Massive Infrastructure Investments Research Articles

The politics of percentage: Informating justice in the US clean energy rush

Within days of taking office in January 2021, President Biden signed an executive order establishing the Justice40 initiative, which directed federal agencies to ensure that at least 40% of the benefits of federal investments flow to historically marginalized communities. This article traces how Justice40, as interpreted and enacted by government bureaucrats, academics, industry researchers, and activists, intervenes in the governance of the energy transition it seeks to put into motion. Drawing from ongoing critical participation in energy research and development arenas and taking inspiration from Kim Fortun’s notion of the “informating of environmentalism,” this article argues that Justice40 can be understood as an attempt to informate justice, rendering it into problems that can be understood, manipulated, and audited through information systems. Scrambling to manage their accountabilities to the executive branch, Congress, and the American taxpayers footing the bill for massive infrastructure investments, Department of Energy programs are rolling out intricate systems of quantification, whose objectives of commensurability obscure local conceptions and prioritizations of justice. While Justice40 articulates lofty goals of energy transition enhancing the wellbeing of people who have otherwise been harmed by or excluded from the country’s existing energy infrastructure, its everyday practice has the ironic effect of undermining both epistemic and procedural justice.

External costs of high-voltage overhead transmission lines: Evidence from a causal approach in rural France

In light of climatic change and global warming, electricity transmission networks need to be developed for the integration of renewable sources. In North America and Europe, to achieve renewable electricity goals, massive investments in electricity transport infrastructure are planned to connect solar and wind generation sites to the grid network. However, local opposition to new installations of high-voltage overhead transmission lines (HVOTLs) is causing delays and cost overruns. Visual nuisance is an important basis of local stakeholders' opposition to a new project. Estimations of the local economic impact of HVOTLs can help in identifying the external costs of the electricity supply industry to improve both efficiency in electricity pricing and fairness in defining provision for host community compensation. Prior research has provided evidence that existing HVOTLs have negative but not substantial effects on their immediate neighbourhoods. However, these studies have applied a correlational approach. This paper revisits the external effects of HVTOLs, exploring the case of a 225 kV line connecting two medium-size cities (Saint-Privat-d'Allier to Saint-Etienne) in France. We take advantage of the public disclosure in 2009 of undergrounding 8 km out of a total of 87 km lines as a result of a network upgrade project, to develop a difference-in-difference specification of a hedonic regression model, by comparing house sale prices at different distances from existing pylons, before and after the announcement of the decision to upgrade the line. We show that undergrounding was accompanied by an increase of about 38% in the price of treated houses located within 200 m of old pylons. The implied environmental costs of proximity to high-voltage pylons are substantial and their reduction is internalized into house prices as soon as the decision to go underground is announced.

The Effect of Balikpapan-Samarinda Toll Road Construction with a PPP Scheme on The Formation of Economic Structure in East Kalimantan

Economic effects are just one of the many effects of the massive infrastructure investment in Indonesia made over the past ten years. The aim of connecting Indonesia between regions is the basis for massive infrastructure growth, especially toll road infrastructure. Several funding schemes have been implemented to build toll road infrastructure, including the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) financing scheme. This PPP financing scheme was also implemented in the Balikpapan-Samarinda toll road construction. Therefore, this research attempts to capture the impact of the construction of the Balikpapan-Samarinda toll road with a PPP scheme on the formation of the economic structure in East Kalimantan province using the Input-Output (I-O) table. The investment value for the Balikpapan-Samarinda toll road is IDR 9.97 trillion was injected (shock) into gross fixed capital formation in the construction sector. The calculation results in this research show that the construction of the Balikpapan-Samarinda toll road contributed 9.8% of total demand. Apart from that, there is a significant impact on the economic structure of East Kalimantan Province, as seen from the expenditure multiplier figure with an output total of IDR 15,111 billion, a total income of IDR 2,471 billion, and a total workforce of 25,095 workers due to investment in the construction of the Balikpapan-Samarinda toll road.

საჯარო-კერძო პარტნიორობის შესაძლებლობები და გამოწვევები საქართველოს მაგალითზე

In the modern world, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are becoming an increasingly popular tool for infrastructure and public service delivery worldwide. As an innovative approach to public procurement, PPPs, the possibilities of public-private partnerships in public administration have also attracted significant attention from academic circles, which makes the study of the issue even more interesting and relevant. In general, the governance literature emphasizes the role of markets, networks, and non-state actors. In doing so, it weakens the distinction between states and other spheres of social order. All social and political regimes seem to depend on a model or form of government, however informal it may be. Global support for public-private partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure appears stronger than ever. Discussions at a number of summits over the past few years have increasingly focused on the need for massive infrastructure investment in developing countries, particularly low-income countries. Governments in developing countries face enormous challenges in financing, implementing and maintaining the infrastructure to provide and maintain basic services for their citizens and promote economic growth. Despite significant strides in recent years in emerging markets, many people still lack access to reliable and secure basic services. PPPs have shown that they can, under the right circumstances, promote growth and improve service delivery, clearly indicating the importance of PublicPrivate Partnerships (PPPs) for Georgia.

Interactive effects of armed conflict and climate change on gender vulnerability in Sub-Saharan Africa

PurposeSub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is regarded as a region with one of the worst cases of armed conflict and climate risk. This paper examines the interactive effect of armed conflict and climate risk on gender vulnerability in SSA.Design/methodology/approachThe difference and system generalised method of movement (GMM) were used to examine the relationship between the variables using annualised data of 35 SSA countries from 1998 to 2019.FindingsThe paper found strong evidence that armed conflict and climate change are positive predictors of gender vulnerability. The impact of climate change on gender vulnerability is found to be more direct than indirect.Practical implicationsThe direct and indirect positive effect of armed conflict and climate change on gender vulnerability implies that climate change drives gender vulnerability through multiple channels. This underscores the need for a multi-disciplinary policy approach to addressing gender vulnerability problem in SSA.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the climate action debate by highlighting the need for climate action to incorporate gender inclusive policies such as massive investment in infrastructure and safety nets that offer protection to the most vulnerable girls and women affected by armed conflict and climate change. Societies should as a matter of urgency strive to structural barriers that predispose girls and women to biodiversity loss.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2022-0595

‘Riding the wave’: the development of marinas around the world and the founding of the marina in Tel Aviv, Israel

ABSTRACT The first marina in Israel was founded in 1973 in Tel Aviv. The accelerated development of sailing in the West after World War II and the economic prosperity that followed demanded the construction of designated marinas, which began to appear in the West in the 1960s and in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea in the 1970s. Similarly to Greece and Turkey, the marina in Tel Aviv was built in the framework of massive investment in touristic infrastructure, which in the Israeli case began after the War of 1967. Unlike other European countries, Israel did not have a maritime tradition and culture. These were initiated by the Zionist Movement, starting in the 1930s, as part of the national struggle for independence. Only in the late 1960s did the Israeli middle class take on this field; however, the geographical conditions of the open Israeli coast constricted this development. The marina was meant to encourage maritime tourism while taking advantage of the development of sailing in the Mediterranean. It made sailing accessible to Israelis and initiated a process where additional marinas would be built and tens of thousands of Israelis would participate in sailing in the following years.

Decomposition and drivers of energy intensity in Ghana

Ghana's energy intensity trends point to a high energy use necessary to generate a unit of output. The country has also witnessed massive investment in energy infrastructure geared towards meeting its lower middle-income status and achieving universal access to energy. The logical question is: what is the contribution of the current economic and technical infrastructure level to the country's energy intensity? The current study addresses this question by employing the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index I (LMDI) to decompose energy intensity in Ghana from 2000 to 2020 to examine its trends and sources. The impact of economic-technical factors on aggregate energy intensity in Ghana is then investigated with the aid of the ARDL estimation technique to unearth potential asymmetric and symmetric effects. The decomposition analysis indicates an oscillating pattern in energy intensity in Ghana promoted by structural effect and labour productivity respectively. The results suggest that renewable energy, rural electrification, and digitisation have a direct and secondary long-run asymmetric effect on aggregate energy intensity with labour productivity and household consumption working as the transmission channels. The study recommends the need for government to pursue clean and eco-friendly practices in its economic development agenda for a meaningful reduction in energy intensity.

Analysing Economic Growth on Paid Work Growth in Mozambique

The central objective of this paper was to understand the contribution of economic growth on job creation (paid work) in Mozambique. This comes at a background when the country experienced a decade of significant economic growth and economic development, but poverty and unemployment remain a problem. The growth of an economy without creating opportunities for the population and especially the poor is undesirable and such situations are described as exclusive economic growth and development. Despite commendable economic growth episodes, an estimated 70% of the Mozambican labour force still work in the agriculture sector and on the other side, the informal economy is projected at around 80% of the economy. To achieve the central objective of the study, the authors estimated the Autoregressive Distributive Lag model (ARDL). Our key findings were that economic growth in Mozambique does have a positive impact on growth of waged and salaried workers (WASW) and the relationship is statistically significant. We also found that growth in infrastructure investment contributes positively to paid work. Lastly, we found that gross value added in the economy negatively impacts paid work. Policy recommendations arising from our findings are that responsible authorities need to embark on massive infrastructure investment since it was found that its growth has positive traction of waged and salaried work growth and economic growth which also contribute to further job creation.

Ailing neurosurgical services in rural Africa

Ailing neurosurgical services in rural Africa

Out of Sight Out of Mind: Household Perceptions of “Fair” Water Prices in Nairobi, Kenya

AbstractProviding piped water and sewer services is extremely capital intensive, yet most of this infrastructure is buried, hidden from citizens and ratepayers. Roman emperors built elaborate public fountains to increase the salience of massive infrastructure investments to the public, yet modern households give scarce thought to the water network that serves them. At the same time, tariffs are often too low to recover operations and maintenance costs, let alone capital replacement and system expansion. We use a field experiment to investigate whether providing 353 households in Nairobi, Kenya with information about the water infrastructure that serves them changes their perceptions of water and sewer bills. Compared to a control group, we find that providing households verbal and visual information (in person) about the capital intensity of water service delivery in Nairobi increased their perceptions of “fair” water bills by 15%–24% above the control mean of 404 KSH/mo.

Challenges of post-conflict urban transportation reconstruction in Mogadishu, Somalia

Mogadishu has experienced continuous internal conflicts in the past two decades, which has destroyed most parts of the city. As a result, it faces daunting development challenges to overcome the legacy of the sustained conflicts and fragility. The capital city, Mogadishu, is a significant pillar in building statehood as it forms an integral part of the growth and development of the country. It essentially provides an environment for the revival of socio-cultural activities and economic productivity in post-civil war reconstruction. Urban sprawls from the influx of displaced populations have extended city and town limits in Somalia, and the capital city Mogadishu bears the blunt of this expansion. Urban transportation in Mogadishu is a significant challenge requiring critical attention. Massive investment in urban transportation infrastructure and networks is vital for the city's urban recovery and economic development. However, the literature shows the lack of information and relevant statistics to support transport planning. Many NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and international development agencies are currently conducting surveys to improve the data resource for the post-conflict planning, development and management of the city. This paper evaluates the urban transportation in Mogadishu by providing an assessment of the challenges and opportunities for the new Mogadishu City Transport Planning Approach (MCTPA). The paper's findings could serve as a template for reconstructing the other urban transport systems in other parts of the country.

Mapping the Knowledge Domain of Affected Local Community Participation Research in Megaproject-Induced Displacement

Megaproject-induced displacement of populations will now occur more frequently due to massive infrastructure investment in the post-COVID-19 era. The participatory process for megaprojects starts with those in the vicinity; local communities who are directly involved. However, few studies have attempted to map the global knowledge of local community participation in the planning stage of megaprojects. A systematic literature review of public participation in the context of megaproject-induced displacement was conducted to determine these features, and to provide local community insights which are useful for managing social issues around megaprojects and the effects of participation. A total of 32 journal publications were analyzed from the Web of Science (WoS) database, drawing from an initial group of 456 based on citations from 2012 to 2022 to identify the evolution of knowledge trends. It was found that the nonfulfillment participatory process always fails to recognize groups of residents and assess the impacts of megaproject-induced displacement caused to local communities. This lack of recognition at the governmental level contributes to conflict; placing the local community at risk of uncertain megaproject environments. Broader public participation involves local communities, who be harmed by the development strategies of megaprojects, catalyzing their willingness to participate and encourage greater inclusiveness in their interactions, as well as balancing the megaproject’s economic, ecologic, and social interests. The study results demonstrate a consensus was reached, and the effects of megaproject-induced displacement can be mediated.

Minireview on Solar Desalination and Hydropower Generation by Water Evaporation: Recent Challenges and Perspectives in Materials Science

Environmental energy harvesting holds great promise for sustainable development of society. Today, there are many kinds of available energy sources, such as hydropower, nuclear energy, thermal power, etc., but all of these suffer from requiring massive infrastructure investment, producing environmental pollution, and/or having the potential to experience catastrophic failure. In this review, we introduce novel methodology for harvesting energy, using evaporation of water from three-dimensional porous media, low-dimensional nanotubes, or microfibrous structures. We can produce fresh water driven by harnessing sunlight and can generate hydroelectric power via water transpiration. The former is driven by nanoscale photothermal heating, which induces rapid evaporation of water, while its bulk remains near room temperature. The latter is coupled with mass transport of water comprising ions that are condensed adjacent to the charged surface of the porous or fibrous media. These proposed schemes are clean, simple, and useful, which can be employed anywhere, because they operate as a result of spontaneous capillary action of water, solar power, or coulombic attraction occurring at the water–solid interface. The low-cost micro- and nanostructured materials presented here are readily available, suitable for securing potable water, and offer ubiquitous, clean, permanent energy sources for self-powered sensor networks and night-time energy harvesters that do not require energy inputs.

Education and Livelihood in Ghana: Evidence from Instrumental Variable Analysis

The research verified if schooling makes any difference in the consumption expenditure and poverty status of individuals in Ghana. Using the recent round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey data, we quantified the difference that schooling makes in the livelihood of individuals through the method of instrumental variables (IV). We found that individuals who have completed some level of schooling experience a significant increase in their consumption expenditure relative to those who have not been to school at all. Again, educated individuals who are poor had a significantly lower consumption expenditure compared to educated individuals who are non-poor. Also, individuals with some level of schooling had a lower probability to be poor compared to those without any schooling. We suggest massive investment in educational infrastructure and a revision of the schooling curriculum to equip individuals with workable skills that can enable them to undertake livelihood activities to improve their welfare.

Mega-urban politics: Analyzing the infrastructure turn through the national state lens

Recent studies have focused attention on the proliferation of plans in the Global South for massive infrastructure investment to accelerate peri-urbanization and link together networks of proximate cities. This paper proposes that a focus on the national politics of the infrastructure push is an essential starting point to understand this trend, both because the national state plays a constitutive role in the processes that are shaping emerging urbanity, and because national states are themselves being transformed by this moment. In pursuing infrastructure-driven extended urbanization, national state actors seek to capitalize on moments of opportunity presented by shifts in the investment priorities of transnational financial actors, and by advances in infrastructure and logistics technologies, to gain power through the formation of political regimes based on economic growth and the distribution of rents from land development. Hence extended urbanization proceeds not as a gradual and linear process, but is instead marked by waves of disruptive and politically contentious reforms and plans intended to enable real estate, infrastructure, and logistics megaprojects. The current wave of political projects around extended urbanization is marked by distinct features, including the increasingly fragmented and decentered nature of transnational finance, and geopolitical dynamics associated with the emergence of an increasingly polycentric global order. It is consequently marked by geopolitical competition to shape emergent state agendas of extended urbanization, and by increasing variegation in the models of infrastructure-driven extended urbanization that state actors adopt. The paper illustrates these arguments with examples from Southeast Asia's mega-urban regions.

Development or dispossession? Exploring the consequences of a major Chinese investment in rural Cambodia

ABSTRACT China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is facilitating massive infrastructure investment globally. Yet little is known about the BRI's local impacts, especially in countries like Cambodia where regulations are weak and government enthusiasm for the BRI is high. This article examines a set of BRI-linked investments in rural Cambodia, involving five agro-industrial concessions and a sugar-processing factory. We explore how these investments interacted with the local political economy and land governance. We find that, despite being couched in rhetoric of opportunity and progress, the investments caused Indigenous and Khmer villagers to lose access to customary land and forest resources, with disastrous consequences for livelihoods and the environment. We invoke Tsing's ‘economy of appearances' to suggest that generation of speculative value is a key aspect of the BRI. This case confirms that ‘development’ of this kind can instigate and accelerate local dispossession, while failing to deliver on grandiose promises.

Development Policy, Plan and Economic Diversification in Nigeria: Perspectives on Economic Recovery and Growth Plan

The study examined the relationship between development policy/plan and economic diversification in Nigeria. It centered on Nigeria’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP). The ERGP regime was adopted by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in the wake of Nigeria’s economic recession in 2016. The vulnerabilities of the Nigerian economy and structural weaknesses (i.e., dependence on oil and gas for national revenue and main national export) have consistently created challenges for the nation’s economy. The ERGP was designed in 2017 to, among other things; diversify Nigeria’s economy between 2017 and 2020. To achieve economic diversification, one of the targets of the ERGP is to drive industrialization, with a focus on small and medium size enterprises to increase non-oil exports. Thus, the main objective of the study was to ascertain the extent of economic diversification since the adoption of the plan in the country. The study adopted the Endogenous Growth Theory to explain the extent of economic diversification in the country. The study relied on secondary data mainly from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), focusing on manufactured/non-oil exports and revenue from the non-oil sectors. The study revealed that there has been an accelerated implementation of the ERGP leveraging on the National Industrial Revolution Plan. Nonetheless, this effort has not significantly produced the desired result of economic diversification, as oil and gas remain the mainstay of the economy. For the ERGP to achieve the desired outcomes there is need to invest massively and genuinely in infrastructure (power, road, etc.), human capital development and research and development (R&D). Hence, the paper concluded that for Nigeria to enjoy substantial economic diversification there must be genuine and concerted government commitment to industrialization. The study recommended, among other things, that there should be massive investment in infrastructure, human capital development, research and development (R&D) to generate new ideas and institutionalization of a functional industrial development bank.

The multifaceted geographies of green infrastructure policy and planning: socio-environmental dreams, nightmares, and amnesia

Infrastructure lies at the heart of many disputes within environmental policy and planning. Take for example recent proposals for massive federal investments in infrastructure in the United States....

Examining indoor air pollution in a large-scale integrated transportation hub in Shanghai

With the rapid growth of travel demand and massive investments in transportation infrastructure, large-scale integrated transport hubs that connect multiple transport modes are emerging in many cities. Indoor air pollution in such hubs could have significant adverse impact on passengers’ health due to the high passenger volume and the pivotal role in the transport system. In this study, we examine the distribution and determinants of air pollutant concentrations in large transport hubs using Hongqiao Hub in Shanghai, China as an example. We measure air pollutant concentrations and meteorological factors on 6 days throughout a year in different areas of the hub. We explore the spatial and temporal distribution of air pollutants within the hub and apply General Addictive Models to assess the relationship between air pollution, meteorological factors, and location attributes. We find that motor vehicles including taxis and parking vehicles are a major source of air pollutants in the hub. Based on the research findings, we propose measures to mitigate indoor air pollution in the hub and discuss policy implications.

Can Space–Time Shifting of Activities and Travels Mitigate Hyper-Congestion in an Emerging Megacity, Bangkok? Effects on Quality of Life and CO2 Emission

Many megacities in the world, especially Bangkok, are facing severe congestion in road traffic and public transport, particularly during peak hours. This situation (a) worsens the quality of life, (b) releases emissions causing air pollution and climate change, and (c) subsequently creates requests for massive investment in transport infrastructure, which easily exceed the budget’s limit. Instead of solving the problem by supply-side strategies, applying ICT-based solutions to reform people’s daily activities, particularly commuting and working behaviors, on the demand-side is an alternative solution. As a promising solution, Mobility as a Service (MaaS) introduces ICT to persuade people to use public modes of transport. However, modal shift is a partial solution to mitigate traffic congestion. With technological advancements in communication, people become more flexible in their activities in terms of place and time aspects. MaaS should not only induce a transport mode shift but also a workplace shift and working time shift by extending the planning service in daily activity-travel level, exploiting people’s flexibilities for an activity’s place and time to manage travel demand. This paper proposes the QOL-MaaS as the extended MaaS to support space–time shift of activity-travel and reveals its potential impacts on traffic congestion, quality of life, and CO2 emission.