Development Of Sustainable Plans Research Articles

Geospatial Analysis for Tectonic Assessment and Soil Erosion Prioritization: A Case Study of Wadi Al-Lith, Red Sea Coast, Saudi Arabia

An investigation into tectonics and erosion reveals that they play an important role in causing uplifting, valley incision, and soil erosion. The analysis of drainage basins at different scales is irreplaceable in the development of sustainable plans, particularly in arid regions. Morphotectonics and morphometric characterization analyses are very effective methods for defining the evolution of different landforms, current-day tectonic activity, and hydrological and morphological signatures of basins under investigation. The reorganization of critical drainage basins and sub-basin risk priority ranking are essential for effective and accurate sustainable plans for drainage basin management and water resources. In this study, the coupling of geospatial techniques and statistical strategies was used to examine the tectonic activity and priorities in terms of soil erosion for 15 sub-basins of Wadi Al-Lith along the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia. Two effective models, namely, the relative tectonic activity model and the weighted sum analysis model, were applied for examining each geomorphological and hydrological characteristic based on an analysis of the morphotectonics and morphometric parameters. Regarding the relative tectonic activity model, the 15 sub-basins were classified into three classes of tectonic activity: low, moderate, and high. Sub-basins 5, 6, 13, and 15 were considered to be in class 1 (high relative tectonic activity). On the other hand, the weighted sum analysis model assigned the sub-basins into three different ranks: low-, moderate-, and high-soil-erosion priorities. The current study’s results suggest that sub-basins 5, 6, 10, 13, and 15 were recorded within the high-soil-erosion zone and highly relative tectonic activity, covering approximately 53.52% of the total sub-basin areas. The relative tectonic activity and weighted sum analysis models proved their validity in the risk studies, which will be very useful for decision makers in various fields, including natural resources and agriculture.

A data‐driven inertia adequacy‐based approach for sustainable expansion planning in distributed generations‐penetrated power grids

Reduced rotational inertia in power grids due to increasing penetration levels of distributed generations (DGs) may lead to degraded performance of the traditional frequency control scheme. In response to this challenge, inertia adequacy has recently emerged as a new research area in modern power systems. Accordingly, an attempt is made in this paper to tackle inertia adequacy in the generation expansion planning (GEP) problem. This in turn helps to realize sustainable economic development. For this purpose, the inertia adequacy constraint is tied to the frequency stability metrics. In other words, minimum permissible inertia that satisfies frequency dynamic standards is defined as an inertia adequacy constraint in the GEP formulation. Further, an experimentally validated model of a cluster of DGs is employed to realize a penetrated power grid to deal with sustainable planning development. Finally, an iterative-based algorithm is proposed to expand the system with minimum cost and with the highest permissible penetration level of DGs. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is examined in the Garver test system.

Tourism Complex Development Exploration of Small and Medium-Sized Cities in China

Tourism industry has formed special effects in regional economic development than in the general industry, especially promoting the industry cluster and new type urbanization in the region operations significantly nowadays in China. The comprehensive integrated development of tourism resources and its surrounding supporting services and facilities can achieve perfect combination between urban leisure consumption and new integrated industrial economy which are both the core power of regional integrated development. This paper discusses relevant study towards tourism complex development exploration of small and medium-sized cities in the context of the rapid development of urban-rural integration, proposes development strategies of small and medium-sized city tourism complex. Based on the case of Wushan Lake in Hubei province ecological tourism comprehensive development, using relevant theories to guide its sustainable planning development.

A mathematical decision-making procedure to assist in the development of sustainability plans based on the STARS framework

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to establish an objective mathematical decision-making procedure to help universities prioritize credits, while using the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) framework developed by the Association for Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), when pursuing their sustainability goals in the short-, medium- and long-term. The authors used the assessment data from Dominican University of California (DUofC), as our case study. Design/methodology/approach – Two criteria, the number of possible points available and overall priority, were developed to classify credits in the STARS version 1.2 framework into six groups from lowest to highest level of difficulty. Two mathematical credit-selecting models based on how many points were available per credit, partial or full amount, were also established to produce short-, medium- and long-term plans. Findings – Our results show that DUofC can reach the Silver level in three years by wor...