scholarly journals Smart Urban Planning: Evaluating Urban Logistics Performance of Innovative Solutions and Sustainable Policies in the Venice Lagoon—the Results of a Case Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (17) ◽  
pp. 4580 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Mazzarino ◽  
Lucio Rubini
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Sustainability ◽  
Venice Lagoon ◽  
Urban Transport ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Transport Capacity ◽  
Urban Network ◽  
Urban Freight

Currently, remarkable gaps of operational, social and environmental efficiency and overall sub-optimization of the logistics and mobility systems exist in urban areas. There is then the need to promote and assess innovative transport solutions and policy-making within SUMPs (Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans) to deal with such critical issues in order to improve urban sustainability. The paper focuses on the case study of the Venice Lagoon, where islands—despite representing a relevant feature of urban planning—face a tremendous lack of accessibility, depopulation, social cohesion and they turn out to be poorly connected. By developing an original scenario-building methodological framework and performing data collection activities, the purpose of the paper consists of assessing the feasibility of a mixed passenger and freight transport system —sometimes called cargo hitching. Mixed passenger and freight systems/cargo hitching are considered as an innovative framework based on the integration of freight and passenger urban systems and resources to optimize the existing transport capacity, and thus, urban sustainability. Results show that the overall existing urban transport capacity can accommodate urban freight flows on main connections in the Lagoon. The reduction in spare public transport capacity, as well as in the number (and type) of circulating freight boats show—in various scenarios—the degree of optimization of the resulting urban network configuration and the positive impacts on urban sustainability. This paves the way for the regulatory framework to adopt proposed solutions.

Identifying Design Interventions in Cities for Urban Sustainability

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohit Arora ◽  
Felix Raspall ◽  
Arlindo Silva
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Urban Growth ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Urban Sustainability ◽  
Descriptive Study ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Demolition Waste ◽  
Material Reuse

Cities have been the focus of recent sustainability and climate change mitigation efforts primarily because of unprecedented urban growth and ever-increasing resources consumption. A worrying trend has been the ever-decreasing life of buildings in cities because of premature building obsolescence. Premature building obsolescence has been cited as the major driver of demolition waste which accounts for more than 40% of total waste generated annually. This waste stream poses a bigger challenge as the pressure on natural resources increases with urban growth. A traditional way of looking at the urban sustainability has been from the perspective of the environmental sciences and waste management methods. Analyzing urban areas with design science perspectives could provide novel insights to improve existing resource consumption patterns and transform sustainability growth in cities. This study focuses on the problem of demolition waste arising from the premature building obsolescence in cities. It applies a design research methodology framework for identifying existing problems associated with demolition waste and generating strategies to transform cities into more sustainable urban systems. In the problem clarification phase, a detailed literature review was supported with stakeholder’s interviews to identify the state-of-art for building demolition process and demolition waste. Research was further extended to descriptive study-I phase to carry out a demolition case study and generate support tools to enable transformation in the existing scenario for achieving a desired state. Singapore, a dense city state of South-East Asia has been taken as a case study in this research. Results show that applying design research methods could help open-up a new dimension to solve urban sustainability challenge for built environment. It highlights that material reuse could lead to significant improvement in the built environment sustainability but the challenge associated with realization of material reuse practice needs to be addressed. Descriptive study-I concludes with the strategies on creating a reuse market through entrepreneurial innovation and an alternative material supply chain of secondary materials for regional housing demand. These results highlight the role of design research methods for tackling complex systems level problems in cities.

scholarly journals Analysis of the Reduction of CO2 Emissions in Urban Environments by Replacing Conventional City Buses by Electric Bus Fleets: Spain Case Study

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin R. Grijalva ◽  
José María López Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Co2 Emissions ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Urban Transport ◽  
Transport Sector ◽  
Cost Of Energy ◽  
Electric Bus

The emissions of CO2 gas caused by transport in urban areas are increasingly serious, and the public transport sector plays a vital role in society, especially when considering the increased demands for mobility. New energy technologies in urban mobility are being introduced, as evidenced by the electric vehicle. We evaluated the positive environmental effects in terms of CO2 emissions that would be produced by the replacement of conventional urban transport bus fleets by electric buses. The simulation of an electric urban bus conceptual model is presented as a case study. The model is validated using the speed and height profiles of the most representative route within the city of Madrid—the C1 line. We assumed that the vehicle fleet is charged using the electric grid at night, when energy demand is low, the cost of energy is low, and energy is produced with a large provision of renewable energy, principally wind power. For the results, we considered the percentage of fleet replacement and the Spanish electricity mix. The analysis shows that by gradually replacing the current fleet of buses by electric buses over 10 years (2020 to 2030), CO2 emissions would be reduced by up to 92.6% compared to 2018 levels.

scholarly journals Measuring Functional Urban Shrinkage with Multi-Source Geospatial Big Data: A Case Study of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Megaregion

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (16) ◽  
pp. 2513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiwei Ma ◽  
Zhaoya Gong ◽  
Jing Kang ◽  
Ran Tao ◽  
Anrong Dang
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Spatial Clustering ◽  
Landscape Fragmentation ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Urban Land Use ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Landsat 8 ◽  
Clustering Methods

Most of the shrinking cities experience an unbalanced deurbanization across different urban areas in cities. However, traditional ways of measuring urban shrinkage are focused on tracking population loss at the city level and are unable to capture the spatially heterogeneous shrinking patterns inside a city. Consequently, the spatial mechanism and patterns of urban shrinkage inside a city remain less understood, which is unhelpful for developing accommodation strategies for shrinkage. The smart city initiatives and practices have provided a rich pool of geospatial big data resources and technologies to tackle the complexity of urban systems. Given this context, we propose a new measure for the delineation of shrinking areas within cities by introducing a new concept of functional urban shrinkage, which aims to capture the mismatch between urban built-up areas and the areas where significantly intensive human activities take place. Taking advantage of a data fusion approach to integrating multi-source geospatial big data and survey data, a general analytical framework is developed to construct functional shrinkage measures. Specifically, Landsat-8 remote sensing images were used for extracting urban built-up areas by supervised neural network classifications and Geographic Information System tools, while cellular signaling data from China Unicom Inc. was used to depict human activity areas generated by spatial clustering methods. Combining geospatial big data with urban land-use functions obtained from land surveys and Points-Of-Interests data, the framework further enables the comparison between cities from dimensions characterized by indices of spatial and urban functional characteristics and the landscape fragmentation; thus, it has the capacity to facilitate an in-depth investigation of fundamental causes and internal mechanisms of urban shrinkage. With a case study of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei megaregion using data from various sources collected for the year of 2018, we demonstrate the validity of this approach and its potential generalizability for other spatial contexts in facilitating timely and better-informed planning decision support.

Non-linear interactions of urban and freshwater systems: Exploring implications for sustainability and water planning and management

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Héctor Angarita ◽  
Vishal Mehta ◽  
Efraín Domínguez
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Human Population ◽  
Urban Population ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Resource Base ◽  
Freshwater Systems ◽  
Non Linear ◽  
Freshwater System

<p>Human population is progressing into a predominantly urban configuration. Currently, 3.5 billion people – 55% of the total human population – live in urban areas, with an increase to 6.68 billion (68%) projected by 2050. In this progressively more populated world, a central issue of sustainability assessments is understanding the role of cities as entities that, despite their comparatively small physical footprint (less than 0.5% of the global area) demand resources at regional and global scales.</p><p>Many of the resources that sustain urban population directly depend on the freshwater system: from direct fluxes from/to the immediate environment of cities for water supply or waste elimination, to water-dependent activities like biomass (food, biofuels, fibers) and energy production. Urban and freshwater system interactions are subject to multiple sources of non-linearity. Factors like the patterns of size or spatial distribution and interconnection of groups of cities; or the nested and hierarchical character of freshwater systems, can vastly influence the amount of resources required to sustain and grow urban population; likewise, equivalent resource demands can be met through different management strategies that vary substantially in their cumulative pressure exerted on the freshwater system.</p><p>Here we explore the non-linear character of those interactions, to i. identify water management options to avoid, minimize or offset regional impacts of growing urban populations, and ii. explore long term implications of such non-linearities in sustained resource base of urban areas. We propose a framework integrating three elements: 1. properties of the size and spatial distribution of urban center sizes, 2. scaling regime of urban energy resource dependencies, and 3. scaling regime of associated physical and ecological impacts in freshwater systems.</p><p>An example of this approach is presented in a case study in the Magdalena River Basin – MRB (Colombia). The basin covers nearly one quarter of Colombia’s national territory and provides sustenance to 36 million people, with three quarters of basin inhabitants living in medium to large urban settlements of populations of 12 000 or more inhabitants and 50% concentrated in the 15 largest cities. The case study results indicate that freshwater-mediated resource dependencies of urban population are described by a linear or super-linear regime that indicates a lack of scale economies, however, freshwater systems’ capacity to assimilate those resource demands is characterized by a sublinear regime. As a result, current practices and technological approaches to couple freshwater and urban systems will not be able to withstand the resource demands of mid-term future population scenarios.  Our approach allows to quantify the projected gaps to achieve a sustained resource base for urban systems in MRB.</p>

scholarly journals Depressed spaces as an instrument for transformation of urban areas

2020 ◽  
Vol 217 ◽  
pp. 02008
Author(s):  
Valentina Kurochkina
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Planning System ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

Recently, more and more often urban abandoned and depressed spaces that were previously used as industrial facilities or temporarily used are becoming the sphere of architectural and landscape transformations. These territories can occupy a significant part of the city. This paper examines the features of the formation of urban planning systems, as well as the impact of depressed spaces on the quality of the urban environment. This paper studies such depressed spaces as abandoned industrial areas and objects of unfinished construction. The paper assesses the impact of depressed spaces, identifies criteria that reflect the nature, scale and features of their impact on the environment, on the safety and quality of the urban environment, as well as their role in the structure of the city as a whole. The principles and features of the formation of such urban depressed spaces, as well as the patterns of their development are revealed. The features of the formation of open public space of urban systems, as well as ways of transforming depressed spaces, aimed at increasing their social significance, integrating them into the general urban development, and improving the ecological and social situation are considered. The paper concludes that the problem of restoration of depressed spaces is very important and urgent today. The creation of a continuous urban tissue is impossible without the reorganization of such spaces, as well as the creation of an integral compositional, functional and communication urban planning system.

Mülteciler ve Hatay’da geleceğin plansız inşası

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-98
Author(s):  
Zehra Güngördü ◽  
Erhan Kurtarır
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Social Integration ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Living Condition ◽  
Refugee Children ◽  
Strategic Planning Process ◽  
Integration Strategy

Birleşmiş Milletler verilerine göre mültecilerin ağırlıkla kentsel alanlarda yaşamaktadır. Günümüzde de mültecilerin görece daha insani koşullarda yaşama imkanı bulacaklarına inandıkları küresel kentlere doğru göç ettikleri görülmektedir. Bu çalışma kent mültecileri konusunda şehir planlama pratiklerinin görmezden geldiği mülteci sorununa dikkat çekmeyi hedeflemektedir. Bu amaçla, mültecilerin Hatay’daki koşulları, yerel dinamikler ve bir toplumsal entegrasyon stratejisi olarak mülteci çocuklarının eğitimi konusu ele alınması gerektiği hatırlatılmakta ve bu amaca ulaşmak için gerekli planlama erkinin sorumlulukları tartışmaya açmaktadır. Çalışmanın örnek kenti olarak Hatay ve kentin mekânsal stratejik planlama süreci seçilmiştir.ENGLISH ABSTRACTRefugees and future in Hatay without a planAccording to UN data’s, refugee distribution on world wide shows us most of the refugees are living in urban areas. It can be seen that today refugee’s migrating into the direction of global cities to find better living condition. This paper aims to draw attention to the urban refugee problematic which is overlooked by urban planning practices today in Turkey. For this purpose, conditions of refugees in Hatay, local dynamics and education of refugee children will be evaluated as social integration strategy and needed responsibility of planning authority in order to reach that goal will be discussed. Hatay and it’s spatial strategic planning process has been selected as the case study of this paper.

Simulation on Urban High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes - A Case Study in Nanjing

2014 ◽  
Vol 1065-1069 ◽  
pp. 3339-3342
Author(s):  
Ding Xin Wu ◽  
Wei Deng ◽  
Yan Song ◽  
Xin Luan
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Queue Length ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Urban Transport ◽  
Traffic Delays ◽  
Bus Lane ◽  
Simulation Results ◽  
High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes ◽  
Hov Lanes

Dedicated bus lane (DBL) operation has been implemented in dozens of urban areas in China, and it is considered as one of the most efficient ways to solve the urban transport problem. Since the capacity of DBL is underutilized, it could be enhanced by allowing high occupancy vehicles (HOV) to use DBL lane. And this will turn DBL lane into HOV lane. However, HOV lanes are currently most used in freeways instead of urban areas especially in western countries. There is almost no HOV lane has been implemented in China nowadays.That is why research on HOV is worthy of attention. Simulation is risk-free and cost-effective way to evaluate the hypothetical implemented HOV lane. The hypothetical implemented HOV lane is located in Nanjing and evaluated using VISSIM. The simulation results shows that the HOV lane is suitable for urban areas and it can enhance speed of social vehicles with no significant effect on bus operation. At the same time, traffic delays and queue length of intersections are reduced.

scholarly journals Mapping and Characterizing Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Impervious Surfaces Using Landsat Images: A Case Study of Xuzhou, East China from 1995 to 2018

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Han Li ◽  
Long Li ◽  
Longqian Chen ◽  
Xisheng Zhou ◽  
Yifan Cui ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
East China ◽  
Impervious Surfaces ◽  
Landsat Images ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Ecological Protection ◽  
Surface Expansion ◽  
Spectral Mixture

As an effective indicator of urbanization, impervious surfaces play a significant role in urban planning and ecological protection. It is, therefore, important to characterize impervious surfaces in urban geographical studies. As a key city in East China, Xuzhou has experienced rapid urbanization in recent decades and is now becoming an environmentally friendly city. To better understand the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of Xuzhou’s urban development, we extracted its impervious surfaces from Landsat images of 1995, 2003, 2010, and 2018 by a linear spectral mixture analysis. Then, a range of complementary methods including landscape indices, profile lines, median centers, standard deviational ellipses, and spatial autocorrelation were adopted to analyze the landscape pattern and expansion of impervious surfaces on both city and district scales. Results show that (1) there was a constant impervious surface expansion, originating in downtown Xuzhou; (2) promoting ecological protection in urban areas fragmented impervious surfaces with increasing heterogeneity and diversity overall; and (3) expansion directions and rates of impervious surfaces varied with district and town, and the central urban area expanded towards east and southeast, which could be related to their own resources and governmental policies. Findings from this study provide useful insights into urban planning of this economically prospective region.

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