96,221 research outputs found

    Towards Sustainable Urban Futures: Exploring Environmental Initiatives in Smart Cities

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    Environmentally sustainable smart cities have emerged as a promising approach to address the challenges of urbanization while promoting sustainable development and enhancing residents' quality of life. This research article presents the key findings of a comprehensive study that explores the various aspects and initiatives found in environmentally sustainable smart cities.Renewable energy plays a pivotal role in these cities, with a strong emphasis on harnessing solar, wind, and geothermal power. Investments in clean energy infrastructure, such as solar panels, wind farms, and geothermal plants, significantly reduce reliance on fossil fuels and contribute to lower carbon emissions.Energy efficiency is another critical aspect of sustainable smart cities. These cities prioritize the use of smart grids for optimized energy distribution, smart meters for real-time energy monitoring and control, and energy-efficient buildings equipped with insulation, lighting, and HVAC systems that minimize energy consumption.Smart transportation is a key initiative in environmentally sustainable smart cities, focusing on reducing traffic congestion and air pollution. Electric vehicles (EVs) are promoted, accompanied by the development of charging infrastructure. Intelligent transportation systems aid in effective traffic management, while active transportation modes such as cycling, walking, and public transportation are encouraged.Efficient waste management systems are implemented to minimize landfill waste and promote recycling and composting. Smart waste bins equipped with sensors optimize waste collection routes, reduce littering, and provide real-time data on fill levels, aiding in effective waste management.Water management strategies are prioritized to conserve this precious resource. Smart water meters monitor consumption patterns, rainwater harvesting systems are implemented, water-efficient practices are promoted in buildings, and advanced leak detection technologies minimize water loss.Green spaces and biodiversity conservation are fundamental in environmentally sustainable smart cities. By integrating parks, gardens, rooftop greenery, and urban forests, these cities enhance residents' well-being, improve air quality, and provide habitats for wildlife, thus promoting biodiversity.Data analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) play a crucial role in monitoring and optimizing various city systems. Real-time data collection and analysis enable effective management of energy usage, traffic flow, waste management, and other infrastructure, facilitating informed decision-making and resource allocation.Citizen engagement is fostered in environmentally sustainable smart cities. Platforms for citizen participation enable residents to provide feedback, report issues, and actively contribute to decision-making processes related to urban planning, energy conservation, waste management, and other sustainability initiatives.The implementation of these strategies in environmentally sustainable smart cities aims to reduce carbon footprints, enhance resource efficiency, improve air and water quality, and create healthier and more livable urban environments. By embracing technology, innovation, and citizen engagement, these cities pave the way for a sustainable and resilient future

    Empowering citizens' cognition and decision making in smart sustainable cities

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    © 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Advances in Internet technologies have made it possible to gather, store, and process large quantities of data, often in real time. When considering smart and sustainable cities, this big data generates useful information and insights to citizens, service providers, and policy makers. Transforming this data into knowledge allows for empowering citizens' cognition as well as supporting decision-making routines. However, several operational and computing issues need to be taken into account: 1) efficient data description and visualization, 2) forecasting citizens behavior, and 3) supporting decision making with intelligent algorithms. This paper identifies several challenges associated with the use of data analytics in smart sustainable cities and proposes the use of hybrid simulation-optimization and machine learning algorithms as an effective approach to empower citizens' cognition and decision making in such ecosystemsPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

    Sustainable Strategic Urban Planning: Methodology for Urban Renovation At District Level

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    Sustainable urban renovation is characterized by multiple factors (e.g. technical, socio-economic, environmental and ethical perspectives), different spatial scales and a number of administrative structures that should address the evaluation of alternative scenarios or solutions. This defines a complex decision problem that includes different stakeholders where several aspects need to be considered simultaneously. In spite of the knowledge and experiences during the recent years, there is a need of methods that lead the decision-making processes. In response, a methodology based on the global idea and implications of working towards a more sustainable and energy efficient cities as a holistic procedure for urban renovation at district level is proposed in the European Smart City project CITyFiED. The methodology has the energy efficiency as main pillar and the local authorities as client. It is composed of seven phases that ensures an effective dialogue among all the stakeholders, aiming to understand the objectives and needs of the city to define a set of Strategies for Sustainable Urban Renovation and their integration within the Strategic Urban Planning of the cities.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement N° 609129. The authors would like to thank the rest of the partners of the CITyFiED project for their help and support

    Integrating big data into a sustainable mobility policy 2.0 planning support system

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    It is estimated that each of us, on a daily basis, produces a bit more than 1 GB of digital content through our mobile phone and social networks activities, bank card payments, location-based positioning information, online activities, etc. However, the implementation of these large data amounts in city assets planning systems still remains a rather abstract idea for several reasons, including the fact that practical examples are still very strongly services-oriented, and are a largely unexplored and interdisciplinary field; hence, missing the cross-cutting dimension. In this paper, we describe the Policy 2.0 concept and integrate user generated content into Policy 2.0 platform for sustainable mobility planning. By means of a real-life example, we demonstrate the applicability of such a big data integration approach to smart cities planning process. Observed benefits range from improved timeliness of the data and reduced duration of the planning cycle to more informed and agile decision making, on both the citizens and the city planners end. The integration of big data into the planning process, at this stage, does not have uniform impact across all levels of decision making and planning process, therefore it should be performed gradually and with full awareness of existing limitations
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