivity was assessed through multilevel logistic regression models. Global seropositivity was 39%. There was no statistically significant difference between seropositivity and age and sex of animals, literacy of the household head, presence of other domestic animals or with household characteristic like water supply, inadequate sewage disposal system, type of floor and roof. Mixed-breed dogs and those living for a long time in houses with absence of masonry walls and presence of a kennel showed higher odds of seropositivity. These results suggest that some peridomestic characteristics, especially the absence of barriers that allow dogs to have free access to the street, in association with the presence of a kennel, might contribute to maintaining the infection cycle in urban areas. Intervention measures oriented to the management of the peridomestic environment and responsible dog possession could be useful tools for reducing disease burden in endemic area.

Characterizing cycling traffic fluency using big mobile activity tracking data

Mobile activity tracking data, i.e. data collected by mobile applications that enable activity tracking based on the use of the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), contains information on cycling in urban areas at an unprecedented spatial and temporal extent and resolution. It can be a valuable source of information about the quality of bicycling in the city. Required is a notion of quality that is derivable from plain GNSS trajectories.In this article, we quantify urban cycling quality by estimating the fluency of cycling traffic using a large set of GNSS trajectories recorded with a mobile tracking application. Earlier studies have shown that cyclists prefer to travel continuously and without halting, i.e. fluently. Our method extracts trajectory properties that describe the stopping behaviour and dynamics of cyclists. It aggregates these properties to segments of a street network and combines them in a descriptive index. The suitability of the data to describe the cyclists' behaviour with street-level detail is evaluated by comparison with various data from independent sources.Our approach to characterizing cycling traffic fluency offers a novel view on the cyclability of a city that could be valuable for urban planners, application providers, and cyclists alike. We find clear indications for the data's ability to estimate characteristics of city cycling quality correctly, despite behaviour patterns of cyclists not caused by external circumstances and the data's inherent bias. The proposed quality measure is adaptable for different applications, e.g. as an infrastructure quality measure or as a routing criterion.

Metabolic Water Cycle in Urban Areas: Turkey Analysis

Kentsel metabolizma kavramı yaygın olarak kabul gören ve kullanılan bir kavramdır. Kentsel metabolizma, enerji verimliliği, geri dönüşüm, atık yönetimi ve kentsel altyapı hakkında bilgi edinmek için etkili bir yol sunmaktadır. Ayrıca, atıkların, enerji, su, yiyecek ve diğer malzemelerin girdilerini ölçmek içinde etkili bir yol olarak kullanılabilmektedir. Su kaynak itibariyle canlıların hayatlarını sürdürülebilmesi için vazgeçilmez bir kaynak niteliği taşımaktadır. Bu nedenle kentsel metabolik döngü içinde suyun sürdürülebilirliği önemlidir. Bu çalışmada Türkiye’de kentlerde ve üretimde kullanılan suyun materyal akış analizi yöntemiyle metabolik akışı değerlendirilmiştir.

Towards natural water cycle in urban areas: Modelling stormwater management designs

ABSTRACT Urbanization modifies the natural water cycle particularly by reducing the water storage capacity. We analysed the storage capacity of three stormwater management designs in south-western Finland to demonstrate how an urban catchment releases stormwater and how storage contributes to flood resilience. The analysis relies on EPA SWMM5.1 simulations of water balance for a seven-month period including two extreme rain events during the summer and autumn. The enhanced storage capacity provided by the designs increased resilience against flooding and released stormwater with slower rates leading to reduced peak flows. Even the design with the least storage (10% LID coverage) was efficient at regulating floods due to controlled flow in a vegetated swale, whereas the design with the highest storage capacity (60% LID coverage) demonstrated the possibility of restoring nearly natural water cycle in urban catchments. The study suggests storage capacity can act as a flood resilience indicator directly linked with the physical catchment characteristics.

O estudo dos componentes do ciclo hidrológico desde métodos tradicionais até o uso de sensoriamento remoto: uma revisão

O crescimento populacional acelerado acarreta a ampliação de ambientes urbanos, trazendo impactos ambientais como a supressão da vegetação e aumento de áreas impermeáveis, os quais afetam diretamente a qualidade e disponibilidade da água. Sendo assim, é importante para o planejamento urbano a pesquisa e o levantamento de informações sobre os componentes do ciclo hidrológico nas cidades, a fim de possibilitar a tomada de decisão e estabelecer medidas mitigadoras de impactos presentes e futuros. Os componentes do ciclo hidrológico se dividem basicamente em áreas de interceptação da água da chuva, áreas de infiltração e áreas de escoamento superficial. Cada um deles desempenha uma função específica no ciclo da água em determinada região. Os pesquisadores se utilizam de técnicas clássicas/tradicionais ou mais recentes a depender do objetivo da pesquisa a ser desenvolvida. O presente artigo reúne e apresenta informações relevantes a respeito dos métodos utilizados para a pesquisa dessas áreas e traz o sensoriamento remoto como ferramenta útil, a qual tem a capacidade de levantar informações de forma rápida e eficaz, como alternativa de mapeamento e monitoramento dos elementos do ciclo hidrológico em ambientes urbanos.