Procedia environmental sciences最新文献

In the last decades, Çiftlikköy village in the northwest of Mersin city centrehasbeen under the threat of losing its rural lifestyle and natural landscape. Especially after the establishment of auniversity on a neighbouring valley, a dense residential area constructed and rural qualities of the village has been transformed into a different character. High-rise urban apartment blocks and low-density rural housing side-by-side marks social-physical contradictions and urban segregation in this selected case. In the paper, sustainability issues will be discussed in accordance to the well-being of inhabitants, inequality of rights between wide-ranging economic groups, existing and new users, settlement conditions and transformation from the rural to the urban community.

Daylighting is a cornerstone strategy aiming at reducing a building's energy consumption. Daylight responsive dimming is a proven, mature technology, that significantly reduces lighting energy use, which in turn, affects both energy consumption and peak loads as well. Although in Energy Performance Building Directive (EPBD), the use of a daylighting harvesting system is encouraged, the specifications are rather limited based on EN 15193:2007. According to literature, the potential for lighting energy savings from daylight integration, can approach 60.0%. Consequently, a more accurate and detailed calculation method could possible result in downgrading a building's energy performance rating, when compared with simplified procedures that may underestimate these savings.

The paper builds on the authors’ previous work, providing an overview of the methods and techniques used to estimate lighting energy savings due to daylight harvesting. An extensive comparison is carried out between the resulting energy savings as estimated by the method adopted in EN 15193:2007 and its variation by the Greek Regulation for the Energy Efficiency of Buildings (KENAK), with savings calculated by more complex calculation methods that require the use of simulation tools.

According to the results, great differences are observed in the estimated lighting energy savings between simulation and EN15193:2007. These differences still exist even when the parameters used in EN15193 are calculated by an external software affecting energy performance certificate rating.

This research is mainly focused on the wastewater treatment using biosorption techniques. The biosorption kinetics of binary sorption of heavy metals by green macro alga Caulerpa lentillifera were studied where such alga was used in the shrimp farm as the nitrogen controller but it grow rapidly so the farmer get rid of its excess amount as waste. The studies of sorption capacity and sorption kinetics of Lead (Pb²⁺) and Copper (Cu²⁺) ions in single and binary components were conducted using batch experiments. The new binary sorption kinetic model was developed to predict the experimental results and the calculated outputs from the model were consistent with experimental data.

Urbanization is one of human induced activities causing land use changes. In recent years, various land usetransformationsin Bangkok influenced the city's ecological sustainability in all means, i.e., diminishing the city's cultivated land and greenery. This study investigates lack of green spaces due to extreme urban growth in the mega city. To do so, first, land use transitions are modelled through two different images; one from Landsat 5Thematic Mapper for the year 1994, and second fromHJ-1A CCD for the year 2012. Next, theMulti-Layer Perceptron Markov Model (MLP-Markov) is applied to predict land usechange for the year 2030. The MLP neural network is trained to modelland usetransitionsthrough creating transition maps. Markov Chain predictive model is applied with sufficient accuracy to process the transition maps for the prediction process. The results indicate that 348km²of green areas are transformed into built-up areas for the period 1994-2012,witha considerable loss of greenery (42%). The MLP model predictions show 4% increase in built-up and 6% decrease in greenery for the period 2012-2030. The study highly recommends conservation of green spaces and green corridors in the city. Future research can includeanalysing greenplot ratio for suitablegreen patches in vulnerable sites. The research output will benefit urban planners to implement long term planning strategies forsecuring natural environment in mega cities.

Over the past 50 years, cities experienced a rapid and uncontrolled growth that caused the loss of numerous permeable soils. Soil-sealing reduced soils’ ability to absorb rainwater, compromising cities’ capability to manage the impacts of rainstorms triggered by climate change, and consequently increasing floods’ risk.

The research work focuses on the key role of green infrastructures for urban adaptation to climate-related events. The analysis of the flood that hit Benevento in October 2015 led to the definition of a nature-based strategy designed to achieve three main goals: to reduce impervious surfaces in the compact city; to prevent further soil sealing; to recover the fluvial ecosystem.

The study investigates the impact of two different strategies on the amelioration of the local thermal environment regarding surface and air temperatures, in two urban districts of Thessaloniki, the morphology of which present rather similar characteristics. The examined strategies include the use of cool materials and additional vegetation and trees. The ENVI-met model v.4 is used for the microclimate simulation. The analysis revealed an important reduction of surface and air temperatures after replacing conventional coatings with cool materials while additional trees contribute to lower surface and air temperatures by the shading effect and leaves’ evapotranspiration.

The present paper briefly describes a methodology to evaluate the sustainability of existing steel bridges. This method applied to the case study for the restoration design of the old steel Echedoros river railway bridge. An intervention on an existing bridge characterized as sustainable if the design considerations include critical sustainability assessments. The present case study also compared to other relevant assessments of the option to construct a new steel bridge for the same total span. Assessments concern remaining fatigue life, estimation of its structural resistance for the traffic capacity, identification of the environmental impacts of the structural solutions and evaluation of the total cost of the project. In the present work, the structural analysis performed using a finite element scheme for the overall bridge. In addition, several finite element analysis models of critical details also performed and studied. The verification of the design parameters adopted, i.e. loads and resistance assessment mainly based on the ‘Sustainable Bridges’ guidelines recently published by the European Commission. The estimation of the environmental impacts of the structural solutions according to life cycle principles based on the use of known LCA tools and the cost evaluated by applying the well-known discounted cash flow technique. The approach with the individual impacts combined to produce an overall sustainability score for the design option also highlighted. This way, the proposed methodology leads to a more accurate assessment of the sustainability of an existing steel bridge.

With the rising worldwide sustainability trends, the healthcare industry is encouraged for philosophical, societal and economic reasons to implement the “greening movement” in its practice. Consequently, this move has resulted in the development of several sustainability certification tools focusing on healthcare settings. Among the best known ones are BREEAM, LEED and Green Guide for Healthcare. Their ease of use, holistic approach and possibility of implementation from the early-design phase, have made them very attractive among different building practitioners. Yet, their subjectivity in the assessment approach, leaves a doubt whether the use of these schemes leads to truly sustainable buildings. This has led to an increased awareness among building practitioners that the qualitative tools to assess the sustainability of their projects are not sufficient. The same questions on the sustainability of hospitals arose in the Flemish healthcare sector as well. On-going development of the Duurzaamheidsmeter zorg, a qualitative tool adapted for the Flemish context, aims at helping building practitioners in assessing the sustainability of their hospital projects. However, urban planners and architects who had the opportunity of using it, reported some disadvantages and shortcomings. A need is identified to develop a more reliable sustainability assessment method based on a quantitative approach. This paper elaborates the first step in the research, analyzing the building professionals’ experiences in using sustainability assessment tools on hospital facilities in Flanders. Their feedback is translated into a SWOT analysis which identifies the professionals’ expectations of an assessment method. The results are seen as valuable directions to consider when developing an evaluation method from a life cycle thinking perspective.

Public facilities are facilities needed to support the functions and provide the activities defined by the government or by the utility companies, Public facilities as an element are such an essential element that should be taken in consideration when designing the master comprehensive plan. The location of schools is one of the most crucial decisions communities get to make that School districts and local governments should not take it randomly instead they should use these guidelines through the school siting process. This paper aims to achieve a guideline for school locations through highlighting educational public facilities planning definition, location, and impact on the city urban development. Then analysing relevant case studies and comparing between them to emphasize the theoretical part, achieving a general guideline for school locations.