Urban Infrastructure Sustainability Research Articles

An automatic method of siltation depth detection and 3D modeling in water-filled sewer pipelines based on sonar point clouds

Underground sewer pipeline inspection is essential for ensuring the safety and sustainability of urban infrastructure and improving residents’ quality of life. Traditional sewer pipeline inspection methods incur high manual costs. Therefore, this paper proposes an automated siltation depth identification and three-dimensional pipeline model reconstruction using an iterative farthest point removal fitting process based on a sonar point cloud. This method includes interpreting raw sonar data into point cloud data, point cloud preprocessing, iterative farthest point removal fitting process to fit pipeline profile and reverse interpolation of pipeline slices for three-dimensional model reconstruction. This method is validated in real-world applications, successfully calculating and annotating silt depth for pipeline slice profiles. The quantitative analysis shows an error in the estimated siltation proportion fluctuating within approximately 1%. This method also reconstructs the three-dimensional spatial model of siltation in the sewer pipeline, thereby providing effective technical support for engineering applications and reducing manual effort.

OPTIMIZING THE OPERATION OF SMART CITIES TO INCREASE SUSTAINABLE TOURISM ATTRACTIVENESS

The article describes the main aspects of the development of smart tourism in nine smart cities. Analysis of the results of questionnaires assessing the state of the digital economy and the level of development of information and communication technologies in the tourism sector. The main trends and directions of development were assessed, as well as recommendations for optimizing the operation of smart cities to increase tourist attractiveness were proposed. In addition, the purpose of this article is not only to increase the tourist attractiveness, but also to ensure the sustainability of urban infrastructure, preserve environmental safety and improve the quality of life of the population. The economic consequences of reasonable tourism activities in the city, job creation opportunities and investment attractiveness were also taken into account. The results of the study show that with the help of intelligent technologies, it is possible to improve tourist information systems, expand digital services and increase the mobility of urban infrastructure.

Sustainable city tourism—A systematic analysis of Budapest and Mumbai

International Tourist arrivals, guest nights and their contribution to GDP are key indicators reflecting a country’s actual perception. A growing percentage of tourists prioritize environmental awareness across tourism products and services each year. Destinations aiming to meet the expectations of eco conscious travellers must center sustainability in their branding strategies. This approach aligns with UNWTO (World Tourism Organization of United Nations) Agenda 2030 of sustainable tourism development. This paper examines various dimensions of sustainability in tourism, focusing on Mumbai and Budapest. Using specific sustainability indicators, it employs sustainability city index to compare international tourism in these cities, which face distinct environmental and infrastructural challenges. By using specific sustainability indicators such as: (1) Carbon Emissions: Measurement of the total greenhouse gases produced by the city. (2) Proportion of Green Public Spaces: Evaluation of the percentage of urban areas dedicated to parks and natural spaces. (3) State of Infrastructure: Assessment of the quality and sustainability of urban infrastructure, including transportation systems. (4) Water Usage: Analysis of the amount of water consumed by the city and its conservation practices. (5) Waste Management: Review of the city’s effectiveness in managing and recycling waste. (6) Air Pollution: Monitoring of the levels of pollutants in the air to assess environmental health. This research provides a comprehensive view of how cities can attract environmentally conscious tourists. The findings offer guidance for policy makers and tourism professionals to align strategies with sustainable development goals. This detailed assessment highlights each city’s commitment to sustainability and delivers actionable insights for improving tourism strategies in accordance with global standards. While valuable for tourism professionals, it is important to note that this research covers only six SCI factors, with incomplete data for studied countries. The practical and social implications indicate areas needing improvement to enhance tourist appeal, beneficial for industry professionals and educational purposes. This comparative analysis aids in promoting sustainable tourism and can guide governments in achieving sustainability goals with raising awareness of environmental quality and conscious living.

Occurrence of dissolved organic matter in storm-drain inlet sediments and its implication for urban stormwater infrastructure sustainability

In the context of climate change, the effective management of carbon in urban stormwater infrastructure (USI) become increasingly crucial. Research indicates that dissolved organic matter (DOM) plays a significant role in the carbon cycle within USI. However, there is a lack of comprehensive information regarding the occurrence of DOM in urban storm-drain inlet (SDI) sediments. This study was undertaken to examine the land use type-related distribution of DOM in SDI sediments, and then provide the suggestion for urban infrastructure sustainability. There are three findings: (1) The characteristics of DOM in SDI sediments, including content, hydrophilicity, molecular weight, and functional groups of aromatic rings, exhibited variation with land functional type; (2) Urban SDI DOM had low humification, and was primarily originated from autochthonous sources, with the proportion of humic-like components close to or exceeding 50%; and (3) SDI sediment DOM was likely to have different characteristics from road dust and stormwater due to microbial activities over dry season. Based on these findings, measures for urban stormwater infrastructure sustainability are proposed, including properly road sweeping, frequently SDI sediment dredging, decreasing in emission from industrial activities, promoting local educational practices, and limiting improper organic waste disposal. These results have implications for the management of stormwater-related carbon and provide valuable insights for the development of sustainable practices for urban ecosystems.

Advancing the smart city objectives of electric demand management and new services to residents by home automation—learnings from a case

Smart city projects explore solutions to improve the sustainability of urban infrastructure. In Kalasatama, a new smart city district being built in Helsinki, a solution to excite the availability of electric demand management and other energy-related services for residents is being tested. The city has made installing a specified minimum set of home automation devices obligatory in each apartment in the district, with the intention that entrepreneurial companies would start to offer energy management solutions based on that automation. This case study examines the utilisation of home automation in energy management at a point in time when approximately one-third of the dwellings in the smart city district are complete. According to the results of the study, companies developing and building apartments in the area of Kalasatama do not seem to find the regulation concerning home automation to be directly beneficial. Also, the availability of energy management services, based on the home automation solution, seems to remain low for the residents of the district. Based on these findings, we propose that similar smart city projects should be subject to a wider dialogue between policymakers and prospective market participants in the project conceptualisation phase.

Urban Flood Risk and Economic Viability Analyses of a Smart Sustainable Drainage System

Urban drainage systems are in transition from functioning simply as a transport system to becoming an important element of urban flood protection measures providing considerable influence on urban infrastructure sustainability. Rapid urbanization combined with the implications of climate change is one of the major emerging challenges. The increased concerns with water security and the ageing of existing drainage infrastructure are new challenges in improving urban water management. This study carried out in the Seixal area in Portugal examines flood risk analyses and mitigation techniques performed by computational modelling using MIKE SHE from the Danish Hydraulic Institute (DHI). Several scenarios were compared regarding flood risk and sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS) efficiency. To obtain a more accurate analysis, the economic viability of each technique was analyzed as well through (i) life cost analysis and (ii) taking into account the damages caused by a certain type of flood. The results present that the best scenario is the one that will minimize the effects of great urbanization and consequently the flood risk, which combines two different measures: permeable pavement and detention basin. This alternative allows us to fully explore the mitigation capacity of each viable technique, demonstrating a very important improvement in the flood mitigation system in Seixal.

Sustainable urban infrastructure in China

Sustainable urban infrastructure in China

Preface

Preface for ICSID 2020 Proceedings The 2nd edition of the International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructural Development (ICSID 2020) which brought together notable scholars, experts, governmental agencies, policy makers, industrialists, professional bodies and students for the exchange and sharing of experience and ideas on issues pertinent to sustainable infrastructural development, held on July 27th and 28th, 2020. The Conference was organised by the Department of Civil Engineering, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria.Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic and the consequent world-wide safety measures such as social distancing and ban on traveling, this year’s conference held virtually and provided opportunities for participants to interact and present papers on:Sustainable Water Resources and Environment,Sustainable Housing and Construction Management,Sustainable Construction Materials,Sustainable Infrastructure, Project Management and Computational Modelling,Geotechnics and Transportation Infrastructure,Social Development Issues.The papers presented in the ICSID 2020 are contained within in this proceeding.Two plenary sessions addressed different aspects of Sustainable Infrastructural Development on each of the days of the conference. On day 1, international speakers made their presentations. Prof Innocent Musonda from the University of Johannesburg, South Africa spoke on “Building Sustainable Infrastructure in Post Covid-19 Era” while Dr. Nadine Ibrahim of the University of Waterloo, Canada, spoke on “Sustainability of Urban Infrastructure in Cities, Megacities, and Megaregions”. On day 2, Dr. Thomas B. Eyo from the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, FERMA, Abuja, Nigeria, presented on “Research and Development: Adoption of Innovations and Technologies for Sustainable Road Infrastructure”.Furthermore, of the over 160 abstracts and full papers received for the conference, 152 were accepted for the conference and packaged in the conference book of abstracts. Six breakout sessions were created on the basis of the conference themes and 76 presentations were scheduled for each day of the conference, while 81 contributed papers were packaged in this proceeding.It is our earnest vision that the presentations documented in this proceeding will serve as a catalyst to collective engagements by researcher, policymakers, industrialists and other stakeholders towards achieving the Sustainable Infrastructural Development that will enrich the quality of life in developing nations.Dr Anthony Nkem EdeChair, ICSID 2020 Conference Organizing CommitteeList of titles EDITORS, ICSID 2020 CONFERENCE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE, Remarks of the Vice-Chancellor, Covenant University, Professor AAA. Atayero at the 2nd International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructural Development (ICSID) on July 27, 2020 are available in this Pdf.

АНАЛІЗ НАУКОВО-МЕТОДИЧНИХ ПІДХОДІВ ДО ОЦІНЮВАННЯ СТАЛОСТІ ІНФРАСТРУКТУРИ МІСТА

Urban infrastructure sustainability assessment currently is being viewed as an important step towards the reduction of urbanization consequences, at the same time improving sustainability of communities within economic, social and ecological changes. To make such informed decisions, scientists have already developed several tools for comprehensive assessment of cities’ sustainability, which unfortunately do not fully reflect the sustainability of their infrastructures. Most modern assessment methods have been developed based on the needs of developed countries, which differ from the needs of developing countries. Increasingly, cities in developed countries obtain the top positions in various international rankings for urban sustainability. At the same time, cities in developing countries are rarely included in the rankings. Despite the presence of a significant number of scientific papers on the topic of urban sustainability assessment, the methodology for assessing the sustainability of its infrastructure remains unestablished. Most scholars consider urban infrastructure to be an integral part of sustainability assessment. According to the author, this approach is ineffective in terms of the results obtained, as it does not provide an opportunity to objectively analyze the state of municipal infrastructure due to the small number of criteria used for direct evaluation. This approach also limits the possibility of comparison between the infrastructures of different cities. Therefore, there is a need for further research and development of a specialized methodology for urban infrastructure sustainability assessment. Within the scope of this work, author analyzed various methods used for urban infrastructure sustainability assessment, presenting their advantages and disadvantages as well as analyzed the wholeness of the main urban sustainability indicators used for urban infrastructure assessment. It was revealed that out of 9 indicators analyzed only 3 proved to be adequate based on the number of infrastructure components included into assessment methodologies and availability of assessment results for several consequent years.

On the model for assessing the stability of the city’s territory to the impact of conventional means of destruction

The article presents the scheme of the model of urban infrastructure sustainability assessment under the impact of damaging means. The calculation of forces and means using the energy method was made and the transport task was solved.

A Unified Assessment Approach for Urban Infrastructure Sustainability and Resilience

The concepts of sustainability and resilience have become very popular in the field of urban infrastructure. This paper reviews previous research on sustainability and resilience of urban infrastructure. The concepts of urban infrastructure’s sustainability and resilience are compared from the perspectives of dimensions, properties, goals, and methodologies. The paper systematically assesses the sustainability and resilience of urban infrastructure by using the concept of the grade point average (GPA). The GPA of urban infrastructure’s sustainability and resilience (urban infrastructure SR-GPA) is proposed as a unified concept. The assessment index system of urban infrastructure SR-GPA is constructed from five dimensions including demand, status, influence, resource, and measure. The analytic network process (ANP) is used to assess urban infrastructure SR-GPA considering the interaction between the indexes. The ANP structure model of urban infrastructure SR-GPA is established based on the assessment method and index system. The Harbin subway SR-GPA is selected as an empirical study to test the applicability of the proposed assessment method. The results show that the assessment indexes have different impacts on urban infrastructure SR-GPA. The Harbin subway SR-GPA is in a low level and can be upgraded through increasing construction investment, allocating resources efficiently, and considering resilience in the whole life cycle.

An approach to designing sustainable urban infrastructure

ABSTRACT

Creating Inclusive Cities

Measuring progress towards the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs) will substantially depend on how countries are performing in the implementation of targets under the goals. One of the key challenges lies in designing sustainability indicators. For developing countries like India, the challenge is even more complex, given the continuous tension between quality of life aspirations and commitments towards sustainable development pathways. Thus, as countries aspire for achieving SDG-11, which seeks to create inclusive cities, they also need to ensure a mechanism that enables an evaluation and monitoring system for urban infrastructure and services that are aligned to the pillars and objectives of SDGs. This article presents an analysis of a set of indicators used in India and at the global level for five key urban sectors including housing. The analysis is aimed to provide an understanding on the adequacy of those indicators to the measure sustainability of infrastructure created and services provided. The article introduces a framework for this analysis which is derived from the principles of sustainable development. The research findings show that the indicators are more inclined towards a particular aspect, in each of the sectors. The article contributes to the sustainable development discourse by identifying aspects of sustainability that have been neglected and highlighting aspects that need to be focused, as India develops indicators to measure the sustainability of urban infrastructure.

A HARMONISE’d approach to building security-driven urban resilience: a call to arms

Purpose – Resilience is a topical concept in many academic disciplines world-wide and also among practitioners. In Europe, however, the current conceptualisations of urban resilience are highly specific to institutional contexts, national cultures and traditions and emergent risks faced in particular countries and their urban areas. The differences in how urban resilience is understood and applied are important, and yet such differences are only scarcely addressed in current resilience literature. This paper draws from the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration security project HARMONISE – A Holistic Approach to Resilience and Systematic Actions to Make Large Scale Built Infrastructure Secure. Design/methodology/approach – The project develops a comprehensive, multifaceted, yet mutually reinforcing concept for the enhanced security, resilience and sustainability of urban infrastructure and development. As part of the project, 61 experts were interviewed in six European countries (UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain and Finland) to establish a comprehensive understanding of the current role and position of resilience in urban-built infrastructure. These interviews elicit the current views of professionals from a number of contributory and competing disciplines. Findings – Results indicate that there is no shared holistic understanding of urban resilience in Europe. The definitions of the concept vary across disciplines. The research identifies that there are a number of existing theoretical and practice gaps that require to be addressed. Originality/value – This paper presents a number of research and practice “gaps” which are being addressed in the HARMONISE project and which require to be addressed by the wider academic and practice communities.

Sus-tweet-ability: Exposing public community׳s perspective on sustainability of urban infrastructure through online social media

One key role of urban informatics is to understand demands, challenges, and opportunities for major infrastructure projects in a bottom-up format. In this respect, engaging citizens through communication tools available in Social Web, and distilling micro-knowledge distributed among them appear to be reliable and promising streams. Chaotic nature and large size of unstructured big-data gathered in this way, and semantic barriers for understanding and classifying the content are among other difficulties which challenge efficiency and effectiveness of such methods. This paper suggests a specific form of collective intelligence, which can be described as 'collective classification', as a strategy and employs crowdsourcing as a tool to overcome such difficulties. We explain crowdsourcing in form of a Game With A Purpose, designed and run by University of Toronto between June and August of 2013. The game aimed to classify the content of online feeds in the context of sustainability of infrastructure projects, and to form a folksonomy for decoding the future communication. Players of the game were provided with 'sustainability' (at a holistic view covering its three main pillars: economy, environment, and society) as the context, a set of relevant tweets as items to be annotated, and a set of indicators developed in the domain literature as a template to follow. On top of the predefined indicators, the participants were allowed to suggest and create their own classes. Players' inputs were used in scoring other players' performance and this refined the results by drawing on the 'Wisdom of the Crowd'. The core contribution of the research is to use human computation in a bottom-up approach to solve a transdisciplinary problem which traditionally has been tackled via top-down solutions. As an example, taxonomies created by domain professionals are normally biased towards professionals; such traditional solutions normally lack context-sensitivity in nature, constructivism in approach, and pluralism in perspective. The method and the platform presented by this paper can be directly applied in similar studies to benchmark, classify, and fine-tune public perspective/knowledge in urban infrastructure related technical or semi-technical issues. Crowdsourcing offered as an approach to collect users perspective on infrastructure.Collective intelligence to build a folksonomy for sustainability of infrastructure.Users with relevant technical background: low in size and high in credibility/accuracy.Increasing quality of outputs happens at the cost of decreasing participation rate.Separating and highlighting experts' products creates bias towards using them.

Incorporation of Variable-Speed Pumping in Multiobjective Genetic Algorithm Optimization of the Design of Water Transmission Systems

Global warming caused by human activities presents serious global risks. Individuals, governments, and industries need to be more energy efficient and contribute to the mitigation of global warming by reducing their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In previous research, GHG emission reduction has been identified as one important criterion in improving the sustainability of urban infrastructure and urban water systems. Within the water industry, opportunities exist for reducing GHG emissions by improving pumping efficiency via the use of variable-speed pumps (VSPs). Previously, VSPs have been used in the optimization of the operation of existing water distribution systems (WDSs). However, in WDS design optimization problems, fixed-speed pumps (FSPs) are commonly used. In this study, a pump power estimation method, developed using a false position method based optimization approach, is proposed to incorporate VSPs in the conceptual design or planning of water transmission systems (WTSs), using optimization. This pump power estimation method is implemented within the solution evaluation process via a multiobjective genetic algorithm approach. A case study is used to demonstrate the application of the pump power estimation method in estimating pump power and associated energy consumption of VSPs and FSPs in WTS optimization. In addition, comparisons are made between variable-speed pumping and fixed-speed pumping in multiobjective WTS optimization accounting for total cost and GHG emissions. The results show that the use of variable-speed pumping leads to significant savings in both total cost and GHG emissions from WTSs for the case study considered.

Urban bus driver ride and road-friendliness. Part I: Model development and role of operating parameters

This study explores the driver–ride and road–friendliness characteristics of an urban bus through model derivation and validation, sensitivity analysis, suspension damping optimisation and field assessments. Part I of the study develops a three–dimensional urban bus model by integrating non–linear models of suspension components and tyres that were derived from laboratory–measured data. The vehicle model is validated through field tests, and employed for sensitivity analyses of different operating parameters, including forward speed, tyre inflation pressure, vehicle load and road roughness. The results demonstrate significant roles of these parameters on the dynamic responses relating to driver ride and road–friendliness, which are coupled in a complex manner. The results suggest that measures related to sustainability of urban infrastructure and vehicle structure, together with the health and safety of the drivers, are directly coupled in light of the road roughness. The validated full–vehicle model is further employed for suspension damping design optimisation and its field assessments, which are presented in Part II of the study.

Sustainability of Urban Infrastructures

The scope of the paper is to overview the different approaches for evaluation of urban infrastructure sustainability. In this context, urban infrastructure covers transportation, energy, water, sewage and information networks as well as waste management and blue-green infrastructure, in terms of both the supply and demand side. A common effort of partners in the European project “C8—Best Practice in Sustainable Urban Infrastructure”, developed under the Cooperation in Science and Technology program (COST), in brief COST C8, was focused on defining the methods, indicators and criteria for evaluation of sustainability, and resulted in a guidebook for decision-makers in local authorities. Here, the COST C8 matrix for simple sustainability assessment of urban infrastructure is applied to The Path (POT) case—a circular memorial and recreational park around the city of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The applicability and acceptance of the matrix in 43 other cases of sustainable urban infrastructure, collected in the COST C8 project, is presented and discussed.

Developing sustainability criteria for urban infrastructure systems

Research in the area of sustainable urban infrastructure reflects the need to design and manage engineering systems in light of both environmental and socioeconomic considerations. A principal challenge for the engineer is the development of practical tools for measuring and enhancing the sustainability of urban infrastructure over its life cycle. The present study develops such a framework for the sustainability assessment of urban infrastructure systems. The framework focuses on key interactions and feedback mechanisms between infrastructure and surrounding environmental, economic, and social systems. One way of understanding and quantifying these interacting effects is through the use of sustainability criteria and indicators. A generic set of sustainability criteria and subcriteria and system-specific indicators is put forward. Selected indicators are quantified in a case study of the urban water system of the City of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Key words: sustainable infrastructure, sustainability criteria and indicators, energy use, urban water systems.