Article
Urban Studies
Reza Askarizad, Jinliao He
Summary: The study suggests that while lockdown and closure policies are effective in preventing the spread of epidemics, they can also have serious consequences, including negative impacts on people's mental health. To address this issue, there is a need to find a balance between social distancing and social interactions within urban spaces.
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Qiaoxuan Li, Srinivasa Raghavendra Bhuvan Gummidi, Maud Lanau, Bailang Yu, Gang Liu
Summary: The spatiotemporal dynamics of urban built environment stocks are crucial for the circular and low-carbon transition of cities. However, the characterization of these stocks has been limited. This study combines geospatial data and historical maps to quantify the spatially and temporally refined stocks of buildings and infrastructure in Odense, Denmark, from 1810 to 2018. The results show that the built environment stock in Odense has significantly increased over the past two centuries, reflecting the urban development, industrialization, infrastructure development, socioeconomic characteristics, and policy interventions in the city.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
(2022)
Review
Urban Studies
Kostas Mouratidis
Summary: This paper reviews the links between the built environment and subjective well-being, identifying seven potential pathways. Based on this knowledge, strategies for improving subjective well-being through urban planning are proposed, including enhancing conditions for active travel, improving public transport, providing easy access to facilities, and developing inclusive public spaces.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Majid Amani-Beni, Biao Zhang, Gao-Di Xie, A. Jacob Odgaard
Summary: Research has shown that forest parks can help cool urban areas and create a more comfortable thermal environment; the distance to the park and the green space ratio around it are significant factors in regulating microclimates; an increase in green space ratio and distance from the park can lower air and surface temperatures, enhancing human comfort.
Article
Urban Studies
Kostas Mouratidis, Athena Yiannakou
Summary: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on people's quality of life, with decreased health and well-being during this period. The relationship between the urban built environment and health and well-being has varied between the COVID-19 period and the pre-pandemic period, indicating that factors such as proximity to parks and local facilities, lower neighborhood density, living further from the city center, and residing in larger dwellings are associated with better health and well-being outcomes during COVID-19.
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Eric Gaisie, Nana Yaw Oppong-Yeboaha, Patrick Brandful Cobbina
Summary: This paper uses spatial statistical techniques to analyze the geographies of COVID-19 infections in metropolitan Melbourne. It argues that the spread of the pandemic is influenced by various built environment attributes, and highlights the consistency of these influences across different outbreaks. Understanding the geographies of infections is important for global cities adapting to post-pandemic living and pursuing sustainable urban development.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Hong Yang, Yi Lu, Jingjing Wang, Yiling Zheng, Zehan Ruan, Jiandong Peng
Summary: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected metro commuting ridership in Wuhan, with a sharp decline in the short term followed by a rapid rebound and full recovery within six months. The rebound showed spatial heterogeneity, with urban centers and job-rich areas recovering faster. Factors such as the number of residents, bus stops, and enterprises around a metro station, as well as being a transfer station, had a positive effect on ridership, while street length, number of restaurants, and metro exits had a negative effect. These findings can inform the development of sustainable metro operations and infection prevention policies in response to the pandemic.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2023)
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Xingdong Deng, Feng Gao, Shunyi Liao, Shaoying Li
Summary: In this study, the built environment was depicted with multisource data and methods such as street view imagery and deep learning. Geographically weighted regression and k-means clustering were applied to explore the spatially varying impacts of built environment factors on air pollution. The study area was categorized into different groups and tailor-made policy implications were proposed for PM2.5 mitigation.
JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION
(2023)
Article
Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Applications
Sebastian Pfautsch, Agnieszka Wujeska-Klause, Judi R. Walters
Summary: In order to reduce the negative health effects of urban overheating, it is necessary to focus on intra-urban hot spots when implementing urban cooling strategies. Existing methods of measuring air temperature in urban heat studies do not provide sufficient granularity for human experience. This study developed and tested a cost-effective and flexible unit for measuring near-surface air temperature relevant to people living in urban environments. The results showed that the accuracy and data quality of this unit were comparable to more expensive scientific instruments and official weather stations.
COMPUTERS ENVIRONMENT AND URBAN SYSTEMS
(2023)
Article
Urban Studies
Shuang Ma, Yusuke Kumakoshi, Hideki Koizumi, Yuji Yoshimura
Summary: This study examines the association between urban shrinking and environmental and socioeconomic attributes using a mixed geographically weighted regression model. The results show that bus stop density, road intersection density, aging population, housing price, distance to the nearest park, proportion of business areas, and proportion of private houses and flats have mixed effects on urban shrinking. The study suggests that spatial heterogeneous strategies should be considered to address the issue.
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Feng Jiang, Ling Ma, Tim Broyd, Ke Chen, Hanbin Luo, Yang Pei
Summary: Sustainable road planning in the built environment is complex due to various constraints and factors, such as engineering, traffic, economic, social, and environmental considerations. Unlike rural areas, road planning in urban areas is greatly influenced by the surrounding environment and should take into account the impact of noise and air pollution on residents. This article presents a method for sustainable road alignment planning based on the MCDM-GIS approach, considering factors such as building demolition, land use, traffic congestion, noise impact, air pollution impact, and construction costs. The proposed method was implemented in Dartford, UK, and demonstrated the influence of road width on road alignments.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Environmental Studies
YuLing Tsai, Bart Julien Dewancker, Athina Ardhyanto
Summary: With the rapid development of globalization, industrialization, urbanization, and informatization, economic activities are concentrated in cities, leading to imbalanced resource distribution between urban and rural areas. The declining fertility rate has also resulted in the abandonment of education-related architectures in both areas. This research analyzes two educational architectures and their redesign programs to evaluate the relationship between space and local community, as well as the impact of different revitalization approaches on interaction patterns. The study shows that spatial characteristics influence people's perception of public space and their interaction with it, and effective redesign can promote both regional development and environmental sustainability by utilizing space and enhancing human-environmental interactions.
Article
Environmental Studies
Jiaqi Li, Yushan Li, Ziqi Zheng, Xiaoyu Si
Summary: The study examines the impact of natural resource rents, including oil rents, mineral rents, and coal rents, on carbon emissions in upper-middle-income economies from 1984 to 2021. The results show that oil and coal rents have adverse effects on carbon emissions, while mineral rents do not have a significant impact. Economic growth and renewable energy also have positive and significant impacts on carbon emissions.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Sandra Rafael, Paulo Fernandes, Diogo Lopes, Micael Rebelo, Jorge Bandeira, Eloisa Macedo, Monica Rodrigues, Margarida C. Coelho, Carlos Borrego, Ana Miranda
Summary: Autonomous vehicles have significant implications for urban planning and air quality. The benefits of AVs are closely tied to urban design and road characteristics. Studies have found positive changes in emissions and air quality with the introduction of AVs, but the impact varies in different areas.
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
(2022)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Constantinos A. A. Balaras, Andreas I. I. Theodoropoulos, Elena G. G. Dascalaki
Summary: Data collection and large-scale urban audits are challenging and time-consuming processes. Geographic information systems can extract and combine relevant data to facilitate the decision-making process for building renovations and sustainability assessment. This study presents an open-access tool that automates the audit process for extracting information about the built environment, analyzing building characteristics, evaluating energy performance, assessing the potential for installing photovoltaics, and quantifying ground permeability. A case study demonstrates the data collection and processing, showing promising results. The method is easily replicable and relies on open data and non-commercial tools.
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Gabriele Bernardini, Tiago Miguel Ferreira, Pilar Baquedano Julia, Rafael Ramirez Eudave, Enrico Quagliarini
Summary: This research offers a methodology for combined spatiotemporal flood risk assessment, considering hazard, physical vulnerability, user exposure, and vulnerability. It adopts a mesoscale approach and investigates indoor and outdoor users' exposure and vulnerability, using the Analytical Hierarchy Process to combine risk factors.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Ying Liu, Chunli Chu, Ruijun Zhang, Shaoqing Chen, Chao Xu, Dongliang Zhao, Chunchun Meng, Meiting Ju, Zhi Cao
Summary: This study investigates the effects of increasing road, wall, and roof albedo on mitigating the urban heat island (UHI) effect in different areas of Tianjin. The results reveal that increasing road albedo is more effective in fringe areas, while increasing wall and roof albedo is more effective in central areas. The temperature changes induced by albedo changes also show seasonal characteristics.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Xisheng Lin, Yunfei Fu, Daniel Z. Peng, Chun-Ho Liu, Mengyuan Chu, Zengshun Chen, Fan Yang, Tim K. T. Tse, Cruz Y. Li, Xinxin Feng
Summary: This study employed computational fluid dynamics and neural network models to investigate and predict pollutant dispersion in urban environments, providing valuable insights for designing effective strategies to mitigate the impacts of hazardous pollutants.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Dipanjan Nag, Arkopal Kishore Goswami
Summary: Future-oriented urban planning should continue to focus on the principles of accessible and walkable cities. The perception of people is crucial for developing better urban walking infrastructure, but current evaluation tools often neglect the "perceived" features of the walking network. This study used conjoint analysis to evaluate users' perception of link and network attributes, revealing the importance of considering both in improving the walking environment.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Yongxin Su, Tao Zhang, Mengyao Xu, Mao Tan, Yuzhou Zhang, Rui Wang, Ling Wang
Summary: This study proposes an optimization method for household integrated demand response (HIDR) by combining rough knowledge and a dueling deep Q-network (DDQN), aiming to address uncertainties in a household multi-energy system (HMES). The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms rule-based methods and DDQN in terms of energy cost savings.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Sijia Sun, S. F. A. Batista, Monica Menendez, Yuanqing Wang, Shuang Zhang
Summary: This paper comprehensively analyzes the energy consumption characteristics of electric buses (EBs) and diesel buses (DBs) on different bus lane configurations and operational conditions. The study shows that EBs consume less energy in suburban areas when using regular lanes, while both EBs and DBs save substantial energy when operating on dedicated bus lanes in downtown areas. Notably, shared-use bus lanes have the highest energy consumption.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Shangshang Shen, Dan Yan, Xiaojie Liu
Summary: This study developed a comprehensive theoretical framework for evaluating, diagnosing, and optimizing multi-functional urban agriculture. The framework was applied in Xiamen, China to identify the obstacles that impede its coordinated development and propose optimized modes for its development. Results showed that urban agriculture in Xiamen exhibits sound social function, moderate economic function, and poor ecological function.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Oluwafemi E. Adeyeri, Akinleye H. Folorunsho, Kayode I. Ayegbusi, Vishal Bobde, Tolulope E. Adeliyi, Christopher E. Ndehedehe, Akintomide A. Akinsanola
Summary: This study examines the impact of land cover, vegetation health, climatic forcings, elevation heat loads, and terrain characteristics on land surface temperature distribution over West Africa. The random forest model performs the best in downscaling predictands. The southern regions consistently exhibit healthy vegetation, while areas with unhealthy vegetation coincide with hot land surface temperature clusters. Positive Normalized Difference Vegetation Index trends in the Sahel highlight rainfall recovery and subsequent greening. Southwest winds cause the upwelling of cold waters, resulting in low land surface temperatures in southern West Africa. Considering LVCET factors is crucial for prioritizing greening initiatives and urban planning.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Yuchi Cao, Yan Li, Shouyun Shen, Weiwei Wang, Xiao Peng, Jiaao Chen, Jingpeng Liao, Xinyi Lv, Yifan Liu, Lehan Ma, Guodian Hu, Jinghuan Jiang, Dan Sun, Qingchu Jiang, Qiulin Liao
Summary: The study reveals significant disparities in urban green equity, with high property price areas having better access to green spaces than low property price areas. Landscape and greening have the most significant impact on urban green space differentiation.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Shaobo Sun, Kui Shan, Shengwei Wang
Summary: Economizer control is an important measure for energy savings in air-conditioning systems during moderate seasons. Humidity measurement uncertainties have a significant impact on enthalpy-based economizer control, and an uncertainty-tolerant control strategy is proposed to mitigate these effects.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Ding Mao, Peng Wang, Yi-Ping Fang, Long Ni
Summary: This study analyzes the structure, function, operation, and failure characteristics of district heating networks (DHNs) and proposes vulnerability analysis methods. The effectiveness of these methods is validated through application to a DHN in a Chinese city. The study finds that the heat source connectivity efficiency loss rate effectively characterizes topological and functional vulnerability. It also reveals that controllable DHNs have higher functional vulnerability under large area failure scenarios.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Hamid Karimi, Saeed Hasanzadeh, Hedayat Saboori
Summary: This paper presents a stochastic and cooperative approach for the operation of a cluster of interconnected multi-energy systems. The proposed model investigates the interaction among energy systems and integrates hydrogen and water systems into the overall energy structure. The model studies the performance of energy system agents in decentralized and cooperative scheduling.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Zhiyu Yan, Xiaogang Guo, Zilong Zhao, Luliang Tang
Summary: This study proposes a novel framework for fine-grained information extraction and dynamic spatial-temporal awareness in disaster-stricken areas based on social media data. The framework utilizes deep learning modules to extract location and water depth information from text and images, and analyzes the spatio-temporal distribution characteristics. The results show that the fusion of text and image-based information can enhance the perception of flood processes.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
M. A. Pans, G. Claudio, P. C. Eames
Summary: This study simulated and optimized a speculative district heating system in an existing urban area in Loughborough, UK. The system used only renewable heat sources and thermal energy storage to address the mismatch between heat generation and demand. The study assessed the impact of long-term storage volume and charging temperature on system cost and energy efficiency.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Jianmei Zhong, Wei Zhang, Xiaoli Wang, Jinsheng Zhan, Tao Xia, Lingzhi Xie, Xiding Zeng, Kun Yang, Zhangyu Li, Ruiwen Zou, Zepu Bai, Qing Wang, Chenyang Zhang
Summary: This study aims to propose a suitable air distribution design and reduce the energy consumption of the BSL-4 laboratory. It analyzes the diffusion characteristics of aerosols, infection risk under different air distributions, and ventilation parameters. The results show that the proposed energy-saving operation strategy can reduce the energy consumption of the laboratory by 15-30%.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETY
(2024)