Gendered geography of energy consumption in the Netherlands

Household energy consumption (HEC) significantly impacts global greenhouse gas emissions and can trigger fuel and energy poverty among vulnerable households. Due to environmental policies and geopolitical turmoil limiting the energy supply, HEC needs to be curbed. This urges the identification of most energy-dependent consumers at different locations and the particular life circumstances that trigger such a high level of dependency. A gender perspective can provide insights into the life circumstances of households. Applying a geographically weighted regression model on HEC, including explanatory parameters on gender composition, age, ethnicity, income, home ownership, microclimate, urban morphology and land cover, the results show significant variations in HEC of gender groups in 87% of Dutch residential zones. Women with an immigration background (20%), children younger than 14 years old -presumably single mothers (14%), old buildings in hot climates (10%), or high income (9%) are the most energy-dependent gender groups in a significant portion of residential zones. So are the men in large-size households (18%) and older-than-65-years men in rural areas (8%). The study offers discussions on the results and a series of policy recommendations.</p

The Initial Common Pathway of Inflammation, Disease, and Sudden Death

In reviewing the literature pertaining to interfacial water, colloidal stability, and cell membrane function, we are led to propose that a cascade of events that begins with acute exogenous surfactant-induced interfacial water stress can explain the etiology of sudden death syndrome (SDS), as well as many other diseases associated with modern times. A systemic lowering of serum zeta potential mediated by exogenous cationic surfactant administration is the common underlying pathophysiology. The cascade leads to subsequent inflammation, serum sickness, thrombohemorrhagic phenomena, colloidal instability, and ultimately even death. We propose that a sufficient precondition for sudden death is lowered bioavailability of certain endogenous sterol sulfates, sulfated glycolipids, and sulfated glycosaminoglycans, which are essential in maintaining biological equipose, energy metabolism, membrane function, and thermodynamic stability in living organisms. Our literature review provides the basis for the presentation of a novel hypothesis as to the origin of endogenous bio-sulfates which involves energy transduction from sunlight. Our hypothesis is amply supported by a growing body of data showing that parenteral administration of substances that lower serum zeta potential results in kosmotropic cationic and/or chaotropic anionic interfacial water stress, and the resulting cascade

Exploring energy geography:Data insights on household consumption

Household energy consumption (HEC) varies across neighbourhoods and gender groups. This database provides raw and analysed data on HEC determinants and their estimated influence on HEC in 2707 residential neighbourhoods (Wijk) in the Netherlands in 2018. The raw data consists of 17 indicators on energy demand, socioeconomic characteristics, microclimate and buildings. The indicators are retrieved from and calculated based on open national and international datasets. The analysed data presents the local coefficients of the HEC determinants, the outcome of the geographically weighted regression model (GWR) presented in the related article [1]

Environmental justice and surface temperature: Income, ethnic, gender, and age inequalities

Severe land surface temperature (LST) significantly impacts residents' thermal discomfort and can be life-threatening during warm seasons. Therefore, it is essential to identify the inequalities in LST exposure, i.e. the socioeconomic groups who are over- or underexposed to LST. There is a knowledge gap in the literature: there is no previous study which differentiates between national-scale inequalities -i.e. inequalities apparent in all location of a country, and the local-scale inequalities -i.e. inequalities existing in some areas of a country. Employing a semi-parametric geographically weighted regression model to study LST in Dutch residential zones in the summer of 2014, the results of this study show that two national-scale inequalities are significant: overexposure of high-income groups and underexposure of the owners of high-value properties. Additionally, eight local-scale inequalities are identified. Among the latter, ethnic inequalities, overexposure of Non-western and Western immigrants, found to be the most severe and frequent at the local scale. Additionally, females are often the second most overexposed to LST at the local-scale. To a lesser degree Rental dwellings and Population age 15−24 are the second most overexposed of a zone's population. In the end, the results and policy implications are discussed

Summer surface temperature and socioeconomic data of Dutch residential zones, 2014

The dataset combines and aggregates two data types at the scale of 2400 residential zones (“wijken”, in the terminology used by the Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics) of the Netherlands, 2014. The first type of data is summer surface temperature, the average of 40 dates in the summer of 2014, comprising the observations of four satellite images of four local overpassing times: MODIS Terra day (10:30 a.m.), MODIS Terra night (10:30 p.m.), MODIS Aqua day (1:30 p.m.), and MODIS Aqua night (1:30 a.m.). Second, ten variables describing the socioeconomic status of the residential zones: Western immigrants (%), Non-Western immigrants (%), Rental dwelling (%), Building age (median), Population age 65 or older (%), Population age 15-24 (%), Population age 14 or younger (%), Income per capita (x 1000 €), Property value (x 1000 €), Female minus male (%)

Land surface temperature and energy expenditures of households in the Netherlands : Winners and losers

This study aims to examine the associations between land surface temperature (LST) and annual household energy expenditure (HEE) in urbanized zones of the Netherlands. To do so, satellite images of 96 days at four different overpassing local times (10:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 10:30 p.m., 1:30 a.m.) are retrieved, and annual average maximum (LST-Max) and average minimum (LST-Min) LST at each zone are calculated. Employing geographically weighted regression, controlling for 11 control variables, the results indicate that the impact of LST on HEE could not be enhanced unless the interactions between LST and location-specific circumstances are taken into consideration. In this line, four types of socio-spatial characteristics are distinguished: (1) losers, where higher levels of both LST-max and LST-Min are associated with higher HEE, characterised by high population density; (2) peak losers and trough winners, where LST-Max is associated with higher HEE and LST-Min with lower HEE, characterised by large households and elderly citizens; (3) peak winners and trough losers, where LST-Max is associated with lower HEE and LST-Min with higher HEE, characterised by private-rental dwellings and large building surface to volume ratio; (4) winners, where both LST-Max and LST-Min are associated with lower HEE, characterised by old buildings.</p

Feminization of surface temperature : Environmental justice and gender inequality among socioeconomic groups

This study seeks answers to whether certain gender groups are overexposed to land surface temperature (LST) and whether or not the levels of such overexposure differ across socioeconomic groups and locations? The results of a geographically weighted regression model on 2400 Dutch residential zones show that LST is feminized. Gender composition alone explains about 10% of LST variations, regardless of other socioeconomic characteristics. For a 1% increase in women's population in a residential zone, LST increases by more than 0.1 °C. When socioeconomic characteristics are considered, the model explains more than 75% of variations. It shows that women living in low-value and relatively-old buildings are more exposed than men in 51% and 41% of the zones. Older-than-65-years and high-income women are more exposed than men in 24% and 22% of zones. Feminization of LST has a spatial pattern, too. It is more likely to occur in a moderate climate than in areas with extreme cold or warm climates. This study discusses the results and offers a series of possible explanations: Women's overrepresentation in urbanised areas, gender imbalance in economic sectors, suburbanisation of poverty, unequal access to green, different life expectancy among gender groups, and high variation of LST in moderate climates

Who is more dependent on gas consumption? Income, gender, age, and urbanity impacts.

A Dutch household is two times more dependent on gas than an average European Union household. The Dutch Climate Agreement targets phasing out households’ gas consumption before 2030. However, it is unclear who will be affected by this policy. Controlling for various building and climate factors, this study analyses the associations between socioeconomic characteristics of households, Gas-use, i.e. annual gas consumption per capita, and Gas-dependency, i.e. the share of gas from total household energy consumption, in the residential zones of the Netherlands in 2018. As a result, three types of socioeconomic groups are identified: (1) more gas-use and more gas-dependency, including low-incomes, high-incomes, the population age 65 or more; (2) more gas-use and less gas-dependency, including the population age 14 or younger; (3) less gas-use and less gas-dependency, including large households, the population age 15–24, immigrants, females, urban households, and tenants. It shows that Gas-use and Gas-dependency spatial patterns do not necessarily overlap, and the simultaneous study of the two variables is essential. It offers a series of policies for gas-intensive groups: progressive energy tax (high incomes), safety net against energy poverty (low incomes), Third Places and local communities (senior citizens), demand response management (population younger than 14 years old)

The Spatial Dimension of Household Energy Consumption

The vast majority of previous studies on household energy consumption (HEC) has presumed that the influencing factors of HEC are similar in each and every location regardless of the location specific circumstances. In other words, they assume that some generalizable facts explain the level of HEC and energy poverty across all areas of a city, country, region, and/or continent. At the national scale, the Third National Energy Efficiency Action Plan for the Netherlands, regarding the reduction of household energy consumption has introduced a variety of policy measures and incentives for reduction of HEC among them energy tax, reduction on VAT rate on labour cost of renovation of dwellings, energy saving agreement for rental sector, etc. Furthermore, the policy document emphasise that the geographic scope of all policy measures is “the Netherlands”. In this respect, Third National Energy Efficiency Action Plan for the Netherlands, introduce an identical set of measures and instrument for all areas of the Netherlands regardless of their location-specific circumstances. The objective of this thesis is to examine the validity of this presumption through five different studies four of which published as a scientific journal, and one of which is accepted for publication. To do so, the impact of a variety of the determinants of HEC of the Dutch neighbourhoods are studied and compared. The result of the studies shows that the impact of such determinants is spatially homogenous (i.e. similar across all neighbourhoods in question) or spatially heterogeneous (varies from one neighbourhood to another).A+BE | Architecture and the Built Environment No 5 (2019)OLD Urban Composition

Spatial dynamics of household energy consumption and local drivers in Randstad, Netherlands

This study is an attempt to bridge an eminent knowledge gap in the empirical studies on Household Energy Consumption (HEC): the previous studies implicitly presumed that the relationships between HEC and the geographic drivers is uniform in different locations of a given study-area, and thus have tried to disclose such everywhere-true relationships. However, the possible spatially varying relationships between the two remain unexplored. By studying the performance of a conventional OLS model and a GWR model -adjusted R 2 , randomness of distribution of residual (tested by Moran's I), AIC and spatial stationary index of the geographic drivers, ANOVA test of residuals-this study demonstrates that the GWR model substantially provides a better understanding of HEC in the Randstad. In this respect, the core conclusion of this study is: the relationships between HEC and geographic drivers are spatially varying and therefore needed to be studied by means of geographically weighted models. Additionally, this study shows that considering spatially varying relationships between HEC and geographic drivers, by application of hierarchical clustering, the areas of the Randstad can be classified in four clusters: building age and income impact areas, building density impact areas, population density and built-up impact areas, household size and income impact areas.Accepted Author ManuscriptEnvironmental Technology and DesignOLD Urban Composition