Search results for: sustainability of regional airports.

Authors: G. M. Rehan, H. S. Mahmoud

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Sustainability and sustainable development have been the main theme of many international conferences, such the UN Rio de Janeiro 1992 Earth Summit This was followed by the appearance of the global conferences at the late of the nineties and the early of 2000 to confirm the importance of the sustainable development .it was focused on the importance of the economic development as it is considered an effective tool in the operations of the sustainable development. Industry plays a critical role in technological innovations and research and development activities, which are crucial for the economic and social development of any country. Transportation and mobility are an important part or urban economics and the quality of life. To analyze urban transportation and its environmental impacts, a comprehensive approach is needed. So this research aims to apply new approach for the development of the urban communities that insure the continuity and facing the deterioration. This approach aims to integrate sustainable transport solutions with economic development and community development. For that purpose we will concentrate on one of the most sustainable cities in the world (Curitiba in Brazil) which provides the world with a model in how to integrate sustainable transport considerations into business development, road infrastructure development, and local community development.

Keywords: Community development, economic development sustainable development, sustainable transport

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Authors: P. Chambe, B. Canova, A. Balabanian, M. Pele, N. Coeur

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To avoid battery assisted tags with limited lifetime batteries, it is proposed here to replace them by energy harvesting systems, able to feed from local environment. This would allow total independence to RFID systems, very interesting for applications where tag removal from its location is not possible. Example is here described for luggage safety in airports, and is easily  extendable to similar situation in terms of operation constraints. The idea is to fix RFID tag with energy harvesting system not only to identify luggage but also to supply an embedded microcontroller with a sensor delivering luggage weight making it impossible to add or to remove anything from the luggage during transit phases. The aim is to optimize the harvested energy for such RFID applications, and to study in which limits these applications are theoretically possible. Proposed energy harvester is based on two energy sources: piezoelectricity and electromagnetic waves, so that when the luggage is moving on ground transportation to airline counters, the piezo module supplies the tag and its microcontroller, while the RF module operates during luggage transit thanks to readers located along the way. Tag location on the luggage is analyzed to get best vibrations, as well as harvester better choice for optimizing the energy supply depending on applications and the amount of energy harvested during a period of time. Effects of system parameters (RFID UHF frequencies, limit distance between the tag and the antenna necessary to harvest energy, produced voltage and voltage threshold) are discussed and working conditions for such system are delimited.

Keywords: EM waves, Energy Harvesting, Piezoelectric, RFID Tag.

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Authors: Nino Abesadze, Marine Mindorashvili, Nino Paresashvili

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At present actual tourism indicators cannot be calculated in Georgia, making it impossible to perform their quantitative analysis. Therefore, the study conducted by us is highly important from a theoretical as well as practical standpoint. The main purpose of the article is to make complex statistical analysis of tourist expenses of foreign visitors and to calculate statistical attractiveness indices of the tourism potential of Georgia. During the research, the method involving random and proportional selection has been applied. Computer software SPSS was used to compute statistical data for corresponding analysis. Corresponding methodology of tourism statistics was implemented according to international standards. Important information was collected and grouped from major Georgian airports, and a representative population of foreign visitors and a rule of selection of respondents were determined. The results show a trend of growth in tourist numbers and the share of tourists from post-soviet countries are constantly increasing. The level of satisfaction with tourist facilities and quality of service has improved, but still we have a problem of disparity between the service quality and the prices. The design of tourist expenses of foreign visitors is diverse; competitiveness of tourist products of Georgian tourist companies is higher. Attractiveness of popular cities of Georgia has increased by 43%.

Keywords: Tourist, expenses, indexes, statistics, analysis.

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Authors: Veruska C. Dutra, Mary L. G. S. Senna

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The principle of sustainability has been studied by different sciences with the purpose of formulating clear and concrete models. Much has been discussed about sustainability, and several points of view have been used to try to explain it; environmental science emerges from various environmental discourses that are willing to establish a new concept for understanding this complexity. This way, we focus on the activity of ecotourism as a way to integrate sustainable practices proposed by environmental science, and thus, make it possible to create a new perspective for eco-tourists and the managers of tourist destinations towards nature. The aim of this study was to suggest a direction for environmental awareness, based on environmental science, to change the eco-tourist's view of nature in ecotourism tours. The methodology used was based on a case study concerning the Jalapão State Park - JSP, located in the State of Tocantins, Northern Brazil. The study was based on discussions, theoretical studies, bibliographical research and on-site research. We have identified that to incite the tourists’ awareness, they need to visit nature to understand the environmental problems and promote actions for its preservation. We highlight in this study actions to drive their human perception through environmental science, so that the ecotourism itinerary tours to the JSP, promote a balance between the natural environment and the tourist, making them, in this way, environmental tourists.

Keywords: Science, environmental, ecotourism, Jalapão.

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Authors: Moustafa Osman Mohammed

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Construction industry, as one of the main contributor in depletion of natural resources, influences climate change. This paper discusses incremental and evolutionary development of the proposed models for optimization of a life-cycle analysis to explicit strategy for evaluation systems. The main categories are virtually irresistible for introducing uncertainties, uptake composite structure model (CSM) as environmental management systems (EMSs) in a practice science of evaluation small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The model simplified complex systems to reflect nature systems’ input, output and outcomes mode influence “framework measures” and give a maximum likelihood estimation of how elements are simulated over the composite structure. The traditional knowledge of modeling is based on physical dynamic and static patterns regarding parameters influence environment. It unified methods to demonstrate how construction systems ecology interrelated from management prospective in procedure reflects the effect of the effects of engineering systems to ecology as ultimately unified technologies in extensive range beyond constructions impact so as, - energy systems. Sustainability broadens socioeconomic parameters to practice science that meets recovery performance, engineering reflects the generic control of protective systems. When the environmental model employed properly, management decision process in governments or corporations could address policy for accomplishment strategic plans precisely. The management and engineering limitation focuses on autocatalytic control as a close cellular system to naturally balance anthropogenic insertions or aggregation structure systems to pound equilibrium as steady stable conditions. Thereby, construction systems ecology incorporates engineering and management scheme, as a midpoint stage between biotic and abiotic components to predict constructions impact. The later outcomes’ theory of environmental obligation suggests either a procedures of method or technique that is achieved in sustainability impact of construction system ecology (SICSE), as a relative mitigation measure of deviation control, ultimately.

Keywords: Sustainability, constructions ecology, composite structure model, design structure matrix, environmental impact assessment, life cycle analysis, climate change.

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Authors: Veruska C. Dutra, Afonso R. Aquino

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Since the 1980s, global tourism activity has consolidated worldwide to become an important economic contributor, and consequently, the sociocultural and environmental impacts are starting to become evidenced. This raises the need of discussing about actions for sustainable tourism that should be linked not only to the economy, but also to the environment and social aspects. The work that is going to be presented is part of a doctoral research project in Sciences undertaken at the Sao Paulo University, Brazil. It aims to analyze whether the monitoring of the tourism sector with a focus on sustainability is applicable or not, through those indicators, put in a case study in the Jalapão State Park (JSP) conservation unit, in the state of Tocantins, Brazil. This is a study of an interdisciplinary nature that had the deductive method as its guide. We concluded that the key points of the sustainable tourism, when analyzed with the focal point in environmental indicators, are an important evaluation and quantification tool of that activity in the study locus. It displayed itself as an adequate tool for monitoring, thus decoding, the main environmental impacts that occur in tourism regions and their intensity, which is made possible through analysis, and has the objective to trace ways to prevent and correct the presented impacts.

Keywords: Economic indicators, tourism, sustainability, Jalapão.

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Authors: A. Majeed, P. Ali

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Before designing an electrical system, the estimation of load is necessary for unit sizing and demand-generation balancing. The system could be a stand-alone system for a village or grid connected or integrated renewable energy to grid connection, especially as there are non–electrified villages in developing countries. In the classical model, the energy demand was found by estimating the household appliances multiplied with the amount of their rating and the duration of their operation, but in this paper, information exists for electrified villages could be used to predict the demand, as villages almost have the same life style. This paper describes a method used to predict the average energy consumed in each two months for every consumer living in a village by Artificial Neural Network (ANN). The input data are collected using a regional survey for samples of consumers representing typical types of different living, household appliances and energy consumption by a list of information, and the output data are collected from administration office of Piramagrun for each corresponding consumer. The result of this study shows that the average demand for different consumers from four villages in different months throughout the year is approximately 12 kWh/day, this model estimates the average demand/day for every consumer with a mean absolute percent error of 11.8%, and MathWorks software package MATLAB version 7.6.0 that contains and facilitate Neural Network Toolbox was used.

Keywords: Artificial neural network, load estimation, regional survey, rural electrification.

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Authors: G. S. Dangayach

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For any country the project management has been a vital part for its development. The highly competitive business world has created tremendous pressure on the project managers to achieve success. The pressure is derived from survival and profit building in business organizations which compels the project managers to pursue unethical practices. As a result unethical activities in business projects can be found easily where situations or issues arise due to dubious business practice, high corruption, or absolute violation of the law. The recent spur on Commonwealth games to be organized in New Delhi indicates towards the same. It has been seen that the project managers mainly focus on cost, time, and quality rather than social impact and long term effects of the project. Surprisingly the literature as well as the practitioner-s perspective also does not identify the role of ethics in project success. This paper identifies ethics as the fourth most important dimension in the project based organizations. The paper predicts that the approach of considering ethics will result in sustainability of the project. It will increase satisfaction and loyalty of the customers as well as create harmony, trust, brotherhood, values and morality among the team members. This paper is conceptual in nature as inadequate literature exists linking the project success with an ethical approach.

Keywords: Ethics, Loyalty, Morality, Project success

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Authors: Elżbieta Antczak

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Cities offer important opportunities for economic development and for expanding access to basic services, including health care and education, for large numbers of people. Moreover, green areas (as an integral part of sustainable urban development) present a major opportunity for improving urban environments, quality of lives and livelihoods. This paper examines, using spatial concentration and spatial taxonomic measures, regional diversification of greenery in the cities of Poland. The analysis includes location quotients, Lorenz curve, Locational Gini Index, and the synthetic index of greenery and spatial statistics tools: (1) To verify the occurrence of strong concentration or dispersion of the phenomenon in time and space depending on the variable category, and, (2) To study if the level of greenery depends on the spatial autocorrelation. The data includes the greatest Polish cities, categories of the urban greenery (parks, lawns, street greenery, and green areas on housing estates, cemeteries, and forests) and the time span 2004-2015. According to the obtained estimations, most of cites in Poland are already taking measures to become greener. However, in the country there are still many barriers to well-balanced urban greenery development (e.g. uncontrolled urban sprawl, poor management as well as lack of spatial urban planning systems).

Keywords: Greenery, urban areas, regional spatial diversification and concentration, spatial taxonomic measure.

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Authors: A. Camões, M. Ferreira Dias, M. Amorim

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In recent years, the social economy is increasingly seen as a viable means to address social problems. Social enterprises, as well as public projects and initiatives targeted to meet social purposes, offer organizational models that assume heterogeneity, flexibility and adaptability to the ‘real world and real problems’. Despite the growing popularity of social initiatives, decision makers still face a paucity in what concerns the available models and tools to adequately assess its sustainability, and its impacts, notably the nature of its contribution to economic growth. This study was carried out at the local level, by analyzing the social impact initiatives and projects promoted by the Municipality of Albergaria-a-Velha (Câmara Municipal de Albergaria-a-Velha -CMA), a municipality of 25,000 inhabitants in the central region of Portugal. This work focuses on the challenges related to the qualifications and employability of citizens, which stands out as one of the key concerns in the Portuguese economy, particularly expressive in the context of small-scale cities and inland territories. The study offers a characterization of the Municipality, its socio-economic structure and challenges, followed by an exploratory analysis of multiple sourced data, collected from the CMA's documental sources as well as from privileged informants. The purpose is to conduct detailed analysis of the CMA's social projects, aimed at characterizing its potential impact for the model of qualifications and employability of the citizens of the Municipality. The study encompasses a discussion of the socio-economic profile of the municipality, notably its asymmetries, the analysis of the social projects and initiatives, as well as of data derived from inquiry actors involved in the implementation of the social projects and its beneficiaries. Finally, the results obtained with the Better Life Index will be included. This study makes it possible to ascertain if what is implicit in the literature goes to the encounter of what one experiences in reality.

Keywords: Measurement, municipalities, social economy, social impact.

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Authors: Nazli Akhlaghinia, Ali Rajabzadeh Ghatari

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In today's world, with increasing environmental awareness, firms are facing severe pressure from various stakeholders, including the government and customers, to reduce their harmful effects on the environment. Over the past few decades, the increasing effects of global warming, climate change, waste, and air pollution have increased the global attention of experts to the issue of the green supply chain and led them to the optimal solution for greenery. Green supply chain management (GSCM) plays an important role in motivating the sustainability of the organization. With increasing environmental concerns, the main objective of the research is to use system thinking methodology and Vensim software for designing a dynamic system model for green supply chain and observing behaviors. Using this methodology, we look for the effects of a green supply chain structure on the behavioral dynamics of output variables. We try to simulate the complexity of GSCM in a period of 30 months and observe the complexity of behaviors of variables including sustainability, providing green products, and reducing energy consumption, and consequently reducing sample pollution.

Keywords: Supply chain management, green supply chain management, system dynamics, energy consumption.

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Authors: Jane O. Munonye

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Climate change has both negative and positive effects in agricultural production. For agriculture to be sustainable in adverse climate change condition, some natural measures are needed. The issue is to produce more food with available natural resources and reduce the contribution of agriculture to climate change. The study reviewed climate change and sustainable agriculture in southeast Nigeria. Data from the study were from secondary sources. Ten scientific papers were consulted and data for the review were collected from three. The objectives of the paper were as follows: to review the effect of climate change on one major arable crop in southeast Nigeria (yam; Dioscorea rotundata); evident of climate change impact and methods for sustainable agricultural production in adverse weather condition. Some climatic parameter as sunshine, relative humidity and rainfall have negative relationship with yam production and significant at 10% probability. Crop production was predicted to decline by 25% per hectare by 2060 while livestock production has increased the incidence of diseases and pathogens as the major effect to agriculture. Methods for sustainable agriculture and damage of natural resources by climate change were highlighted. Agriculture needs to be transformed as climate changes to enable the sector to be sustainable. There should be a policy in place to facilitate the integration of sustainability in Nigeria agriculture.

Keywords: Agriculture, climate change, sustainability, yam.

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Authors: M. Jayakumar, Lau Chee Sing

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The pavement constructions on soft and expansive soils are not durable and unable to sustain heavy traffic loading. As a result, pavement failures and settlement problems will occur very often even under light traffic loading due to cyclic and rolling effects. Geotechnical engineers have dwelled deeply into this matter, and adopt various methods to improve the engineering characteristics of soft fine-grained soils and expansive soils. The problematic soils are either replaced by good and better quality material or treated by using chemical stabilization with various binding materials. Increased the strength and durability are also the part of the sustainability drive to reduce the environment footprint of the built environment by the efficient use of resources and waste recycle materials. This paper presents a series of laboratory tests and evaluates the effect of cement and fly ash on the strength and drainage characteristics of soil in Miri. The tests were performed at different percentages of cement and fly ash by dry weight of soil. Additional tests were also performed on soils treated with the combinations of fly ash with cement and lime. The results of this study indicate an increase in unconfined compression strength and a decrease in hydraulic conductivity of the treated soil.

Keywords: Pavement failure, soft soil, sustainability, stabilization, fly ash, strength and permeability.

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Authors: Eko Budi Santoso, Kazia Laturette, Stanislaus Adnanto Mastan

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This study aims to examine the association between disclosure of social responsibility and tax aggressiveness in developing countries, namely Thailand. This is due to the increasing trend of disclosure of social responsibility in developing countries, even though this disclosure of information is still voluntary. On the other hand, developing countries have low taxation rate and investor protection infrastructures that allow the disclosure of social responsibility to be used opportunistically as a tool to fool the attainment of interests. This study also examines the role of assurance on the association between corporate social responsibility disclosure and tax aggressiveness. The assurance aims to provide confidence that the disclosure of social responsibility by the company is valid. This research builds an index to measure the disclosure of social responsibility based on the rules issued by the innovative Global Reporting. The results of the study are based on a sample of publicly traded companies in Thailand, which showed a positive association between disclosure of corporate social responsibility and tax aggressiveness, but it was further discovered that these results were mitigated by the existence of assurance against disclosure of corporate social responsibility. The results of this study indicate that the disclosure of corporate social responsibility can show that the company cares about the issue of social responsibility but does not automatically make the company as one that holds ethical values ​​in its business practices.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility disclosure, tax aggressiveness, sustainability assurance, business ethics.

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Authors: Libin Ouyang

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China has experienced a very fast urbanization process in the past two decades. Due to the uncoordinated characteristics of regional development in China, a large number of people from rural areas or small towns have flooded into regional central cities, which are building new cities around them due to the shortage of construction land or the need for urban development. However, the construction of some new cities has not achieved the expected effect, the absorption capacity of industry and population is limited, and the phenomenon of capital and land waste is obvious. This paper takes Xixian New Area in Shaanxi Province, an inland area in Northwest China, as an example, and tries to analyze the reasons for the lack of vitality in Xixian New Area from the perspectives of land use layout and urban design. This paper will also select the Energy-Finance-Trade Start-up Area in Xixian New Area as an important research site, and study how to optimize the land use layout and urban design to ease the population of big cities, effectively solve the problems of big cities, improve the vitality and attractiveness of the new city, and promote the sustainable development of the new city. The study can provide reference for urban planning practitioners and policy makers, provide theoretical help for the construction of new cities in other underdeveloped regions of China, and provide certain case references for the construction of cities in other developing countries in the process of rapid urbanization.

Keywords: New city, land use layout, urban design, urban planning.

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Authors: Puvanasvaran, A. P., Suresh V., N. Norazlin

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The Lean Environmental Management Integration System (LEMIS) framework development is integration between lean core element and ISO 14001. The curiosity on the relationship between continuous improvement and sustainability of lean implementation has influenced this study toward LEMIS. Characteristic of ISO 14001 standard clauses and core elements of lean principles are explored from past studies and literature reviews. Survey was carried out on ISO 14001 certified companies to examine continual improvement by implementing the ISO 14001 standard. The study found that there is a significant and positive relationship between Lean Principles: value, value stream, flow, pull and perfection with the ISO 14001 requirements. LEMIS is significant to support the continuous improvement and sustainability. The integration system can be implemented to any manufacturing company. It gives awareness on the importance on why organizations need to sustain its environmental management system. In the meantime, the lean principle can be adapted in order to streamline daily activities of the company. Throughout the study, it had proven that there is no sacrifice or trade-off between lean principles with ISO 14001 requirements. The framework developed in the study can be further simplified in the future, especially the method of crossing each sub requirements of ISO 14001 standard with the core elements of Lean principles in this study.

Keywords: LEMIS, ISO 14001, integration, framework.

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Authors: Kwok Tak Kit

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The construction industry plays an important role in environmental and carbon emissions as it consumes a huge amount of natural resources and energy. Sustainable engineering involves the process of planning, design, procurement, construction and delivery in which the whole building and construction process resulting from building and construction can be effectively and sustainability managed to achieve the use of natural resources. Implementation of sustainable technology development and innovation, adoption of the advanced construction process and facilitate the facilities management to implement the energy and waste control more accurately and effectively. Study and research in the relationship of BIM and environment assessment tools lack a clear discussion. In this paper, we will focus on the synergy of BIM technology and sustainable engineering in the AEC industry and outline the key factors which enhance the use of advanced innovation, technology and method and define the role of stakeholders to achieve zero-carbon emission toward the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. A case study of the adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and environmental assessment tools in Hong Kong will be discussed in this paper.

Keywords: sustainability, sustainable engineering, BIM, LEED

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Authors: Olayinka Gafar Okeola, Akinola Muyiwa Moore

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Urban population is rapidly increasing in Ilorin, (the capital of Kwara State of Nigeria) along with related increased water demand. The inadequacies of water supply services have forced the populace to depend on dug wells, boreholes, water tankers, street vendors etc. for their water needs. People spend hours daily carrying jerry can all around to collect and queue for water at the public water tap with high opportunity cost both in time and economic wastage. This situation motivated this study to assess the sustainability of an urban water supply services to unravel the factors undermining the effective delivery of services. Contingent Valuation Method was used to place value on water supply services using the Double Bounded Dichotomous Choice format for willingness to pay elicitation. A database was created with Microsoft Excel and Stata 12 Software to model and evaluate the variables that affect household willingness to pay. The results of the study reveal that about 92% of the total households surveyed were connected to the Government water supply out of which 87% reported that they were not satisfied with the existing services. The results furthered revealed that respondents are willing to pay ₦2500 monthly to enjoy sustainable water supply service delivery.

Keywords: Willingness-to-pay, contingent valuation method, Nigeria, service, delivery.

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Authors: Manuela Nayantara Jeyaraj

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Green IT is a term that refers to the collective strategic and tactical practices that unswervingly condense the carbon footprint to a diminished proportion in an establishment’s computing procedures. This concept has been tightly knit with IT related organizations; hence it has been precluded to be applied within non-IT organizations in Sri Lanka. With the turn of the century, computing technologies have taken over commonplace activities in every nook and corner in Sri Lanka, which is still on the verge of moving forth in its march towards being a developed country. Hence, it needs to be recursively proven that non-IT industries are well-bound to adhere to ‘Green IT’ practices as well, in order to reduce their carbon footprint and move towards considering the practicality of implementing Green-IT practices within their work-arounds. There are several spheres that need to be taken into account in creating awareness of ‘Green IT’, such as the economic breach, technologies available, legislative bounds, community mind-set and many more. This paper tends to reconnoiter causes that currently restrain non-IT organizations from considering Green IT concepts. By doing so, it is expected to prove the beneficial providence gained by implementing this concept within the organization. The ultimate goal is to propose feasible ‘Green IT’ practices that could be implemented within the context of Sri Lankan non-IT sectors in order to ensure that organization’s sustainable growth towards a long term existence.

Keywords: Computing practices, green IT, non-IT industries, Sri Lanka, sustainability.

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Authors: Ravi Kiran Pothamsetty, Radha Rani Ghosh, Baby Paul Thaliath

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Radiation therapy has undergone many advancements and evloved from 2D to 3D. Recently, with rapid pace of drug discoveries, cutting edge technology, and clinical trials has made innovative advancements in computer technology and treatment planning and upgraded to intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) which delivers in homogenous dose to tumor and normal tissues. The present study was a hospital-based experience comparing two different conformal radiotherapy techniques for brain tumors. This analytical study design has been conducted at Regional Cancer Centre, India from January 2014 to January 2015. Ten patients have been selected after inclusion and exclusion criteria. All the patients were treated on Artiste Siemens Linac Accelerator. The tolerance level for maximum dose was 6.0 Gyfor lenses and 54.0 Gy for brain stem, optic chiasm and optical nerves as per RTOG criteria. Mean and standard deviation values of PTV98%, PTV 95% and PTV 2% in IMRT were 93.16±2.9, 95.01±3.4 and 103.1±1.1 respectively; for 3DCRT were 91.4±4.7, 94.17±2.6 and 102.7±0.39 respectively. PTV max dose (%) in IMRT and 3D-CRT were 104.7±0.96 and 103.9±1.0 respectively. Maximum dose to the tumor can be delivered with IMRT with acceptable toxicity limits. Variables such as expertise, location of tumor, patient condition, and TPS influence the outcome of the treatment.

Keywords: IMRT, 3D CRT, Brain, tumors, OARs, RTOG.

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Authors: S. Hutasavi, D. Chen

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The built-up area is a significant proxy to measure regional economic growth and reflects the Gross Provincial Product (GPP). However, an up-to-date and reliable database of built-up areas is not always available, especially in developing countries. The cloud-based geospatial analysis platform such as Google Earth Engine (GEE) provides an opportunity with accessibility and computational power for those countries to generate the built-up data. Therefore, this study aims to extract the built-up areas in Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), Thailand using day and nighttime satellite imagery based on GEE facilities. The normalized indices were generated from Landsat 8 surface reflectance dataset, including Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI), Built-up Index (BUI), and Modified Built-up Index (MBUI). These indices were applied to identify built-up areas in EEC. The result shows that MBUI performs better than BUI and NDBI, with the highest accuracy of 0.85 and Kappa of 0.82. Moreover, the overall accuracy of classification was improved from 79% to 90%, and error of total built-up area was decreased from 29% to 0.7%, after night-time light data from the Visible and Infrared Imaging Suite (VIIRS) Day Night Band (DNB). The results suggest that MBUI with night-time light imagery is appropriate for built-up area extraction and be utilize for further study of socioeconomic impacts of regional development policy over the EEC region.

Keywords: Built-up area extraction, Google earth engine, adaptive thresholding method, rapid mapping.

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Authors: Aktan Ozsoy, Ali Fırat Cabalar, Eyyub Karakan

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Climate change is one of the biggest issues facing communities. Increasing population, growing economies, rapid industrialization are the main factors triggering it. On the other hand, the millions of tons of waste have generated by the period of rapid global growth not only harm to the environment but also lead to the use of valuable lands around the world as landfill sites. Moreover, it is rapidly consuming our resources and this forces the human population and wildlife to share increasingly shrinking space. In this direction, it is vital to reuse waste materials with a sustainability philosophy. This study was carried out to contribute to the combat against climate change, conserve our natural resources and the environment. An oedometer (consolidation) test was performed on two waste materials combined in certain proportions to evaluate their sustainable usage. Crushed brick dust (BD) was mixed with rock powder (RP) in 0%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50% (dry weight of soil). The results obtained revealed the importance of the gradation of the material used in the consolidation test. It was found that there was a negligible difference between the initial and final void ratio of mixtures with BD added.

Keywords: Waste material, oedometer test, environmental geotechnics, sustainability, crushed brick dust, rock powder.

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Authors: Saad Odeh

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Thermal performance is considered to be a key measure in building sustainability. One of the technologies used in the current building sustainable design is the rooftop solar PV power generators. The application of this type of technology has expanded vastly during the last five years in many countries. This paper studies the effect of roof shading developed by the solar PV panels on dwellings’ thermal performance. The analysis in this work is performed by using two types of packages: “AccuRate Sustainability” for rating the energy efficiency of residential building design, and “PVSYST” for the solar PV power system design. The former package is used to calculate the annual heating and cooling load, and the later package is used to evaluate the power production from the roof top PV system. The analysis correlates the electrical energy generated from the PV panels to the change in the heating and cooling load due to roof shading. Different roof orientation, roof inclination, roof insulation, as well as PV panel area are considered in this study. The analysis shows that the drop in energy efficiency due to the shaded area of the roof by PV panels is negligible compared to the energy generated by these panels.

Keywords: Energy efficiency, roof shading, thermal performance, PV panel.

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Authors: Yun-na Wu, Zhen Wang

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Due to the economic downturn and the deterioration of the living environment, the development of residential buildings as high energy consuming building is gradually changing from “extensive” to green building in China. So, the evaluation system of green building is continuously improved, but the current evaluation work has the following problems: (1) There are differences in the cost of the actual investment and the purchasing power of residents, also construction target of green residential building is single and lacks multi-objective performance development. (2) Green building evaluation lacks regional characteristics and cannot reflect the different regional residents demand. (3) In the process of determining the criteria weight, the experts’ judgment matrix is difficult to meet the requirement of consistency. Therefore, to solve those problems, questionnaires which are about the green residential building for Ningxia area are distributed, and the results of questionnaires can feedback the purchasing power of residents and the acceptance of the green building cost. Secondly, combined with the geographical features of Ningxia minority areas, the evaluation criteria system of green residential building is constructed. Finally, using the improved group AHP method and the grey clustering method, the criteria weight is determined, and a real case is evaluated, which is located in Xing Qing district, Ningxia. A conclusion can be obtained that the professional evaluation for this project and good social recognition is basically the same.

Keywords: Evaluation, green residential building, grey clustering method, group AHP.

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Authors: Zohreh Soltani, Seyedmohammadhossein Hosseinian

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Reduction of energy consumption in built infrastructure, through the installation of energy-efficient technologies, is a major approach to achieving sustainability. In practice, the viability of energy efficiency projects strongly depends on the cost reimbursement and profitability. These projects are subject to failure if the actual cost savings do not reimburse the project cost promptly. In such cases, refinancing could be a solution to benefit from the long-term returns of the project, if implemented wisely. However, very little is still known about the effect of refinancing options on financial performance of energy efficiency projects. In order to fill this gap, the present study investigates the financial behavior of energy efficiency projects with focus on refinancing options, such as Leveraged Loans. A System Dynamics (SD) model is introduced, and the model application is presented using an actual case-study data. The case study results indicate that while high-interest start-ups make using Leveraged Loan inevitable, refinancing can rescue the project and bring about profitability. This paper also presents some managerial implications of refinancing energy efficiency projects based on the case-study analysis. Results of this study help to implement financially viable energy efficiency projects so that the community could benefit from their environmental advantages widely.

Keywords: Energy efficiency projects, leveraged loan, refinancing, sustainability.

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Authors: L. P. K. Liyanage, N. R. P. Withana, A. L. Sandika

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The purpose of this study was to determine tourist and community perception-based sustainable tourism indicators as well as Human Pressure Index (HPI) and Tourist Activity Index (TAI). Study was carried out in Sinharaja forest which is considered as one of the major eco-tourism destination in Sri Lanka. Data were gathered using a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire as well as records from Forest department. Convenient sampling technique was applied. For the majority of issues, the responses were obtained on multi-point Likert-type scales. Visual portrayal was used for display analyzed data. The study revealed that the host community of the Kudawa gets many benefits from tourism. Also, tourism has caused negative impacts upon the environment and community. The study further revealed the need of proper waste management and involvement of local cultural events for the tourism business in the Kudawa conservation center. The TAI, which accounted to be 1.27 and monthly evolution of HPI revealed that congestion can be occurred in the Sinharaja rainforest during peak season. The results provide useful information to any party involved with tourism planning anywhere, since such attempts would be more effective once the people’s perceptions on these aspects are taken into account.

Keywords: Kudawa conservation center, Sinharaja world heritage rainforest, sustainability indicators.

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Authors: Anabel Fernandez, Leandro Rodriguez-Ortiz, Rosa Rodríguez

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Due to the negative impact of fossil fuels, renewable energies are promising sources to limit global temperature rise and damage to the environment. Also, the development of technology is focused on obtaining energetic products from renewable sources. In this study, a thermodynamic model including exergy balance and a subsequent Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) were carried out for four subsystems of the integrated gasification-combustion of pinewood. Results of exergy analysis and LCA showed the process feasibility in terms of exergy efficiency and global energy efficiency of the life cycle (GEELC). Moreover, the energy return on investment (EROI) index was calculated. The global exergy efficiency resulted in 67%. For pretreatment, reaction, cleaning, and electric generation subsystems, the results were 85%, 59%, 87%, and 29%, respectively. Results of LCA indicated that the emissions from the electric generation caused the most damage to the atmosphere, water, and soil. GEELC resulted in 31.09% for the global process. This result suggested the environmental feasibility of an integrated gasification-combustion system. EROI resulted in 3.15, which determines the sustainability of the process.

Keywords: Exergy analysis, Life Cycle Assessment, LCA, renewability, sustainability.

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Authors: Nikola Radovanovic, Petros Gkotsis, Mathieu Doussineau

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Aeronautics is regarded as a strategically important sector for European competitiveness. It was at the heart of European entrepreneurial development since the industry was born. Currently, the EU is the world leader in the production of civil aircraft, including helicopters, aircraft engines, parts, and components. It is recording a surplus in trade relating to aerospace products, which are exported all over the globe. Also, this industry shows above-average investments in research and development, as demonstrated in the patent activity in this area. The post-pandemic recovery of the industry will partly depend on the possibilities to streamline collaboration in further research and innovation activities. Aeronautics features as one of the often-selected priority domains in smart specialisation, which represents the main regional and national approach in developing and implementing innovation policies in Europe. The basis for the selection of priority domains for smart specialisation lies in the mapping of innovative potential, with research and patent activities being among the key elements of this analysis. This research is aimed at identifying characteristics of the trends in research and patent activities in the regions and countries that base their competitiveness on the aeronautics sector. It is also aimed at determining the scope and patterns of collaborations in aeronautics between innovators from the European regions, focusing on revealing new technology areas that emerge from these collaborations. For this purpose, we developed a methodology based on desk research and the analysis of the PATSTAT patent database as well as the databases of R&I framework programmes.

Keywords: aeronautics, smart specialisation, innovation policy, regional policy.

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Authors: Ranjan Sarukkalige, Dinushi Gamage

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The aim of this study was to develop a storm water quality improvement strategy plan (WQISP) which assists managers and decision makers of local city councils in enhancing their activities to improve regional water quality. City of Gosnells in Western Australia has been considered as a case study. The procedure on developing the WQISP consists of reviewing existing water quality data, identifying water quality issues in the study areas and developing a decision making tool for the officers, managers and decision makers. It was found that land use type is the main factor affecting the water quality. Therefore, activities, sources and pollutants related to different land use types including residential, industrial, agricultural and commercial are given high importance during the study. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with coordinators of different management sections of the regional councils in order to understand the associated management framework and issues. The issues identified from these interviews were used in preparing the decision making tool. Variables associated with the defined “value versus threat" decision making tool are obtained from the intensive literature review. The main recommendations provided for improvement of water quality in local city councils, include non-structural, structural and management controls and potential impacts of climate change.

Keywords: Storm water quality, Storm water Management, Land use, Strategy plan

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Authors: Hassan Masoumi, Rashed Alavi

Abstract:

Wheat is one of the strategic crops in Iran, on which the household food basket is highly dependent. Although this crop is cultivated and produced in almost all provinces of the country, its production efficiency is lower than the global and regional averages due to the lack of optimal use of allocated resources. In this research, which was carried out with a documentary and library method, first, the total and partial productivity indices of irrigated wheat production were calculated in large, medium and small exploitation scales in different provinces of the country, and then the provinces were clustered in terms of these indices. The results showed that the total productivity of production factors had a direct correlation with the scale of exploitation, so that with the increase in the size of exploitations, the total productivity index increased. On the scale of small exploitations, North Khorasan, Zanjan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, on a medium scale, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province and on the scale of large exploitations, Zanjan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari provinces, Kohkiloyeh and Boyer Ahmad and North Khorasan, with better use of production resources compared to other provinces, were placed in the best cluster in terms of total productivity index. The high total productivity index in Zanjan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province is related to the higher productivity of factors such as mechanization and land in these provinces. Finally, the methods of using these factors in productive provinces, along with technical and specialized regional guidelines, can facilitate the improvement of productivity in less productive provinces.

Keywords: Clustering, Irrigated wheat, Iran, total productivity.

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