Large-scale Development Projects Research Articles

A Preliminary Report of Plastic Ingestion by Hawksbill and Green Turtles in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea.

(1) Background: Plastic pollution is a major environmental concern confronting marine animals. Sea turtles are considered a bio-indicator of plastic pollution, but there is little information regarding plastic ingestion by turtles in the Red Sea. With large-scale development projects being built along the Saudi Arabian coast, it is important to have a baseline for plastic ingestion before construction is complete. (2) Methods: Ten deceased sea turtles (four hawksbill and six green turtles) were collected along the Saudi Arabian coastline. Necropsies were conducted, and the entire gastrointestinal tracts were extracted and the contents were passed through a 1 mm mesh sieve. (3) Results: We found that 40% of the turtles in this study had ingested plastics. Thread-like plastics were the most common plastic category, and multi-colored was the most prevalent color category. (4) Conclusions: Monitoring of the plastic ingestion by marine megafauna should be conducted as a long-term assessment of the developments' impacts. Additionally, conservation efforts should be focused on removing plastics (namely ghost nests and fishing lines) from the reefs and reducing the amount of plastic entering the sea.

Case report: tracking data from foraging hawksbill turtles in the northern Red Sea

BackgroundHawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) are Critically Endangered throughout their global range, and concerningly little is known about this species in the Red Sea. With large-scale coastal development projects underway in the northern Red Sea, it is critical to understand the movement and habitat use patterns of hawksbill turtles in this environmentally unique region, so that effective conservation strategies can be implemented. We satellite tagged three hawksbill turtles, one 63 cm curved carapace length adult male captured near Wahlei Island, one 55 cm turtle captured in the Gulf of Aqaba, and one 56 cm turtle suffering from a floating syndrome which was captured at Waqqadi Island, rehabilitated, and released at Waqqadi Island. Turtles were tracked for 156, 199, and 372 days between October 2020 and November 2021.ResultsWe calculated the home ranges and core use areas of hawksbill turtles using kernel-density estimations and found that each turtle showed high fidelity to their foraging sites. Home ranges calculated with GPS-derived locations ranged between 13.6 and 2.86 km2, whereas home ranges calculated with Argos-derived locations ranged from 38.98 to 286.45 km2. GPS-derived locations also revealed a higher proportion of time spent in coral and rock habitats compared to Argos, based on location overlap with the Allen Coral Reef Atlas. We also found that turtles were making shallow dives, usually remaining between 0 and 5 m.ConclusionsWhile the number of tracked turtles in this study was small, it represents an important contribution to the current understanding of spatial ecology among foraging hawksbill turtles globally, and provides the first-ever reported hawksbill turtle tracking data from the Red Sea. Our results suggest that protecting coral reef habitats and implementing boating speed limits near reefs could be effective conservation measures for foraging hawksbill turtles in the face of rapid coastal development.

Innovative mechanisms to protect rights of communities affected by large-scale development projects

Innovative mechanisms to protect rights of communities affected by large-scale development projects

Land Premium Effects of Urban Rail Transit and the Associated Policy Insights for TOD: A Case of Ningbo, China

With considerable investments, mainly from local government budgets, the construction and operation of urban rail transit (URT) can exert significant spillover effects on the surrounding land use and land prices. In particular, China’s local governments are actively committed to developing their URT systems and promoting large-scale transit-oriented development (TOD) projects under the public land leasing policy. However, the connection between the land premium effects and TOD policy and practice is still lacking, particularly in the local government contexts, which exhibit significant policy and spatial heterogeneity. Thus, this research represents an attempt to better address this issue using the city of Ningbo as a case study. First, the premium effects of URT on land prices are examined, after which three crucial policy insights (land value capture [LVC], public–private cooperation [PPC], and urban regeneration) are proposed to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of TOD, demonstrating its strong connection with the potential premium effects. The findings demonstrate that (1) local governments have adopted different innovative policies—with the ambition—to implement LVC; (2) assisted by PPC, the local rail transit authority can significantly amplify the premium effects, although it must still address the fair distribution of premiums across multiple stakeholders; and (3) transit-oriented urban regeneration can significantly influence land prices/land rents and subsequently generate significant gentrification, which will be further addressed by the TOD policy and practice.

The spatial antecedents for drone governance in Afghanistan

This paper problematizes the use of surveillance technologies such as drones for security governance in Afghanistan by foregrounding the spatial conditions of the possibility of such measures. How did the security architecture in Afghanistan become so fragmented to require technologies such as drones as extensions of the government security surveillance apparatus to govern ungoverned space? While much literature on drones considers how drones rewrite spaces in their theaters of operation, it is also true that space is rewritten to enact governance-by-drone in the first place. In Afghanistan, historical shifts in the global political economy resulted in spatially fragmented security architecture, thus laying the spatial pre-conditions for security governance-by-drone. This paper brings together debates on geopolitics and geoeconomics with those of roll-back, roll-out, and roll-over neoliberalism to construct a genealogy of spatial reconfiguration in Afghanistan. It begins by exploring earlier geopolitical forms of statecraft in Afghanistan, which focused on augmenting state power through large-scale development projects. It then moves on to show how these were replaced by geoeconomic forms of statecraft that emphasized the rolling back of government involvement, heavy privatization, and foreign investment, resulting in deeply fragmented security architecture. Finally, neoliberalism's roll-out and roll-over phases correlate with reviving geopolitical forms of statecraft aimed at territorial consolidation. The new geopolitical, however, is a form of statecraft that tends toward territorial power through compensatory technological means like drones as opposed to meaningful development. Rulership was leaning toward this new authoritarian, technocratic model well before the capture of these technologies by the Taliban after its transition to power following the 2021 US retreat.

Innovative mechanisms to protect rights of communities affected by large-scale development projects

Innovative mechanisms to protect rights of communities affected by large-scale development projects

Enabling Autonomous Teams and Continuous Deployment at Scale

In this article, we advise on transitioning to a more agile delivery model for large-scale agile development projects based on experience from the Parental Benefit Project of the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration. The project modernized a central part of the organization's IT portfolio and included up to ten development teams working in parallel. The project successfully changed from using a delivery model that combined traditional project management elements and agile methods to a more agile delivery model with autonomous teams and continuous deployment. This transition was completed in tandem with the project execution. We identify key lessons learned, which will be useful for other organizations considering similar changes and report how the new delivery model reduced risk and opened up a range of new possibilities for delivering the benefits of digitalization.

Syndicated leadership in urban development projects: the case of the River City Gothenburg project

Large-scale urban development projects are complex economic and politically shaped activities, and such projects have oftentimes proved to be more costly and demanding more time to complete than is frequently being stipulated from the outset. Based on these conditions, urban development projects demand effective cross-organizational collaborations to optimize the use of available expertise, the capacity to process data and information, and to optimize public interests (being monitored by democratically elected entities in democratic societies). Based on a study of a major urban development project in Gothenburg, Sweden, this article introduces the concept of syndicated leadership, derived from the concept of syndicated investment in the venture capital industry. Syndicated leadership is based on the centralization of decision-making authority and resource allocation to a team of leaders, each representing (in the case examined) a private corporation, a municipality corporation, or a municipality agency having specific responsibilities in the shared urban development project, but also being dependent on the capacity to coordinate and align project activities. As the case indicates, syndicated leadership demands new expertise and communicative capacities and political skills, but when implemented effectively, it holds the promise of avoiding costly and embarrassing urban development project failures as it makes better use of the expertise of the participant organizations and better accommodate public interests.

Agile Software Development in Healthcare: A Synthetic Scoping Review

Even though software can be found everywhere, software development has encountered many problems, resulting in the emergence of new alternative development paradigms. Among them, agile approaches are the most popular. While much research has been published about agile software development (ASD) in general, there is a lack of documented knowledge about its use in healthcare. Consequently, it is not clear how ASD is used in healthcare, how it performs, and what the reasons are for not using it. To fill this gap, we performed a quantitative and qualitative knowledge synthesis of the research literature harvested from Scopus and Web of Science databases, employing the triangulation of bibliometrics and thematic analysis to answer the research question What is state of the art in using ASD in the healthcare sector? Results show that the research literature production trend is positive. The most productive countries are leading software development countries: the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany. The research is mainly published in health informatics source titles. It is focused on improving the software process, quality of healthcare software, reduction of development resources, and general improvement of healthcare delivery. More research has to be done on scaling agile approaches to large-scale healthcare software development projects. Despite barriers, ASD can improve software development in healthcare settings and strengthen cooperation between healthcare and software development professionals. This could result in more successful digital health transformation and consequently more equitable access to expert-level healthcare, even on a global level.

Social stability risk assessment and economic competitiveness in China

Social stability risk assessment (SSRA) has become the mainstream policy instrument for assessing potential risks of large-scale development projects across all sectors in China. In this paper, fuzzy qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is used to quantify the impact of SSRA policy on economic competitiveness across China’s 31 provinces using a SSRA policy dataset (2003–2020) and a provincial economic competitiveness dataset (2019–2020). QCA combines Boolean algebra and set theory to identify configurations of conditions that are necessary or sufficient for a given outcome. Rather than following the mainstream statistical method of developing a single causal model that best fits the data, QCA explores multiple concurrent causality. A typology of SSRA policies was developed to guide our analysis. The research concluded that to support high economic competitiveness within provinces, SSRA policies must be structured around solving social stability problems and addressing a specific industry issue (e.g., pollution) in a particular industry (e.g., resources). Policies that only include one of these factors or that focus on the performance of government officials were found to contribute to low economic competitiveness. Reorienting the focus of SSRA policies could support more rigorous risk assessments and enhance economic competitiveness, particularly in provinces that host large-scale development projects. These findings have implications for China’s policymakers given their dual objectives of driving economic reform while maintaining a harmonious society.

Structural Design of DC Magnet for Super-X Test Facility

A large scale research and development project for China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) named the comprehensive research facility for fusion technology (CRAFT) started in 2019 and is scheduled for completion in 2025. A superconducting conductor experiment testing platform (Super-X for short) is a sub-task of CRAFT to evaluate the future superconducting part performance. The maximum testing magnetic field at bore center is 15 T, the dimensions of testing space are 100 × 160 × 550 mm, the field homogeneity of testing space is superior to 95%, and the maximum testing current is 100 kA. The direct current (DC) magnet is the key sub-system for the facility providing the background magnetic field. The engineering design for DC magnet has been accomplished in the middle of this year, and its technical parameters meet the required. The main work focuses on the structural design of the split coils, the axial preload and the hanging assembly. This paper presents the progress on the engineering design of the DC magnet.

Mainstreaming climate adaptation into urban development projects in the Netherlands: private sector drivers and municipal policy instruments

ABSTRACT Improving the climate resilience of urban areas critically depends on the integration of climate adaptation measures, i.e. mainstreaming, into regular construction practices. As research has largely focused on public sector adaptation, the mainstreaming of adaptation into private sector projects remains poorly understood. The aims of this study are twofold. First, we examine what drives private developers and investors to mainstream adaptation into large-scale urban development projects. Second, we explore what policy instruments municipalities can employ to stimulate private sector mainstreaming. Our theoretical lens combines insights from the literature on mainstreaming, sustainable building drivers and policy instruments. These concepts are used to guide our analysis of four urban development projects and an interview study in the Netherlands, a densely populated delta country which is rather vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Our results show that private developers and investors seldom explicitly include adaptation measures into their development projects. An important impediment is the perceived absence of direct monetary benefits. If adaptation measures are implemented, they are often realized as a side-effect of creating a high-quality living environment or because private actors expect other professional benefits, such as corporate image enhancement or development of know-how. To stimulate private sector mainstreaming, Dutch municipalities already use a mix of policy instruments that might be a source of inspiration for other countries. Yet, especially the way in which enforcement and incentives are applied is not always effective. Key policy insights Despite the private sector’s growing awareness about the need for and importance of climate change adaptation in the Netherlands, adaptation is still seldom explicitly included in large-scale urban development projects. Municipalities should invest in policy instruments that target consumers. Communication, education and incentives can be used to raise consumer awareness and consequently demand for climate-adaptive properties. Municipalities should collaborate with the private sector to develop clear, uniform and feasible adaptation requirements. Municipalities should actively participate in urban development projects, i.e. co-developing with the private sector. This way, private sector drivers and policy instruments can strengthen each other to pave the way for future-proof and climate-resilient urban environments.

Relationship between Interpersonal Skills in Project Success

The most asset to any project, regardless of the industry is the project manager. Research has shown whether the project fails or succeeds depends on the project manager, and the skills they bring to the table. The research problem in this study is the lack of research regarding the relationship between the interpersonal skills of the project manager and the success and / or failure of large-scale IT systems development projects. The existing literature indicated a strong positive relationship between the interpersonal skills and leadership traits of senior managers who manage with a passive leadership style and the primary IT systems development project success factor of cost. There was also a strong positive relationship between the interpersonal skills and leadership traits of senior managers who manage with leadership outcomes and the primary IT systems development project success factor of scheduling.

Tyumen Embankment: Urban Hubris as a Trigger for the Transformation of Urban Identity

The article discusses the problem of place affecting urban identity formation. The granite-lined embankment of the Tura River becomes a factor in reassembling urban identity and forming new urban sensuousness for the residents of Tyumen. The identity of Tyumen has long oscillated between the provinciality of the “village capital” and the nomadism of the “hub city”, serving as a transit point to service the oil and gas industry. Nowadays, city residents perceive the embankment not only as a sign of Tyumen’s integration into a modern urban context, but also as a metaphor for the escape from the boggy swamp of uncertainty to the terra firma of solid granite. The technological characteristics of the four-tier embankment (its height and length) mark it as an outstanding engineering structure. The visual excessiveness of the embankment, framing the banks of a small river, makes it a source of pride for the citizens. To clarify the process of urban identity formation, the authors introduce the term “urban hubris”. There are multiple connotations of the hubris concept, ranging from “pride” to “transgression of one’s own destiny”. In this article, urban hubris refers not only to specific traits of people initiating megaprojects but to transgressive change in urban identity. This change can be triggered by fundamentally new strategies in city design or, as in this case, by a large-scale urban development project, conveying new city images, creating new public spaces, changing citizens’ daily practices, and, ultimately, transforming their urban identity.

Four statements and a storyline – discourses in urban green transformation

ABSTRACT As global society acknowledges the need for fundamental changes because of the climate crisis, local communities are addressing this need in diverse ways. This article uses discourse analysis to examine official documents and interviews with key actors in a Norwegian city that describes itself as future-oriented and ready for fundamental green transformation. The city is planning a large-scale urban green development project to improve mobility, infrastructure, waste treatment, and renovation. There are few critical voices and there is support from all political parties in the municipality. The findings indicate that the restructuring projects, although highly original, have a pragmatic foundation. Our findings illustrate how crisis communication can be transformed from a problem-oriented, prosaic, and even paralysing narrative to an optimistic, opportunistic, and imaginative storyline. However, the findings also reveal a ‘discourse coalition’ of technocrats and administrators characterised by competition, market and administrative logics, signalling the depoliticisation of local climate politics.

온실가스감축 인지 예산제도에 대한 공법적 소고

This paper focused on how to better evaluate the performance of fiscal execution to solve the problems caused by climate change and ways to improve the system in which the government evaluates and manages financial risk factors in the process of responding to climate change policy. In the process of responding to climate change and realizing carbon neutrality, each country can undergo structural changes despite different fiscal conditions, and it is necessary to solve uncertainties that make it difficult to quantitatively estimate the results and costs of national and local finances. The greenhouse gas reduction recognition prediction and settlement system can be a useful means to check and review from a comprehensive perspective whether there is a conflicting effect in promoting carbon neutrality and green growth goals throughout the tax system and fiscal execution. In a new normal situation where large-scale economic stimulus measures are likely to be continued to build a sustainable society and promote economic recovery after COVID-19, the areas, industrial sectors, and classes are all different, and the degree of damage is diverse. In order to successfully operate the greenhouse gas reduction cognitive budget system newly introduced in the National Finance Act, interdisciplinary research linking environmental engineering, economics, and finance is needed in addition to law. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Recognition Budget and Fund Management Plan, attached to the budget, should include expected effects, performance goals, and effect analysis of greenhouse gas reduction, and the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Statement and Fund Settlement. On the other hand, adjustment work is needed to apply the environmental impact assessment technique for “large-scale development projects” under the “Environmental Impact Assessment Act” annually to all budget projects, and the actual budgeting and execution process.

Urban Housing for the Poor still a Contested Right: Case Reflections from Mumbai

It appears though surprisingly that on average, in Mumbai, a squatter will be relocated at least twenty times in his lifetime. especially in Mumbai, this means that Each time, the squatter needs to move out with his family and all his belongings. In some cases, this relocation entails slum redevelopment; in others, it involves invoking violence through court orders and evicting residents in the interests of large corporations or large-scale development projects. The right to housing seems a distant privilege under the Indian constitution. This study discusses the ongoing sagas of tenancy rights in urban India. Case studies of urban settlements that have run into difficulties with Slum Rehabilitation Authorities (SRAs), particularly movements led by housing associations, their struggles, and impediments amidst some successful outcomes. Our findings reveal that more work is required by SRAs, and public and private partnerships in Mumbai to counterbalance the removals and demolitions. Methodologically, the study is set in the tradition of interpretivist social construction. The authors also present a reflective analysis of a social worker’s role in the slums. The study argues that the poor will have a ‘fair go’ only when symptoms that prevent the poor in difficult social circum.

Value Creation, Capture, and Destruction

Problem, research strategy, and findings Municipalities relying on tax increment financing (TIF) to underwrite large-scale infrastructure and development projects assume that tax revenues from the increase in property values will be sufficient in the short run to cover capital expenses (i.e., that projects are self-financing). By examining a case of TIF in action, we move beyond expectations about how TIF should work in theory. Hudson Yards on the far West Side of Manhattan is one of the largest TIF projects in the United States in recent years and the first one implemented in New York City. We refined the conventional fiscal impact analysis approach by tracking costs and revenue flows of the project between 2005 and 2020 and comparing rents, assessed values, property tax appeals, abatements, and land prices across relevant submarkets. Through this exercise and critical reading of the literature, we developed a framework for analyzing TIF that treats property values as extrinsic and determined by the political arrangements and calculative negotiations that create, capture, and destroy them. Interactions between private property markets and governing bodies cause costs to fluctuate, responsibility for different expenditures and claims on new revenues to shift, and the location and magnitude of spillover effects to change over time. The flexibility of property values in Hudson Yards allowed the taxes to be used at cross-purposes, jeopardizing the payback streams and inflating risks shouldered by the public sector. Takeaway for practice Although our findings are limited by the single case study approach, the creation–capture–destruction heuristic we developed can help planners modify their expectations of the future and spend economic development dollars more effectively in the present. We suggest that municipalities claw back subsidies upon a property’s sale through a local capital gains tax and restrict the use of appeals and abatements in TIF districts to limit the potential for value destruction.

Public Policy and Incentives for Socially Responsible New Business Models in Market-Driven Real Estate to Build Green Projects

The construction industry and the built environment accounts for 38% of global greenhouse gases. Significant efforts are being implemented across stakeholder categories to provide supportive guidelines and ways to address the negative impact; however, market developers need to be engaged to create the scale of impact due to large portfolios. Unfortunately, the short-term interests of private developers in real estate are to maximize profits and not to invest in long-term climate mitigation strategies. This paper will address the barriers and opportunities to incentivize, regulate real estate developers, and account for the market to adopt the lens of the B-Corp movement’s triple bottom line business practices, using business to address social and environmental challenges. Academically, accepted theories addressed through a literature review will be analyzed by a socially-oriented developer in Montreal and demonstrated through an eco-district case study. This study will identify the key stakeholders and address the life cycle thinking process to tackle the carbon impacts in the building development sector through the lens of real estate developers. This literature review will be complemented by the empirical study of one of the authors being a private developer, to link academic best practices with the market realities of real estate development. The findings of the process will outline possible solutions to real estate development that suggest cities have the opportunity to play the role of an educator, mediator, regulator, and incentivizing body to private real estate developers. Generally, critical factors of collaboration and capacity building through business modelling lists of barriers and opportunities could promote positive adoption opportunities for large-scale green development projects with a high impact on climate mitigation strategies, which could transform how the construction industry adapts to building green and socially inclusive communities.

Taking Stock of What We Know About Large-Scale Urban Development Projects: A Review of Existing Theoretical Frameworks and Case Studies

Despite the wealth of academic research on large-scale urban developments, a comprehensive meta-analysis of the literature is yet to exist. On the one hand, theories on urban change and development have offered useful frameworks for explaining the processes and outcomes of large-scale developments. On the other hand, in-depth case studies have provided profound insights into specific examples. Nevertheless, how the case studies relate to the theoretical debates is unclear. In response, this article undertakes a systematic review of the theories and case studies on large-scale developments and identifies the multitude of ways in which case studies relate to theories.