Life cycle assessment of white roof and sedum-tray garden roof for office buildings in China

White roof (WR) and Sedum lineare tray garden roof (STGR) have been convinced to improve the energy-efficiency and provide various benefits for conventional impervious grey roofs. Some national and local standards have standardized and recommended these technologies in existing building retrofits, however, they do not include assessment and choice of a particular roof retrofit in different climates. This paper presents a 40-year life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA) of an office building roof retrofitted by adding either WR or STGR over an existing grey roof in five cities, located in four Chinese climate zones. The LCCA find that the WR retrofits exhibit positive life-cycle net savings (NS) in warm winter zones, ranging 5.7–35.1 CNY/m 2 , and STGR retrofits have negative NS of -81.3– -16.7 CNY/m 2 in all climate zones. The NS of both WR and STGR generally tend to improve as one moves from the coldest cities to the warmest cities. LCCA results suggest that adding new building codes concerning crediting or prescribing WR and STGR retrofits into office buildings with grey roofs in hot summer climate zones and warm winter zone in China, respectively. And featured by more specific requirements, the localized Technical Norms help promote the implementation of new building codes

Failure matters: Reassembling eco-urbanism in a globalizing China

This paper is an attempt to reassess the role of failure in policy mobilities. Empirically, this paper examines the various aftermaths of, and the continuing trans-local connections originating from, the prominent but un-materialized Sino-British Shanghai-Dongtan eco-city—with a particular consideration on its relation with a subsequently realized project—the Sino-Singapore Tianjin eco-city. The findings reveal that despite its apparent failure, Dongtan eco-city established a set of urban planning procedures adopted by many, including those who designed and delivered the Tianjin eco-city. Meanwhile, Dongtan’s failure to materialize motivated the Chinese government to pursue collaboration with the Singaporean government over the increased involvement of private Western partners. The intent to avoid association with Dongtan’s failure also fostered a new eco-urbanism model based on rebranding the planning practices of Singapore’s public housing. Parts of Dongtan eco-city have also lived on through the international circulation of a piece of planning software that was first developed for the failed project. This paper contributes to the policy mobilities literature by challenging its dominant focus on successful exemplars and exploring how a project fails in implementation yet parts of it remain mobile, influential and present in other developments. This paper also advances the understanding of contemporary urban sustainability by revealing how eco-urbanism models are co-produced in this globalizing era between the global North and South, as well as within the global South. </jats:p

Adapting to change: Time for climate resilience and a new adaptation strategy. EPC Issue Paper 5 March 2020

The dramatic effects of climate change are being felt across the European continent and the world. Considering how sluggish and unsuccessful the world has been in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the impacts will become long-lasting scars. Even implementing radical climate mitigation now would be insufficient in addressing the economic, societal and environmental implications of climate change, which are expected to only intensify in the years to come. This means climate mitigation must go hand in hand with the adaptation efforts recognised in the Paris Agreement. And although the damages of climate change are usually localised and adaptation measures often depend on local specificities, given the interconnections between ecosystems, people and economies in a globalised world there are strong reasons for European Union (EU) member states to join forces, pool risk and cooperate across borders. Sharing information, good practices, experiences and resources to strengthen resilience and enhance adaptive capacity makes sense economically, environmentally and socially. The European Commission’s 2013 Adaptation Strategy is the first attempt to set EU-wide adaptation and climate resilience and could be considered novel in that it tried to mainstream adaptation goals into relevant legislation, instruments and funds. It was not very proactive, however. It also lacked long-term perspective, failed to put the adaptation file high on the political agenda, was under resourced, and suffered from knowledge gaps and silo thinking. The Commission’s European Green Deal proposal, which has been presented as a major step forward to the goal of Europe becoming the world’s first climate-neutral continent, suggests that the Commission will adopt a new EU strategy on adaptation to climate within the first two years of its mandate (2020-2021). In light of the risks climate change poses to ecosystems, societies and the economy (through inter alia the vulnerability of the supply chain to climate change and its potential failure to provide services to consumers), adaptation should take a prominent role alongside mitigation in the EU’s political climate agenda. Respecting the division of treaty competences, there are important areas where EU-wide action and support could foster the continent’s resilience to climate change. The European Policy Centre (EPC) project “Building a climate-resilient Europe”, which has culminated in this Issue Paper, has identified the following: (i) the ability to convert science-based knowledge into preventive action and responsible behaviour, thus filling the information gap; (ii) the need to close the protection gap through better risk management and risk sharing; (iii) the necessity to adopt nature-based infrastructural solutions widely and tackle the grey infrastructure bias; and (iv) the need to address the funding and investment gap. This Issue Paper aims to help inform the upcoming EU Adaptation Strategy and, by extension, strengthen the EU’s resilience to climate change. To that end, the authors make a call for the EU to mainstream adaptation and shift its focus from reacting to disasters to a more proactive approach that prioritises prevention, risk reduction and resilience building. In doing so, the EU must ensure fairness and distributive justice while striving for climate change mitigation and protecting the environment and biodiversity. To succeed, the new EU Adaptation Strategy will need to address specific challenges related to the information, protection, funding and investment gaps; and the grey infrastructure bias. To tackle and address those challenges, this Paper proposes 17 solutions outlined in Table 1 (see page 6)

Fresh Water and Smarter Growth: Restoring Healthy Land-water Connections

The paper describes water resources in the United States, discusses the principles of the land-water connection, outlines the current regulatory framework, and explains the impact of climate change. It also introduces the concept of low impact development while providing examples, and highlights how funders are having an impact on sustainable water management. With bibliographical references

Estimating Workforce Development Needs for High-Speed Rail in California, Research Report 11-16

This study provides an assessment of the job creation and attendant education and training needs associated with the creation of the California High-Speed Rail (CHSR) network, scheduled to begin construction in September 2012. Given the high profile of national and state commitment to the project, a comprehensive analysis that discusses the education, training, and related needs created during the build out of the CHSR network is necessary. This needs assessment is achieved by means of: 1) analyzing current high-speed rail specific challenges pertaining to 220mph trains; 2) using a more accurate and robust “bottom-up” approach to estimate the labor, education, skills, and knowledge needed to complete the CHSR network; and 3) assessing the current capacity of railroad-specific training and education in the state of California and the nation. Through these analyses, the study identifies the magnitude and attributes of the workforce development needs and challenges that lie ahead for California. The results of this research offer new insight into the training and education levels likely to be needed for the emergent high-speed rail workforce, including which types of workers and professionals are needed over the life of the project (by project phase), and their anticipated educational level. Results indicates that although the education attained by the design engineers of the system signifies the most advanced levels of education in the workforce, this group is comparatively small over the life of the project. Secondly, this report identifies vast training needs for the construction workforce and higher education needs for a managerial construction workforce. Finally, the report identifies an extremely limited existing capacity for training and educating the high-speed rail workforce in both California and in the U.S. generally

Interbasin Water Transfers and Water Scarcity in a Changing World: A Solution or a Pipedream?

The world is increasingly forced to face the challenge of how to ensure access to adequate water resources for expanding populations and economies, whilst maintaining healthy freshwater ecosystems and the vital services they provide. Now the growing impacts of climate change are exacerbating the problem of water scarcity in key regions of the world. One popular way for governments to distribute water more evenly across the landscape is to transfer it from areas with perceived surpluses, to those with shortages.While there is a long history of water transfers from ancient times, as many societies reach the limits of locally renewable water supplies increasingly large quantities of water are being moved over long distances, from one river basin to another. Since the beginning of dam building that marked the last half of the 1900s more that 364 large-scale interbasin water transfer schemes (IBTs) have been established that transfer around 400 km³ of water per year (Shiklomanov 1999). IBTs are now widely touted as the quick fix solution to meeting escalating water demands. One estimate suggests that the total number of largescale water transfer schemes may rise to between 760 and 1 240 by 2020 to transfer up to 800 km³ of water per year (Shiklomanov 1999).The wide range of IBT projects in place, or proposed, has provoked the preparation of this review, including seven case studies from around the globe. It builds on previous assessments and examines the costs and benefits of large scale IBTs. This report assesses related, emerging issues in sustaining water resources and ecosystems, namely the virtual water trade, expanding use of desalination, and climate change adaptation. It is based on WWF's 2007 publication "Pipedreams? Interbasin water transfers and water shortages".The report concludes that while IBTs can potentially solve water supply issues in regions of water shortage - they come with significant costs. Large scale IBTs are typically very high cost, and thus economically risky, and they usually also come with significant social and environmental costs; usually for both the river basin providing and the river basin receiving the water

The unofficial economy in Croatia: causes, size and consequences

This Occasional Paper reports the research results of a project on the unofficial economy in Croatia conducted by the Institute of Public Finance in Zagreb for the Croatian Ministry of Finance. The project team report was finalized in early 1997 and it includes some 15 papers which can be obtained both in Croatian (“Financijska praksa”, Vol. 21, No. 1-2, June 1997) and English (http://www.ijf.hr/finpraksa/eng/97/1-2/index.htm). This paper is the summary of the project written by Ivo Bićanić (University of Zagreb) and Katarina Ott (Institute of Public Finance)

Assessing Opportunities for Livelihood Enhancement and Diversification in Coastal Fishing Communities of Southern India

"The United Nations Team for Tsunami Recovery Support (UNTRS) based in Chennai,India, is facilitating the process of tsunami recovery in the region through specific interventions in strategic areas. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of United Nations (FAO) as a part of the UNTRS team aims to set clear directions to ensure sustainable livelihoods for fishers. It has a pro-poor focus. With the fisheries sector suffering from both over-capitalization and resource depletion, the livelihoods of poor fishers and fisherfolk communities have been badly hit, and the tsunami has aggravated their misery. While relief measures have helped, what's essential for the long term is to improve livelihood opportunities. They need to be enhanced and diversified. Many development interventions have been attempted. But what's needed is a viable people-centric approach that taps the strengths of coastal fisheries and draws on them. Hence this study on ""Assessing opportunities for livelihood enhancement and diversification in coastal fishing communities of southern India."" carried out by Integrated Coastal Management, Kakinada. The study covers tsunami-affected areas in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The study has analysed a number of inherent strategies of the fishers to enhance and diversify livelihoods, both past and present. It has come out with a planning framework for livelihoods enhancement and diversification. Stakeholders in fisheries can make use of the framework, validate its usefulness, and decide and further develop appropriate tool box. They may then spell out the support and co-operation necessary from other stakeholders.

NaturWall©: facciate in legno multifunzionali per la riqualificazione del patrimonio edilizio / NaturWall©:multifunctional wood façade in existent building refurbishment

Naturwall© is a research conducted by Politecnico of Turin (DAD) (under supervision of Prof.G.Callegari) and a local PMI support (Natural House, Castellamonte), promoted by Giovanni Goria Foundation "Master dei Talenti" programme. It consists in an innovative energy saving system by using wood multifunctional components for existent buildings . The goal of the project is the refurbishment of the existing building stock which were built from 1950's to 1980's. This stock is not equipped with recent energy requirements. The project aims to create a representative model of solution that will be promoted in Italy. In the field of renovation and refurbishment high energy results and greenhouse gases reduction could be achieved by using multifunctional facade system

Green Infrastructure in Urban Flood Reduction and Stormwater Management

Climate change brings many challenges to cities of the world. One of them is an increase in precipitation, especially in the areas where it is already high. One example is the city of Stavanger, a case study for this project. Most cities are covered in asphalt, concrete and other impermeable materials, preventing stormwater from absorbing into the ground. Nature-based solutions (NBS) allow the retention process and, at the same time, bring many other benefits. The primary motivation behind this project is to investigate the role of green infrastructure (GI) in stormwater management and flood reduction. This study is critical because many large cities in Europe are already affected by high precipitation or will be in the near future. The results can be used as a part of stormwater management policymaking. The efficiency of the different types of GI was examined in two drainage basins in Stavanger using Rational method calculations, hydrological modelling with HEC-RAS software and scenario development. The calculations show the possible change in runoff volumes up to 9.4% of the initial amount. The hydrological modelling showed visible changes in flood reduction compared to the existing flood situation in the 100-year event. GI appear to be a good and multifunctional stormwater management tool, which should be a part of every city. Nevertheless, from the results, it is clear that GI, despite its undeniable benefits, can be used only in combination with the traditional flood measures in order to provide sufficient protection for the cities facing climate change