Perspectives on subnational carbon and climate footprints: A case study of Southampton, UK

Sub-national governments are increasingly interested in local-level climate change management. Carbon- (CO2 and CH4) and climate-footprints—(Kyoto Basket GHGs) (effectively single impact category LCA metrics, for global warming potential) provide an opportunity to develop models to facilitate effective mitigation. Three approaches are available for the footprinting of sub-national communities. Territorial-based approaches, which focus on production emissions within the geo-political boundaries, are useful for highlighting local emission sources but do not reflect the transboundary nature of sub-national community infrastructures. Transboundary approaches, which extend territorial footprints through the inclusion of key cross boundary flows of materials and energy, are more representative of community structures and processes but there are concerns regarding comparability between studies. The third option, consumption-based, considers global GHG emissions that result from final consumption (households, governments, and investment). Using a case study of Southampton, UK, this chapter develops the data and methods required for a sub-national territorial, transboundary, and consumption-based carbon and climate footprints. The results and implication of each footprinting perspective are discussed in the context of emerging international standards. The study clearly shows that the carbon footprint (CO2 and CH4 only) offers a low-cost, low-data, universal metric of anthropogenic GHG emission and subsequent management

Accessibility dynamics and regional cross-border cooperation (CBC) perspectives in the portuguese—spanish borderland

Accessibility plays a major role in achieving sustainable transport, and therefore urban and regional sustainability. The urban public transport system promotes mobility and realizes a large part of urban movements. Moreover, improving accessibility in order to promote sustainable transport requires the application of new concepts and indicators as a powerful tool in the process of creating a balanced urban transport system. In this regard, one of the main goals of this research is to present an overview of the relevant accessibility indicators and assessment of accessibility in regional Cross-Border Cooperation (CBC) in order to transcendence challenges and obstacles for sustainable transportation in these regions along of Portuguese-Spanish border. This paper focuses on the accessibility of cross-border cooperation scenarios along the border regions of Alto Alentejo (Portugal) and Badajoz (Spain) where the Case Study Research Method (CSR) made it possible to recognize accessibility as a key factor in territorial success. Also, accessibility analysis can assess improvements as well as regional imbalances. In addition, this methodology can be used to identify missing links, which requires new investments enabling long-term sustainability.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Measuring hierarchical differentiation: connectivity and dominance in the European urban network

This paper presents an examination of the empirical merits of a set of spatial interaction indices for measuring hierarchical differentiation (i.e. dominance and connectivity) in a spatial network. To allow for the comparison of the degree of hierarchical differentiation in networks with different numbers of nodes/links, we propose to normalize the ratio between the real measures and the corresponding values for a rank size distribution in order to obtain readily interpretable measures of hierarchical differentiation. When applied to data on air passenger flows within Europe, the normalized indices, interpreted together, appear to give a good idea of the tendency toward hierarchical differentiation. The potential usefulness of this analytical framework is discussed in the context of studies on (transnational) inter-city relations and empirical assessments of changes in the spatial configuration of airline networks