UHI Street Typology Based on Seasonality: A Case Study from Apeldoorn, Netherlands

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon results in higher temperatures in urban areas compared to less urbanized regions. This is due to the concentration of urban infrastructure, which absorbs and then releases solar radiation. Given its significant role in exacerbating the climate crisis, the UHI phenomenon demands urgent attention. While traditional physics-based simulations for studying UHI are accurate, they require substantial resources, which limits their practical application in urban planning. Previous research by the authors highlighted the capability of data-driven models as a practical alternative for assessing UHI. Such models, however, depend on the availability of extensive high-resolution datasets. Building on this prior work, the current study explores utilizing UHI’s seasonality to narrow the required data scope for effective data-driven UHI modelling. By strategically targeting data collection on specific seasons, it is possible to capture UHI’s intricate and dynamic nature more efficiently. This approach involved using street-based clustering to identify common seasonal patterns in Surface UHI (SUHI) and Canopy UHI (CUHI). Findings show notable seasonal fluctuations in SUHI, especially during summer. The training of Random Forest (RF) models employed varying data set proportions: 45% for summer and spring, 65% for autumn, and 75% for winter. Despite the challenges of smaller training datasets, the models achieved high accuracies, with CUHI models attaining an R2 of 0.85 and SUHI models an R2 of 0.74. These outcomes highlight the efficacy of strategic data collection, indicating its potential to enhance urban heat resilience and mitigate UHI effects

The role of contracting strategies in social value implementation

There has been an increasing demand for social value (SV) implementation to assume a cardinal position in the infrastructure delivery efforts of infrastructure client organisations (ICOs). However, whereas successful implementation has been recorded in some projects, monumental failures have also been recorded in others. This variance in implementation performance is a cause for concern. The mode of governance applied in an infrastructure delivery endeavour has been identified as capable of influencing the implementation of SV. This observation makes imperative an investigation into the role of contracting strategies – an integral part of governance modes – adopted by ICOs on SV implementation performance. This is the aim of this study. Using a case study approach, three infrastructure projects which used different contracting strategies were selected from two different countries, the UK and Nigeria. Semistructured interviews were conducted with ICO representatives on these projects and subsequently analysed using qualitative content analysis. Findings confirmed that the kind of contract adopted by ICOs influenced their ability to drive the successful implementation of desirable SV objectives through their supply chain. It is therefore recommended that ICOs ensure that the selected contracting strategies are capable of ensuring successful implementation of the desired objectives

Method-based learning: a case in the asphalt construction industry

As in many domains in the construction industry, traditional working practices lean heavily on the onsite experience and craftsmanship (tacit knowledge) of operators and teams. This results in implicit individualised learning and lengthy learning cycles. To develop a deeper insight into construction processes, this tacit knowledge needs to be made explicit to instigate a change towards explicit method-based learning. For the asphalting industry, Miller (2010) developed a framework to make processes that take place on the construction site explicit when implementing new technologies. To change to explicit method-based learning, the experiential learning model o

Data modeling for operation and maintenance of utility networks: Implementation and testing

The organisational data models that support the information needs of utility network managers are proprietary and domain-specific, while the emerging national standards in this field often lack lifecycle data representation capabilities. However, multiple types of utility networks can be comprehensively represented with the free and open-source Utility Network Application Domain Extension (ADE) of the international standard CityGML. The Operation & Maintenance (O&M) Domain Ontology is a proposed extended version of the Utility Network ADE that allows for consistent and comprehensive processing, storage and exchange of O&M-related utility network data. So far, this ontology has not yet been implemented in a spatial-relational database. Consequently, the support it offers during routine utility asset management tasks has remained untested. This paper, therefore, tests the support of the O&M domain ontology for asset management and proposes a database implementation of this data model. To this end, it models and loads two utility networks from the campus of the University of Twente, the Netherlands. It tests the ontology's support for asset management by simulating a street reconstruction project and retrieving necessary project information in relation to a utility's (a) maintenance history and performance, and (b) site conditions and valve locations. Results show that the implemented model supports projects with rapid, comprehensive, and consistent information about semantic details of utilities. Such data needs yet to be collected and registered systematically to enable future data-driven asset management practices

Data modeling for operation and maintenance of utility networks: Implementation and testing

The organisational data models that support the information needs of utility network managers are proprietary and domain-specific, while the emerging national standards in this field often lack lifecycle data representation capabilities. However, multiple types of utility networks can be comprehensively represented with the free and open-source Utility Network Application Domain Extension (ADE) of the international standard CityGML. The Operation & Maintenance (O&M) Domain Ontology is a proposed extended version of the Utility Network ADE that allows for consistent and comprehensive processing, storage and exchange of O&M-related utility network data. So far, this ontology has not yet been implemented in a spatial-relational database. Consequently, the support it offers during routine utility asset management tasks has remained untested. This paper, therefore, tests the support of the O&M domain ontology for asset management and proposes a database implementation of this data model. To this end, it models and loads two utility networks from the campus of the University of Twente, the Netherlands. It tests the ontology's support for asset management by simulating a street reconstruction project and retrieving necessary project information in relation to a utility's (a) maintenance history and performance, and (b) site conditions and valve locations. Results show that the implemented model supports projects with rapid, comprehensive, and consistent information about semantic details of utilities. Such data needs yet to be collected and registered systematically to enable future data-driven asset management practices.Urban Data Scienc

Suivi scientifique de l'article 19 : Volet espace milieu naturel

For this chapter " space-natural environment ", the objective of the scientific monitoring is to estimate the way, the intensity according to which the main landscape and ecological objectives defined in Article 19 were achieved over a five-seven year period given the agricultural and range practices and systems. / Pour ce volet "Espace-Milieu naturel", le suivi scientifique a pour but d'évaluer la façon, l'intensité selon lesquelles les objectifs majeurs paysagers, écologiques, assignés aux mesures Article 19 sont atteints sur une période de cinq-sept ans, compte-tenu des pratiques et systèmes agro-pastoraux en place (contractants ou non de la procédure)