Environmental Infrastructure Research Articles

Implementing climate change adaptation through mainstreaming at the local level—a comparative case study of two municipalities in the Netherlands

Governments face increasing urgency to adapt to climate change. However, there is a persistent gap between needed and implemented adaptation. The implementation of adaptation often takes place at the local level, making municipalities crucial actors, particularly regarding mainstreaming adaptation into various sectors. While mainstreaming has the potential to bring many benefits, it does not necessarily result in the implementation of adaptation. Its contribution to the adaptation process over time and the resulting implementation at the local level remain poorly understood, exacerbating the adaptation implementation gap. To advance the understanding of mainstreaming for implementation, we synthesize the emerging debates on adaptation mainstreaming with the literature on environmental policy integration and offer a framework towards a nuanced conceptualization of mainstreaming. Our results from a case study of two Dutch municipalities show that managerial actions precede the acceleration of implementation in the built environment and point to a learning curve. Furthermore, mainstreaming focuses on the water sector, built environment and green infrastructure, with little attention paid to the intersection of heat stress and drought with other sectors, while differences in the implementation of adaptation in the two cases hint at the influence of the local context. We conclude that there is no blueprint to implement adaptation, and while local preferences determine the sectors where integration and implementation occur, consideration of long-term future climate change is lacking in both cities’ mainstreaming of adaptation implementation. Our framework allowed identifying the potential and pitfalls of mainstreaming adaptation towards implementation at the local level.

Risk Perception and Fatigue in Port Workers: A Pilot Study.

The aims of this study were to assess fatigue in port workers; analyze the association between fatigue and levels of trust in organizations, as well as the association between authorities and risk perception; and examine the official documents governing the studied port, along with the current health and communication status of the port workers. This was a descriptive and cross-sectional pilot study, which presented quantitative and qualitative data, and it was carried out among port workers in the city of Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Thirty-nine port workers responded to quantitative questionnaires, which collected their socio-demographic data, as well as a risk perception questionnaire, the Chalder Fatigue Scale, and the Checklist of Individual Strength. Five documents from the port regiment were studied and qualitatively analyzed. The health communications consisted of presenting infographics with research data and providing information for reducing fatigue. Fifteen workers (38.5%) were considered fatigued. There was a reduction in fatigue associated with trust in the unions and the labor management body, and there was an agreement that the precarious environment was completely unacceptable. The qualitative data in the documents indicated that it was possible to identify the infrastructure of the port environment, the legislation, the strategies to be adopted in cases of natural disasters, emergency plans, plans for the protection and promotion of workers' health, individual and collective protection plans, the division of the sectors and those responsible for them, and documents detailing the hierarchy within the ports. The qualitative analysis culminated in graphic representations (infographics) created to communicate the research results to port workers, specifically in relation to fatigue, and we presented the ways to prevent fatigue at work. Discussion/Limitations: Studying the risk perceptions and fatigue levels of port workers through research with the active participation of these workers presented their lived experiences, which promoted discussion and perhaps more effective proposals to change their work conditions.

Group Incentives for the Public Good: A Field Experiment on Improving the Urban Environment

Abstract What strategies can help communities to overcome the public goods problem in the maintenance of communal spaces and infrastructure in urban environments? This paper investigates whether an intervention targeted at Community-Based Organizations can motivate them to make increased contributions to the public good, thereby improving outcomes for the community as a whole. Using a randomized controlled trial conducted in Dakar, Senegal, the analysis tests the effectiveness of a program that provides incentives to community groups to encourage them to keep their neighborhoods clean, with the ultimate goal of reducing flooding. After one year, the intervention proved to be effective in engaging communities, improving cleanliness, and reducing flooding.

Semantic segmentation of thermal defects in belt conveyor idlers using thermal image augmentation and U-Net-based convolutional neural networks

The belt conveyor (BC) is the main means of horizontal transportation of bulk materials at mining sites. The sudden fault in BC modules may cause unexpected stops in production lines. With the increasing number of applications of inspection mobile robots in condition monitoring (CM) of industrial infrastructure in hazardous environments, in this article we introduce an image processing pipeline for automatic segmentation of thermal defects in thermal images captured from BC idlers using a mobile robot. This study follows the fact that CM of idler temperature is an important task for preventing sudden breakdowns in BC system networks. We compared the performance of three different types of U-Net-based convolutional neural network architectures for the identification of thermal anomalies using a small number of hand-labeled thermal images. Experiments on the test data set showed that the attention residual U-Net with binary cross entropy as the loss function handled the semantic segmentation problem better than our previous research and other studied U-Net variations.

Развитие законодательства об охране российских объектов всемирного природного наследия в контексте решений сорок пятой сессии Комитета всемирного наследия

The decisions taken at the forty-fifth session of the World Heritage Committee regarding the World Natural Heritage sites located on Russian territory are analyzed. The most common problems characteristic of the majority of Russian unique natural complexes of global importance are noted. Gaps in the regulatory and legal consolidation of the World Natural heritage protection regime in legislation, acute conflicts related to the need to harmonize environmental requirements and infrastructure development are identified. The legal positions of the World Heritage Committee regarding the implementation of capital construction within the boundaries of World Heritage sites are analyzed. The constructive nature of the decisions adopted at the forty-fifth session of the World Heritage Committee is stated, proposals are formulated to improve legislation in the field of protection of World Natural heritage sites. The necessity of introducing amendments to the Federal Law “On Specially Protected Natural Territories”, defining the features of the protection of natural complexes of international importance, is substantiated. The importance of taking into account the modern climate agenda in ensuring the preservation of World Natural Heritage sites is emphasized.

Urbanization influences the indoor transfer of airborne antibiotic resistance genes, which has a seasonally dependent pattern

Over the last few years, the cumulative use of antibiotics in healthcare institutions, as well as the rearing of livestock and poultry, has resulted in the accumulation of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). This presents a substantial danger to human health worldwide. The characteristics of airborne ARGs, especially those transferred from outdoors to indoors, remains largely unexplored in neighborhoods, even though a majority of human population spends most of their time there. We investigated airborne ARGs and mobile genetic element (MGE, IntI1), plant communities, and airborne microbiota transferred indoors, as well as respiratory disease (RD) prevalence using a combination of metabarcode sequencing, real-time quantitative PCR and questionnaires in 72 neighborhoods in Shanghai. We hypothesized that (i) urbanization regulates ARGs abundance, (ii) the urbanization effect on ARGs varies seasonally, and (iii) land use types are associated with ARGs abundance. Supporting these hypotheses, during the warm season, the abundance of ARGs in peri-urban areas was higher than in urban areas. The abundance of ARGs was also affected by the surrounding land use and plant communities: an increase in the proportion of gray infrastructure (e.g., residential area) around neighborhoods can lead to an increase in some ARGs (mecA, qnrA, ermB and mexD). Additionally, there were variations observed in the relationship between ARGs and bacterial genera in different seasons. Specifically, Stenotrophomonas and Campylobacter were positively correlated with vanA during warm seasons, whereas Pseudomonas, Bacteroides, Treponema and Stenotrophomonas positively correlated with tetX in the cold season. Interstingly, a noteworthy positive correlation was observed between the abundance of vanA and the occurrence of both rhinitis and rhinoconjunctivitis. Taken together, our study underlines the importance of urbanization and season in controlling the indoor transfer of airborne ARGs. Furthermore, we also highlight the augmentation of green–blue infrastructure in urban environments has the potential to mitigate an excess of ARGs.

How do employees in the Polish financial sector react to automation in their workplace?

Abstract Banks and other financial institutions are at the forefront of digital transformation, driven by artificial intelligence technologies and accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to better understand automation within Poland’s financial sector by identifying factors that influence automation levels and future expectations and by examining how the pace of automation changed during the pandemic. We analyzed data from 172 questionnaires collected from employees in the Polish financial sector in October and November 2020, along with insights on digitization from prior interviews with bank CEOs and managers. Our findings show that age, education, and firm characteristics relate to automation experience and that this experience influences employees’ views on future automation. Hence, it emphasizes the importance of demographic factors, workplace environment, and technological infrastructure in shaping experiences and expectations of automation, preparing the groundwork for future policies to manage the evolving work landscape amid technological advancements. The study improves our understanding of employees’ attitudes toward digital transformation and helps tackle the organizational roots of technological unemployment.

Preface

Disaster Research Center Universitas Sebelas Maret successfully held the 2nd International Conference on Disaster Management and Climate Change 2023 (ICoDMC 2023) via the online Zoom system on August 12 2023. ICoDMC 2023 aims to disseminate research results and various ideas regarding controlling environmental damage and disaster management for a better life and provide input to the government and other policy-making institutions in the environment and disaster management field. The theme for 2023 is Climate Changes and Hydrometeorological Disaster Mitigation.ICoDMC 2023 invites great speakers who are highly competent in natural disasters and disaster environments, and they are Prof. Ir. Dwikorita Karnawati, M.Sc. PhD (Head of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency), Prof. Christopher Andre Gomez (Department of Maritime Sciences, Kobe University, Japan), Ahmad Marzuki, S.Sc. Ph.D (Sebelas Maret University, Indonesia), Prof. Dr. Martin Coy (Institut Für Geographie, Universität Innsbruck, Austria), and Dr. Annisa Triyanti (Utrecht University, Netherlands).The topic of this seminar is Climate Changes and Ecology, Disaster Mitigation, Disaster Risk Reduction, Environmental Risk Assessment Infrastructure for Disaster, Natural Resources, Natural and Non-Natural Disaster, Oceanography and Coastal Problems, Water and Hydrology, and Spatial Planning for Disaster. There were 198 articles submitted according to the topic above, and after selection, selected 135 articles were presented and submitted to the IOP-EES Proceedings. The article’s authors include lecturers, practitioners, teachers, and students. Two hundred twenty-six participants joined the seminar.Thank you to all speakers, authors and participants. See you at the third ICoDMC.RegardsProf. Dr. Chatarina Muryani, M.SiChairman of the committee Committee 2nd International Conference on Disaster Management and Climate Changes (ICoDMC 2023) List of Steering Committee, Conference Chair, Conference Vice Chair, Secretary, Editor are available in this pdf.

Traditional and Modern Disaster Resistant House Construction Techniques

A large portion of the wealth of any nation is invested in its built-up environment viz, housing, infrastructure, industrial and commercial facilities. The quality of this built-up environment, expressed in terms of durability, safety and functionality, is a determining factor for the quality of life and economic development of the society, and the competitiveness of its industry and services. Extensive loss of this wealth is caused by natural disasters that strike periodically. A natural disaster is an event of nature that causes sudden destruction, damaging the economy and social structure on a massive scale. The calamity results in a huge financial burden in terms of relief and rescue operations. All-round decline in production, unemployment, indebtedness as well as increased cost of goods and services are the other debilitating results of natural disasters. This research paper deals with the traditional as well as modern disaster resistant construction techniques to meet the aftermath of disasters. It examines the issue of damage to Reinforced Concrete Cement (RCC) buildings by underlying the necessity of adherence to building codes and standards. Some recent advances in housing technology are also highlighted.

Градостроительные требования к архитектуре жилой среды малого города

The article considers a particular specificity of the formation of a living environment with a necessary public infrastructure environment. The author reveals urban planning requirements related to the his-torical traditions of Northern Tajikistan.

Peningkatan Pengetahuan Dengan Kesadaran Diri Terhadap Perilaku Hidup Bersih dan Sehat (PHBS)

Until now, public health problems are still a concern. for the government. Public awareness of the importance of health is still low. The level of public health is uneven and very low, especially in people living in slum settlements. Clean and Healthy Living Behavior (PHBS) is a health behavior carried out with awareness, so that a person can improve their health status. Community behavior that is still unhygienic, coupled with the absence of supporting environmental facilities and infrastructure, has an impact on the health of people living in these slum settlements. Many public health problems may arise due to people's behavior and environmental conditions that do not pay attention to health. The problems found in the Silaberanti sub-district, especially in RT 26, 41 and 42, are a lack of public awareness of clean and healthy living behavior, this can be seen from an unclean environment and improper disposal of rubbish. The solution used to overcome this problem is by increasing awareness community through outreach activities about clean and healthy living behavior and working together to clean the surrounding environment. The results of this activity have a positive impact on society by providing good understanding 90% thereby increasing self-awareness of clean and healthy living behavior.

INVESTMENT POTENTIAL OF CITIES IN THE CONDITIONS OF WAR

The investment potential of Ukrainian cities during the war is analysed in this article. It defines the concept of 'investment potential of a city' and analyses its key components and interrelationships, including economic stability, infrastructure and logistics, market potential, level of innovation, education, and labour force. Research has shown that the investment potential of a city is closely linked to its level of economic stability. Therefore, effective risk reduction and sound financial management are crucial in attracting long-term investments. It has been revealed that transport connections, communication networks, and other logistical aspects contribute to the growth of a city's investment potential. However, the war has significantly impacted urban infrastructure and logistics in Ukraine, creating serious challenges for the functioning and development of cities. The military situation in Ukraine has had a significant impact on the economic environment and business infrastructure, challenging the market potential of cities. The level of innovation in cities is affected by the situation of war, which brings many challenges and limitations. However, innovation can be an important factor in post-conflict adaptation and reconstruction. Challenges that can affect a city's investment potential include the impact of military conflict on education and the workforce. Therefore, it is crucial to focus on restoring and supporting educational initiatives, creating conditions to attract the best talent, and stimulating innovation in education and human resource development to overcome the challenges posed by war. The investment potential of cities is a multi-faceted indicator that reflects economic, socio-cultural and technological dynamics and helps to make informed decisions about investment and urban infrastructure development.

INDICATORS AND DIMENSIONS IN THE FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF A SUSTAINABLE CAMPUS INDEX

The establishment of a green campus assumes significance in ensuring comfort and elevating the overall quality of life. This study was conducted to ascertain the variability in the questionnaires and delineate the attributes of questions exhibiting high variation in the results. Therefore, constructing the UniSZA Green Campus index based on the acquired weighted values. A total of 420 questionnaires were returned out of 500. Principal Component Analysis was employed to extract distinctive information from the amalgamated dataset. The results of the analysis draw out four factors that were discerned and subsequently interpreted as environmental management (46.65%), environmental infrastructure (12.53%), environmental atmosphere (6.35%), and environmental program (5.39%). In assessing the variation of the UniSZA Green Campus Index, distinct categories were identified, encompassing excellent, good, fair, poor, and bad classifications. This study suggests that the average UniSZA Green Campus index is situated within the second category. Despite the indication of good standing, the university should proactively take steps to ensure that UniSZA aligns with the principles of environmental sustainability in daily practices. The index system can serve as a guide for universities to attain sustainability on their campuses.

Greenhouse gas emissions from sanitation and wastewater management systems: a review

ABSTRACT There is growing awareness of the contribution of sanitation systems to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally, and hence to climate change. However, there is a lack of comprehensive insight into emission sources disaggregated across the entire sanitation chain. This study presents a detailed review and analysis of emission sources from both sewer-based and non-sewered sanitation systems, with a focus on both fugitive emissions and those related to system operation. Our analysis highlights evidence gaps in several areas in the literature: quantifying emissions from non-sewered sanitation systems, with particular gaps related to technologies like biogas toilets and composting toilets; oversight of contextual factors such as environmental conditions and infrastructure operational status in GHG accounting; a dearth of holistic GHG emission studies across the entire sanitation chain comparable to those in the solid waste management sector; and inconsistencies in GHG measurement methods. By pinpointing these gaps, this review provides a robust reference for planning climate mitigation strategies for sanitation and wastewater management systems, emphasizes the urgent need for the incorporation of climate-smart solutions in the sector, e.g. in the design of new and retrofitted infrastructure, and aims to bridge the sustainable development goals related to sanitation and climate action.

Two-phase oil and water flow pattern identification in vertical pipes applying long short-term memory networks

Accurate biphasic flow pattern recognition is essential in the design of coatings for the oil and gas sector because it enables engineers to create materials that are tailored to specific flow conditions. This results in enhanced corrosion protection, erosion resistance, flow efficiency, and overall performance of equipment and infrastructure in the challenging environments of the oil and gas industry. The development of flow maps has been based on empirical correlations that incorporate characteristics such as superficial velocities, volume fractions, and physical properties such as the density and viscosity of the analyzed substances. In addition, geometric parameters such as the inclination and the internal diameter of the pipes are considered. However, due to the difficult working conditions on offshore platforms and the limitations in monitoring internal flow patterns, technological advances have been implemented to improve this process using artificial intelligence techniques. In this context, this study proposes using a long-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network to predict the flow patterns generated in vertical pipes. This LSTM network was trained and validated using data obtained from a literature database. The results obtained showed that the model has a prediction error of less than 1%. These technological advances represent an important step towards optimizing the flow pattern identification process in the hydrocarbons industry. By leveraging the capabilities of artificial intelligence, more accurate and reliable forecasts can be obtained, enabling informed decisions and improving the efficiency and safety of operations.

Determining Priorities for Handling Environmental Road Sections in Palu City (Case Study in West Palu District)

Palu City has numerous roads, including environmental road networks, where the function of many environmental roads has decreased due to heavy traffic and damaged road structures. The improvement of environmental road infrastructure is a complex issue that requires objective policymakers. Sometimes, the work carried out to address environmental issues on roads is not prioritized effectively. To tackle this problem, a research study was conducted to determine the priority order for handling environmental roads in the West Palu sub-district of Palu City. The study used a multi-criteria analysis approach to determine priorities, where the criteria were weighted based on input from respondents from government agencies related to road infrastructure. The criteria used to determine priorities in this research were road conditions, traffic volume, land use, and development planning deliberation proposals. The criteria for road conditions and traffic volume were given the highest priority weighting with weight values of 39.10% and 28.10%, respectively. This was followed by the development planning deliberation proposal criteria at 21.50% and land use criteria at 11.30%. By weighting criteria and scoring criteria based on operational criteria variables, the analysis obtained the top 5 priority orders for handling environmental road sections on Jl. Srikaya. Lr. Sirsak II Kel. Kamonji, Jl. Mas Mansyur Lr. Kel. Baru, Jl. Samudra II Lr. II Kel. Lere, Jl. Lasoso Lr I Kel. Lere and Jl. Durian Lr. Kel. Kamonji.

Socialization and Training of Aromatic Candle Processing from Used Cooking Oil for Urban Residents

This article highlights a community initiative aimed at promoting sustainable household liquid waste management in Kediri City, Indonesia. The problem identified was the insufficient attention given to liquid waste, particularly used cooking oil, which often leads to environmental pollution and infrastructure damage. The objective of the activity was to raise awareness among residents about the proper disposal and recycling of used cooking oil. The proposed approach involved conducting workshops, training sessions, and awareness campaigns to educate community members about the environmental impacts of improper disposal and the benefits of recycling used cooking oil into aromatic candles. Major findings revealed that through collaborative efforts with local officials and community organizations, the initiative successfully engaged community members and fostered a sense of responsibility towards waste management. The training programs empowered participants with practical skills to convert used cooking oil into aromatic candles, promoting the repurposing of waste while creating a pleasant atmosphere. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of community participation and public awareness in ensuring sustainable liquid waste management. The initiative showcased the feasibility of recycling used cooking oil and highlighted the potential for broader adoption of similar practices in other regions. Overall, the activity underscored the significance of individual actions in collectively addressing environmental challenges and encouraged the adoption of responsible waste management practices at the household level.

Environmental Governance in Small Cities: Decentralization, Municipal Capacity and Autonomy in Gujarat and West Bengal

India’s 74th Constitutional Amendment obliges state governments to devolve responsibilities related to urban environmental resources and services to the Urban Local Bodies. However, the existing literature points to deficiencies in urban decentralization, including a mismatch between resources and responsibilities, financial constraints, and a lack of capacities at the municipal level. This article, based on comparative fieldwork and analysis of environmental governance in four small cities in Gujarat and West Bengal, two states representing contrasting subnational political regimes, largely confirms the literature on urban decentralization, but it also shows important differences between the two states. Municipal governance reflects state-level regime types to some extent: While an efficient local and parastatal bureaucracy spearheads investments in environmental infrastructure in Gujarat, relatively autonomous elected municipal councillors in West Bengal guide a widely spread creation of small environmental assets. The availability of more untied funds at the local level in Gujarat than in West Bengal leads to more pronounced intra-state variation and opens possibilities for more substantial municipal agency.

Study of Smart Cities Based on Human Capital (Case of Russian Research-Driven Towns as Proto-Smart Cities)

Existent philosophical literature has been largely focusing on the ethical aspects and controversies of developing and using smart technologies such as AI and big data, whereas human capital and infrastructural environment as pre-existing factors have been covered by AI Ethics in a lesser extent. Most of the current research focuses on technical infrastructural aspects in the implementation of complex «smart projects», while insufficient attention is paid to the role of social capital. In order to widen the focus and to include human capital and infrastructural developments coming along with the increasing role of AI, the paper takes a novel look at philosophical underpinnings of smart cities and discusses the concept of the Russian Naukograd (literally from Russian – City of Science, or Researchers’ city, meaning a city which is developing as a community of scientists and academics) as a historical approach for smart city concept implementation. The authors apply theoretical methods of cognition (analysis, synthesis) as well as the case study approach to the Russian (Soviet) experience in forming research-driven cities in order to highlight the value of high scientific, industrial and educational capital («smart nation») as a fundamental factor for the stable long-term development of modern cities. The findings suggest that some concepts of the Russian Naukograd for example the focus on research and education are valuable and that investment in social capital (i. e., people) should stand on the same footing as investment in technology developing a smart city. In this approach the prefix «smart» may stand for «smart citizens/nations» as a pivotal framework at the initial stages of smart cities development.

Theoretical Framework for a Polymorphic Network Environment

The question of whether an ideal network exists with global scalability in its full life cycle has always been a first-principles problem in the research of network systems and architectures. Thus far, it has not been possible to scientifically practice the design criteria of an ideal network in a unimorphic network system, making it difficult to adapt to known services with clear application scenarios while supporting the ever-growing future services with unexpected characteristics. Here, we theoretically prove that no unimorphic network system can simultaneously meet the scalability requirement in a full cycle in three dimensions—the service-level agreement (S), multiplexity (M), and variousness (V)—which we name as the “impossible SMV triangle” dilemma. It is only by transforming the current network development paradigm that the contradiction between global scalability and a unified network infrastructure can be resolved from the perspectives of thinking, methodology, and practice norms. In this paper, we propose a theoretical framework called the polymorphic network environment (PNE), the first principle of which is to separate or decouple application network systems from the infrastructure environment and, under the given resource conditions, use core technologies such as the elementization of network baselines, the dynamic aggregation of resources, and collaborative software and hardware arrangements to generate the capability of the “network of networks.” This makes it possible to construct an ideal network system that is designed for change and capable of symbiosis and coexistence with the generative network morpha in the spatiotemporal dimensions. An environment test for principle verification shows that the generated representative application network modalities can not only coexist without mutual influence but also independently match well-defined multimedia services or custom services under the constraints of technical and economic indicators.