Global Policy Review on Embodied Flows: Recommendations for Australian Construction Sector

There has been a call for the construction industry to become more energy efficient in its planning and activities, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to help combat climate change. The Australian Building Codes Board has implemented ‘Energy Efficiency’ standards through the National Construction Codes to direct the industry towards net zero emissions goals. However, the Board has maintained a focus on operational flows considerations despite this only being a part of the total expenditure in a building lifecycle. Embodied flows, the energy output, and emissions from harvesting, manufacturing, transporting, and manufacturing materials for a building have not been included as a part of the current standards despite their growing share in the outputs of construction. A qualitative document analysis using data from academic articles and industry publications was performed to identify the context in embodied policy development. Findings reveal an abundance of different legislations and initiatives globally, recommending techniques that may effectively achieve embodied flow reductions. The results highlighted that Australia needs to capitalize on the potential reductions in overall energy and emissions from construction. Other regions have provided a strategic and legislative basis for the industry to emulate

An Investigation to Identify the Effectiveness of Socioeconomic, Demographic, and Buildings’ Characteristics on Surface Urban Heat Island Patterns

Despite implementing adaptation strategies and measures to make cities sustainable and resilient, the urban heat island (UHI) has been increasing risks to human health and the urban environment by causing hot spots in city areas. This study investigates the spatial patterns in the surface urban heat island (SUHI) over the study site and develops its relationships to socioeconomic, demographic, and buildings’ characteristics. This paper examines the role of building roof types, building roof material, building height, building age, and socioeconomic and demographic factors in driving the SUHI in a city. Numerous studies have focused primarily on the influence of biophysical and meteorological factors on variations in land surface temperatures (LSTs); however, very little attention has been paid to examining the influence of socioeconomic, demographic, and building factors on SUHIs within a city. The analysis has been carried out by processing Landsat based LST data to UHI in the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud-based platform. The satellite-based research is further integrated with GIS data acquired from the state government and local city council. Linear regression and multiple regression correlations are further run to examine selected factors’ variance on SUHI. Results indicate socioeconomic, demographic, and building factors contribute significantly to SUHI generation; these factors collectively can explain 28% of the variance in SUHI patterns with significant p-values

An estimation of virtual trades of embedded water and land through Sri Lankan seasonal crops’ trades to improve the cropping preferences

Due to the increase in population, growing urbanization, and higher demands for processed and unprocessed foods, resources related to food production have become scarce. Water and land can be considered as the primary resources to determine the crop production potential of a country. Ideally, countries that lack water and land resources can import these in virtual form. Sri Lanka is a country rich in water resources that faced bankruptcy recently. This study analyzes and explores the potential for use of land–water resources in Sri Lanka. A comprehensive framework is generated to identify the virtual land–water trade by considering ten major imports and nine major export crops in Sri Lanka. Consequently, the top ten imports/exports and top ten import/export trade partners are identified. The analysis reveals that Sri Lanka is a heavily import-dominant country, having seven times higher imports compared to exports. The country imports wheat, which is 82% of its import crops, and the same crop is the largest export (85% of crop export). Compared to its trade partners, Sri Lanka has sufficient water resources, but availability of arable land is limited. Banana is the largest export of the country, which involves higher embedded water and less land, matching the resource availability to Sri Lanka, whereas the trade partners are expected to continue importing the crop due to their water and land stress conditions. Finalization of the long-awaited agriculture policy of the country is strongly recommended

A detailed perspective of water resource management in a dry and water scarce country: the case in Kuwait

Kuwait is an arid country with one of the world’s highest consumption rates per capita. It suffers from severe water scarcity. Annual national expenditure on direct water supply and distribution in Kuwait is substantial, which is a burden on the country’s economy. The nation’s dependency on imported food due to water scarcity is also considered a primary political and security concern. These conditions call for much more efficient use and management of water in Kuwait. This study aims to undertake an extensive analysis of the country’s water resources and review current management strategies for better planning and management. The main sources of freshwater in Kuwait are seawater desalination, brackish groundwater, and recycling wastewater. Seawater desalination is the primary source that produces 61% of freshwater for drinking, agriculture, and other water-dependent industries. Other water management measures related to rainfall drainage systems and water supply networks are also employed to better utilize scarce water. Multiple government organizations that enforce several legal frameworks oversee long-term and acute water-related issues. Regional neighbors also face similar climatic conditions to Kuwait and suffer from water scarcity and associated food shortages. Water conservation and cultivating water-efficient crops have been identified as effective measures to overcome this issue. However, due to the small size and dry arid climate in Kuwait, its future is challenging. It must invest in modern, innovative, and effective solutions to preserve the sustainability of its freshwater resources

Investigation the nexus between CO2 emissions, agricultural land, crop, and livestock production in Pakistan

The ongoing adverse effects of climate change produced by carbon dioxide emissions have sparked global advocacy to face its adverse consequences with the utmost vigor. Pakistan’s contribution to global emissions is less than 1% while it is among the most vulnerable countries facing threat of climate change. The sources of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by particular nations must be understood to comprehend the procedures necessary to reduce emissions globally. This study is a contribution to empirics of the CO2 emissions, gross domestic product, crop production index, livestock production index, population, agricultural land, land under cereal crop and agriculture value-added. This study considered annual data from 1961 to 2014 for the country of Pakistan. We performed an Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound testing approach to investigate the long-run and short-run association among all research variables. To check the stationarity of the study variables, we also employed Augmented Dickey-Fuller and Phillips-Perron (P.P.) tests. The outcomes of the long-run estimates indicate that the coefficients of agricultural land and land under cereal crop have a positive and significant relationship with CO2 emissions, while the coefficients of crop production index have a negative and significant relationship with CO2 emissions, respectively. The outcomes from short-run estimates show that the coefficients of crop production index and livestock production index are both positive and statistically significant, which implies that these variables are crucial in boosting carbon emissions. The error correction model value is also negative and statistically significant, indicating the deviation of CO2 emissions to other variables from short-run to long-run equilibrium. According to the Pairwise Granger causality test, there is evidence of both unidirectional and bidirectional causation between the research variables. Based on the research outcomes, the government must carefully consider its regulations on agricultural and livestock production and embrace ecologically friendly techniques in the agriculture sector, which may minimize carbon emissions over time

Quantifying the Benefits and Ecosystem Services Provided by Green Roofs: A Review

Water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) has been widely used in cities to mitigate the negative consequences of urbanization and climate change. One of the WSUD strategies that is becoming popular is green roofs (GR) which offer a wide range of ecosystem services. Research on this WSUD strategy has been continuously increasing in terms of both quantity and quality. This paper presents a comprehensive review quantifying the benefits of GRs in papers published since 2010. More precisely, this review aims to provide up-to-date information about each GR benefit and how they have improved over the last decade. In agreement with previous reviews, extensive GRs were considerably researched, as compared to very limited studies on intensive and semi-intensive GRs. Each GR ecosystem service was specifically quantified, and an imbalance of GR research focus was identified, wherein urban heat-and runoff-related benefits were outstandingly popular when compared to other benefits. The results also highlight the recent introduction of hybrid GRs, which demonstrated improvements in GR performance. Furthermore, limitations of GRs, obstacles to their uptake, and inconsistent research findings were also identified in this review. Accordingly, opportunities for future research were pointed out in this review. This paper also recommends future studies to improve upon well-known GR benefits by exploring and applying more innovative GR construction techniques and materials. At the same time, further studies need to be undertaken on inadequately studied GR benefits, such as reduced noise and air pollution. In spite of the existence of reliable modelling tools, their application to study the effects of large-scale implementations of GRs has been restricted. Insufficient information from such research is likely to restrict large-scale implementations of GRs. As a result, further studies are required to transform the GR concept into one of the widely accepted and implemented WSUD strategies

Multi-criteria relationship analysis of knowledge, perception, and attitude of stakeholders for engagement towards maritime pollution at sea, beach, and coastal environments

The external influence due to the severe repercussions of unprecedented and un-attended pollution has put vulnerable marine ecosystems at high risk of irreversible damage. This business-as-usual scenario could render them unfit to offer sustenance along with innumerable ecosystem services. Since the Stockholm Conference on Human Environment 1972, there have been global efforts to raise awareness, build capacity, and govern the pollution issue for a sustainable solution. However, there is a growing concern about the adequacy of the desired level of mobilization and readiness so far achieved at the level of various stakeholders to respond to the issue of maritime pollution. In this context, the present study was aimed at assessing the relationship between knowledge, perception, and attitude of the stakeholders regarding their engagement towards maritime pollution at sea, beach, and coastal environments, by incorporating multi-criteria quantitative analysis method for a case study of Karachi area in Pakistan. The structured questionnaire incorporates Knowledge, Perception, and Attitude as three key variables for three principles; four standardized criteria each, with eighteen indicators transformed into queries by applying MCDA’s Simple Multi Attribute Rating (SMART) technique for scoring to quantify the feedback of 304 respondents through a ratio scale having nominal qualifiable classes. The analysis has offered insight into the ways the stakeholders are perpetrating pollution and how their respective actions are important in the abatement of marine pollution. One-tailed Pearson Correlation analysis reveals insignificant relationship between the variables, indicating that the level of understanding of the stakeholders has not developed opinions to an extent that would enable an appropriate behavioral approach toward the abatement of the pollution. It suggests inducing awareness, mobilization, and reforms to encourage collective action by all actors

Modelling the nexus of carbon dioxide emissions, economic growth, electricity production and consumption: assessing the evidence from Pakistan

The economy of Pakistan has constantly been plunged due to its severe electricity shortages over the last 2 decades and persistently faces challenges in revamping its electricity supply network. The purpose of this research was to assess the causal relationship between carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), combustible renewable and waste (CRW), electric power consumption (EC), electricity production from coal (EPC), hydroelectric (EPH) and natural gas (EPN) sources, energy use (EU) and gross domestic product (GDP). The scope of this research included Pakistan’s annual time series data from 1971 to 2014. This study employed Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound testing analysis to determine the long-term and short-term correlations among all research parameters. This research also conducted Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF), Phillips-Perron (PP) and Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin (KPSS) tests to evaluate the stationarity existence among dependent variable and independent variables. The outcomes of the fully modified least squares (FMOLS), dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) and canonical co-integrating regression (CCR) estimators showed that coefficients of EC, EPH and GDP all were a significantly positive relationship with CO2 emissions, while the coefficients of CRW, EPC and EU were negatively significant, respectively. Furthermore, the outcomes from the short-run analysis revealed that the error correction term value was -0.8668, which indicates that from short-run to long-run equilibrium, the adjustment of the deviation of CO2 emission is by 86.68 percent annually. Moreover, the diagnostic results also demonstrated that the model employed in this research is stable and reliable. Pakistan was selected in this research work because of the deficit of power and if environmental degradation continues unchecked, it will eventually affect the state’s economic growth and CO2 emissions. The study’s primary policy recommendation is that government energy policymakers in Pakistan who create the environment framework in should pursue conservative energy measures as such measures will not negatively impact economic growth

Revisiting the Indus Basin Model for an energy sustainable Pakistan

Water is vital and an essential entity directly and indirectly for all living creatures from their birth, whereas electrical energy has a dominant role in the growth of society in general and for human beings in particular. Optimal use of water and production of electrical energy at minimum cost are potential research challenges. Hydraulic energy is one of the cheapest and the most exploited renewable energy resource for power generation worldwide, and is in line with the seventh United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 7). The Indus basin is a trans-boundary basin, and its modeling has been a source of interest for scientists and policymakers. Indus Basin Model Revised (IBMR) has many variants, all focusing on optimal use of water for irrigation purposes. In this paper, the modified IBMR model is proposed addressing both agriculture and power generation aspects simultaneously. This model optimizes the Consumer Producer Surplus (CPS) by considering different water inflow probabilities. A parameter has been introduced in the modified objective function to manipulate the supply of water to agriculture and hydropower generation. The proposed model has been implemented in Generic Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) and case studies have been investigated in presence and absence of power generation. The results obtained show that, with incorporation of hydropower, basin wide income is increased up to 11.83% using 50% exceedance probability, and results are in agreement with reference power generation estimated by National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC). The SDG 7 targets ensure the reasonable, dependable, sustainable and contemporary energy access to all. The current research is focusing on how Pakistan would achieve the SDG 7 targets. By 2040, it is anticipated that Pakistan’s energy mix will have around 40% of hydropower and 16% of renewable energy