12,677 research outputs found

    A nexus perspective on competing land demands: Wider lessons from a UK policy case study

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    As nations develop policies for low-carbon transitions, conflicts with existing policies and planning tools are leading to competing demands for land and other resources. This raises fundamental questions over how multiple demands can best be managed. Taking the UK as an empirical example, this paper critiques current policies and practices to explore the interdependencies at the water-energy-food nexus. It considers how current land uses and related policies affect the UK’s resilience to climate change, setting out an agenda for research and practice relevant to stakeholders in land-use management, policy and modelling. Despite recent progress in recognising such nexus challenges, most UK land-related policies and associated science continue to be compartmentalised by both scale and sector and seldom acknowledge nexus interconnections. On a temporal level, the absence of an over-arching strategy leaves inter-generational trade-offs poorly considered. Given the system lock-in and the lengthy policy-making process, it is essential to develop alternative ways of providing dynamic, flexible, practical and scientifically robust decision support for policy-makers. A range of ecosystem services need to be valued and integrated into a resilient land-use strategy, including the introduction of non-monetary, physical-unit constraints on the use of particular services

    Green buildings and design for adaptation: strategies for renovation of the built environment

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    The recent EU Directives 2010/31 and 2012/27 provide standards of nearly zero energy buildings for new constructions, aiming at a better quality of the built environment through the adoption of high-performance solutions. In the near future, cities are expected to be the main engine of development while bearing the impact of population growth: new challenges such as increasing energy efficiency, reducing maintenance costs of buildings and infrastructures, facing the effects of climate change and adjusting on-going and future impacts, require smart and sustainable approaches. To improve the capability of adaptation to dynamics of transformation, buildings and districts have to increase their resilience, assumed as ‘the capacity to adapt to changing conditions and to maintain or regain functionality and vitality in the face of stress or disturbance’ (Wilson A., Building Resilience in Boston, Boston Society of Architects, 2013). This paper describes the research methodology, developed by the Department of Architecture, a research unit of Technology for Architecture, to perform the assessment of resilience of existing buildings, as well as the outcomes of its application within Bologna urban context. This methodology focuses on the design for adaptation of social housing buildings, aiming at predicting their expected main impacts (energy consumption, emissions, efficiency, urban quality and environmental sustainability) and at developing models for renovation

    Assessing and augmenting SCADA cyber security: a survey of techniques

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    SCADA systems monitor and control critical infrastructures of national importance such as power generation and distribution, water supply, transportation networks, and manufacturing facilities. The pervasiveness, miniaturisations and declining costs of internet connectivity have transformed these systems from strictly isolated to highly interconnected networks. The connectivity provides immense benefits such as reliability, scalability and remote connectivity, but at the same time exposes an otherwise isolated and secure system, to global cyber security threats. This inevitable transformation to highly connected systems thus necessitates effective security safeguards to be in place as any compromise or downtime of SCADA systems can have severe economic, safety and security ramifications. One way to ensure vital asset protection is to adopt a viewpoint similar to an attacker to determine weaknesses and loopholes in defences. Such mind sets help to identify and fix potential breaches before their exploitation. This paper surveys tools and techniques to uncover SCADA system vulnerabilities. A comprehensive review of the selected approaches is provided along with their applicability

    ‘Smart Cities’ – Dynamic Sustainability Issues and Challenges for ‘Old World’ Economies: A Case from the United Kingdom

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    The rapid and dynamic rate of urbanization, particularly in emerging world economies, has resulted in a need to find sustainable ways of dealing with the excessive strains and pressures that come to bear on existing infrastructures and relationships. Increasingly during the twenty-first century policy makers have turned to technological solutions to deal with this challenge and the dynamics inherent within it. This move towards the utilization of technology to underpin infrastructure has led to the emergence of the term ‘Smart City’. Smart cities incorporate technology based solutions in their planning development and operation. This paper explores the organizational issues and challenges facing a post-industrial agglomeration in the North West of England as it attempted to become a ‘Smart City’. In particular the paper identifies and discusses the factors that posed significant challenges for the dynamic relationships residents, policymakers and public and private sector organizations and as a result aims to use these micro-level issues to inform the macro-debate and context of wider Smart City discussions. In order to achieve this, the paper develops a range of recommendations that are designed to inform Smart City design, planning and implementation strategies

    Energy community flexibility solutions to improve users’ wellbeing

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    Funding Information: Acknowledgments: The authors acknowledge the infrastructure and support of the Department of Electrical and Computer—NOVA School of Science and Technology (FCT NOVA), and of the Centre of Technology and Systems, CTS—UNINOVA. Funding Information: Funding: This research was funded by “Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia” (FCT), grant number UIDB/00066/2020. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Energy communities, mostly microgrid based, are a key stakeholder of modern electrical power grids. Operating a microgrid based energy community is a challenging topic due to the involved uncertainties, complexities and often conflicting objectives. The aim of this paper is to present a novel methodology demonstrating that energy community flexibility can contribute to each community member’s wellbeing when a grid fault occurs. A three-house energy community will be modelled considering as consumption sources non-controllable and controllable devices in each house. As power supply sources, PV systems installed in a community’s houses are considered, as well as the power obtained from main grid. Each house’s flexibility inside the community will be studied to improve the management of loads during a fault occurrence. Moreover, three different scenarios will be considered with different available power in the community. With these simulations, it was possible to understand that houses’ energy flexibility can be used under a fault situation, either to maintain the users’ wellbeing or to change the energy flow. Furthermore, energy flexibility can be used to create better energy price markets, to improve the resilience of the grid, or even to consider electrical vehicles’ connection to a community’s grid.publishersversionpublishe

    ICT Applications in Disaster Resilience in a Smart City in Colombo Area of Sri Lanka

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    Public policy on Smart City, in terms of disaster resilience, is a developing concept in Sri Lanka. To manage disasters in Sri Lanka, several disaster resilience plans have been implemented in collaboration with responsible government bodies. With the purpose of flood mitigation in the Metro Colombo area, a disaster management plan, called “Metro Colombo Urban Development Project” (MCUDP) was initiated in 2012. This plan consists of a sub-project called Real-Time Control System which embeds ICT. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss how the government utilizes advanced ICT applications in disaster resilience in the Colombo area with reference to the Real-Time Control System (RTC). With the use of both secondary data and primary data, the study examines the effectiveness of ICT application in the disaster resilience plan. The data collection was conducted during August 2019 and November 2019. Descriptive methods were used to analyze the data. The Real-Time Control system in the Colombo area has not succeeded as intended due to improper utilization of ICT in disaster resilience. Other drawbacks are; the same data is processed by various authorities, lack of free data sharing policies and lack of free data dissemination. To make a Colombo area a Smart City, a proper disaster resilience system needs to be initiated. For that, all planned activities should be implemented without any delay and the Municipalities should be the central coordination point. Also, a proper early warning system, a free data sharing policy with a proper monitoring system must be established, all parties should also collaborate with government agencies, and continuous training must be provided to the relevant officials.Keywords: Smart City, Disaster Resilience, Real-Time Control System, Sri Lanka

    Socially-integrated resilience in building-level water networks using smart microgrid+net

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    Environmental change and natural events can impact on multiple dimensions of human life; economic, social, political, physical (built) and natural (ecosystems) environments. Water distribution networks cover both the built and natural realms and are as such inherently vulnerable to accidental or deliberate physical, natural, chemical, or biological threats. An example of such threats include flooding. The damage to water networks from flooding at the building level can include disrupted supply, pipe damage, sink and sewer overflows, fittings and appliance malfunctions etc. as well as the consequential socio-economic loss and distress. It has also been highlighted that the cost of damage caused by disasters including flooding can be correlated to the warning-time given before it occurs. Therefore, contiguous and continuous preparedness is essential to sustain disaster resilience. This paper presents an early stage review to: 1. Understand the challenges and opportunities posed by disaster risks to critical infrastructure at the building level. 2. Examine the role and importance of early warnings within the smart systems context to promote anticipatory preparedness and reduce physical, economic, environmental and social vulnerability 3. Review the opportunities provided by smart water microgrid/net to deliver such an early warning system and 4. Define the basis for a socially-integrated framework for resilience in building water networks based on smart water micro grids and micronets. The objective is to establish the theoretical approach for smart system integration for risk mitigation in water networks at the building level. Also, to explore the importance and scope integration of other social-political dimensions within such framework and associated solutions. The findings will inform further studies to address the gaps in understanding the disaster risks in micro water infrastructure e.g. flooding, and; to develop strategies and systems to strengthen disaster preparedness for effective response and anticipatory action for such risks
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