Feasibility study of Songao's low carbon town planning, China

For the past two decades, low-carbon planning has been one of the main energy planning topics of research at both city and district scales. The attention has for long been on energy consumption reduction by alternative means (such as renewable energies), smart grid systems and measures of CO2 emission reductions and climate change mitigation and adaptation. For developing countries like China, achieving these in a short period is a challenging task. For low carbon planning, there are measures of sustainability, mainly environmental, that can be considered at three scales of ‘target plan’, ‘masterplan’ and ‘construction phase (or implementation)’; some of which are purely focused on energy sector and achieving low-carbon built environments. In here, some of these are studied as part of a feasibility study of a small-scale low carbon town planning case study in Zhejiang Province, East China. This paper is based on a research case study and is divided in to three sections, case study introduction, case study analysis, results and discussions. The conclusions are made based on outcomes of the conducted feasibility study for the case of Songao's low carbon town planning. More importantly, this study highlights the importance of feasibility study for low carbon planning projects and also argues in favour of pre-assessment case of research prior to planning and implementation phase

The analysis of global warming patterns from 1970s to 2010s

While global warming is only one part of climate change effects, it poses the highest risk to our habitats and ecologies. It is alarming that global warming has heightened in multiple locations and is intensified since the early 1970s. Since then, there are certain global warming patterns that could guide us with an overview of what mitigation and adaptation strategies should be developed in the future decades. There are certain regions affected more than another, and there are certain patterns with adverse effects on regions, sub-regions, and even continents. This study provides an insightful analysis of recent global warming patterns, those that are affecting us the most with regional climate change of different types, upsurge in frequency and intensity of natural disasters, and drastic impacts on our ecosystems around the world. By analysing the global warming patterns of these last four decades, this research study sheds light on where these patterns are coming from, how they are developing, and what are their impacts. This study is conducted through grey literature and analysis of the recorded global warming data publicly available by the NASA-GISS data centre for global temperature. This brief—but comprehensive—analysis helps us to have a better understanding of what comes next for global warming impacts, and how we should ultimately react. The study contributes to the field by discovering three key points analysed based on available data and literature on recorded global temperature, including: differences between north and south hemispheres, specific patterns due to ocean surface temperature increase, and recent impacts on particular regions. The study concludes with the importance of global scale analysis to have a more realistic understanding of the global warming patterns and their impacts on all living habitats

Evaluating the Nexus between housing and energy sectors: the comparison of urban, Peri-urban and rural housing areas in Zhuhai, China

China has developed several housing policy reforms and has, in recent years, progressed further on developing policies to promote green strategies and energy-saving plans. The urban housing has much benefited from such reforms and plans, while rural housing has experienced minimal change in the past few decades. As a result, this study aims to identify and explore these differences, challenges, and implications that exist between three areas of urban, peri-urban, and rural in a particular case study in China. For this study, selected residential areas in the City of Zhuhai and its peri-urban and rural areas are selected as case studies. A questionnaire survey is conducted to analyze energy and housing conditions across the more prosperous urban, the dynamic and transitory peri-urban, and the less prosperous rural areas. The case studies are analyzed as comparative examples in a hot and humid sub-tropical area of Southern China. The study compares energy and housing conditions and argues potential possibilities and challenges for the future development of housing policy reforms that are the result of current housing development patterns and green strategy situation in China

Passive cooling energy systems: holistic SWOT analyses for achieving urban sustainability

In urban sustainability, passive cooling energy systems are recognised as primary design factors that highlight efficient and performative buildings. In the literature, there is a gap in addressing these design systems in the form of strategies that holistically suggest sustainable energy systems, cleaner built environments, and urban sustainability. This study fills this gap by conducting comprehensive SWOT analysis of all major passive cooling energy systems. In doing so, the study highlights key implications from a multi-indicator perspective comprised of five primary indicators, ‘energy’, ‘policy’, ‘practice’, ‘health’, and ‘environment’. These indicators are significant for disciplines of sustainable energy systems and the built environment. Through an in-depth interdependency evaluation of these indicators, this study assesses the passive energy systems across three spatial levels of macro, meso, and micro. Finally, this paper provides a holistic overview of these sustainable energy systems from the policy and practice perspectives across the three spatial levels

Passive cooling energy systems SWOT analyses for energy-use reductions at three spatial levels

Passive cooling energy systems are significantly important in achieving efficient design and performative built environment. Encouragingly, there are many passive cooling energy systems at three spatial levels of macro, meso and micro. In this research study, these energy systems are identified and are assessed in a SWOT analysis evaluation. Apart from social and economic implications that are broad and effective for most of passive cooling energy systems, this study focuses on the energy systems’ implications across five indicators of practice, health, environment, energy and policy, which are significant for disciplines of sustainable energy systems and the built environment. This study aims to evaluate the interdependency of each indicator across three spatial levels and then argue for methods that can be considered for potential implementation of passive cooling energy systems. Furthermore, this study offers a holistic overview of all available passive cooling energy systems and argue based on interplay between five indicators across the three studied spatial levels. This study focuses on warmer climate zones (e.g. hot and dry; hot and humid), where passive cooling is expected to me more effective and obligatory. As a result, this study aims to help energy specialists, policy makers, planners and designers to evaluate how they can utilize passive cooling energy systems based on the key studied indicators. Finally, this paper gives an overview of gaps in policy and practice implementation of such systems in practice and their effectiveness at various spatial levels of the built environment

Reflection on early lessons for urban resilience and public health enhancement during the COVID-19

With growing impacts on public health systems and economies across the world, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, we need to reflect on some of the early lessons for urban resilience enhancement. In this paper, a brief discussion is made through several recommendations that could make our cities more prepared specially in the probable future waves of this current outbreak or potential spikes in infections or clustered cases. The experiences from global examples highlighted in this study address what has worked in the past few months at the spatial levels of communities and cities. The COVID-19 outbreak highlighted the deficiencies and shortfall across multiple sectors of the urban systems and enabled us to identify risks, challenges, and pathways to better city management. With regard to urban resilience enhancement, the negative impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak are assessed to suggest a checklist of what could be done through early preparedness. The findings are novel in ongoing research related to urban resilience and public health during the COVID-19 pandemic. The early lessons here reflect on the ongoing situation of this pandemic outbreak, but could effectually help to enhance the resilience of our cities and communities, and especially addressing the protection of public health and societal well-being. The findings contribute to major sectors of urban resilience, city management, and public health. The recommendations from this study could be utilised and adapted in any context, allowing for the consideration of all-inclusive decision-making and much-enhanced planning processes

Sustainable living and urban density: the choices are wide open

Rapid urbanization, especially in developing countries, means that the worldwide tradition of living in low-rise housing is giving way to life in urban apartments. This implies huge environmental and sociocultural changes. For sustainability, dense cities offer some advantages, including efficient land use and transport systems. But there are also many possible negatives of such urbanization, and particularly for lower income groups. A widespread model is high-rise urban “superblocks”. The reasoning is often said to be the need to house many people in very compact cities. This argument is not strictly true. Equally high population densities can be achieved in several ways, including quite low-rise, with equal energy efficiency as well as environmental and social qualities. We explore these choices and assess options for sustainable living in future urban residential areas. Life cycle analysis is often applied to individual buildings but less often to urban development seen as a whole. We suggest some important “new” considerations need to be taken into account in deciding which urban forms to choose. In particular, high-rise as compared to low-dense options have implications as regards embodied energy, recurrent costs, flexibility and post use, which have to date been little discussed in the research literature

Green infrastructure practice and a sustainability key performance indicators framework for neighbourhood-level construction of sponge city programme

In recent years, the Sponge City program (SCP) of China, as a sustainable stormwater management approach, has been strengthened as a national strategic level program. The Green Infrastructure (GI), due to its multi-objective and multi-benefits, has been adopted as an important measure of this new nationwide initiative. However, there is a lack of a comprehensive quantitative evaluation system for neighbourhood scale SCP. Hence, in the process of GI plan optimization, selection of implementation methods to balance its multi-benefits has become one of the key obstacles in the practice of SCP. To support robust decision making on multi-objective GI planning and comprehensive assessment, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been used as a structural and systematic technique. In addition, a set of sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs) including requisite dimensions is the foundation for neighbourhood scale sustainability. Hence, AHP-based evaluation system including selection, weighting and ranking of the KPIs, is defined as a key performance indicator framework (KPIF), which is still in need for further development. Taking the GI planning for the Liangnong, Siming Lake sponge node restoration as an example, this paper develops KPIF with a comprehensive evaluation system for high-quality “Sponge Node” transitional construction. This KPIF consists of three basic criteria: “Environmental Performance”, “Economic and Adaptability Performance”, and “Social-cultural Performance and Wellbeing Performance”. In addition, 15 weighted KPIs are concluded and amongst them, the followings were relatively high: weight of the ATRCR, the promotion of biodiversity, the construction cost saving, the maintenance cost saving, and the level of recreational and wellbeing improvements for all people. In addition, the developed KPIF provides a reference for similar program’s decision-making, not only for the Jiangnan area of China, but also for quantitatively comprehensive evaluations of SCP in other regions

Smart Airport : Mobile Asset Information Modeling Management based on Gamificative VR Environment-A Case Study of Ningbo Lishe International Airport Staff Restaurant

Acknowledgments We would like to convey our gratitude to MIT Ningbo Supply Chain Innovation Institute and Ningbo Airport Group Co., LTD, for their full support for the research.Peer reviewedPublisher PD