Development and evaluation of a method to estimate the potential of decarbonisation technologies deployment at higher education campuses

peer-reviewedThis paper describes a method for the quantitative estimation of the potential of decarbonisation technologies deployed on Higher Education Campuses (HEC). This was developed to fill the need for a practicable and standardised method to provide preliminary estimations of the deployment potential of building integrated photovoltaics (PV), micro-wind turbines, rainwater harvesting and ground mounted PV at HECs. The method identifies two key variables, namely roof area and open carpark area, to aid estimation of decarbonisation technologies deployment at HECs, using Google Earth imagery coupled with publicly available online HEC maps. The method was trialled for the higher education sector in Ireland identifying major potential for deployment of decarbonisation technologies for the sector. The building decarbonisation aspect of the proposed approach is applicable to sectors outside HEC particularly commercial and industrial sectors due to similarity in building footprint characteristics. The open carpark component of the methodology is also applicable to city-scale analysis due to uniformity in form of open carparks worldwide. This highlights the usefulness of this method through informing city-scale transitions towards decarbonisatio

Long-term desalinated water demand and investment requirements: a case study of Riyadh

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is situated in an arid region and faces a chronic challenge to meet its increasing water demand. Riyadh is the capital of KSA and home to about six million people. The water demand is mostly met by groundwater resources (up to 48%), while the desalination plants cover the rest of the water supply requirements. There is a potential risk of a significant gap in water demand–supply due to the retirement of old desalination plants. This study, therefore, developed a probabilistic model to forecast desalinated water demand in Riyadh for domestic purposes up to the year 2040 based on three scenarios: low growth, the most likely (mean), and high growth scenario. The results showed that an investment of about US$6.24, 11.59, and 16.04 billion is required to meet the future domestic water demand of the city for the next 25 years based on low, mean, and high growth scenarios, respectively. Moreover, a strong commitment to public–private partnership is required to remove the fiscal budget burden related to the desalination along with public awareness campaigns to reduce per capita water consumption, upgrading the water tariff system and using renewable energy to run desalination plants

Regional spaces, spaces of regionalism: territory, insurgent politics and the English question.

Amid the globalization of economic life and a myriad of powerful challenges to Westphalian traditions of political statehood, it is now routinely contended that regions are 'in resurgence'. Nonetheless, much of the debate on this purported regional renaissance is bedevilled by confusion over what scholars and activists mean by regions and an analogous mystification as to why some regions are 'successful', 'lagging' or 'different'. Our paper aims to instil some coherence to this debate by distinguishing between what we term regional spaces and spaces of regionalism. It then draws on this distinction to explore the institutionalization of England's South West region, highlighting some tensions which prevail over its economic future, its political representation, its territorial shape and cultural vernacular. In undertaking this, we demonstrate how the formation of any given regional map is reflective – and indeed constitutive – of an unevenly developing, often overlapping and superimposing mosaic of economic practices, political mobilizations, cultural performances and institutional accomplishments. This prompts us to question the currently fashionable inclination to fully jettison a scalar and/or territorial approach to the theory and practice of spatiality in favour of relational/topological/non-territorial approaches