Procedia environmental sciences最新文献

The Byzantine Building Codes aimed at defining in a very precise manner the way in which settlements and towns were built within the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire. Consequently, they contained rules that defined the front, side and rear distances between buildings of different uses, the number and dimensions of the windows, the depth and distances of the projections, etc. Many of these limitations and rules were mainly derived from issues of sanitation, privacy and views. Nevertheless, in many parts of the Codes, there is reference to the achievement of acceptable daylighting and ventilation conditions.

This primary aim of this paper is to investigate the bioclimatic performance of the built environment, which was shaped based on these building codes, in terms of insolation, shading and daylighting, as well as air circulation and ventilation. The findings of the study will provide information concerning the bioclimatic performance of both the urban open spaces and the interior living spaces of buildings in Byzantine towns and settlements, whose form derived from Byzantine Building Codes.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the performances of iron and manganese-coated pumice from Sungai Pasak, West Sumatera, Indonesia as the adsorbents for removal of Fe (II) and Mn (II) from aqueous solutions. The effect of soaking time for iron and manganese coating was evaluated and as comparison, the adsorption of Fe (II) and Mn (II) using uncoated pumice was conducted. The experiments were performed in batch mode at room temperature (20-25̊C), pH 7; 10 g/L of adsorbent dose; 0.30-0.50 mm of adsorbent diameters; 100 rpm of agitation speed and 90 minutes of contact time. In addition, the desorption process of Fe (II) and Mn (II) from the three kinds of adsorbent was also investigated. The results showed that the optimum soaking time for iron and manganese coating for removal of Fe (II) and Mn (II) were 100 and 48 hours, respectively. Iron-coated pumice showed to have high removal efficiencies of two ions compared to uncoated and manganese-coated pumice. More than 84% of Fe(II) and 72% of Mn(II) with initial concentration of 15 and 5 mg/L, respectively, were removed by 10 g/L iron-coated pumice, while by using uncoated and manganese-coated pumice, the removal efficiencies were less than 75% for the two ions. The desorption study noticed that up to 20% of Fe (II) and 100% of Mn (II) were recovered from the three kinds of pumice adsorbent. Overall study indicated that pumice from Sungai Pasak may be a promising adsorbent for iron and manganese removal from water and wastewater.

In the last years, prominent large-scale “eco-city” development proposals have emerged around the globe. While the development of eco-cities is in itself not a new trend

“Eco-cities” has been applied to a number of different projects that embrace a broad array of ideological and ecological goals on this basis, the paper studied the ecological city and the relationship between Green city. this papers explains the benefits and challenges of urban green spaces. The important roles played by green spaces are social, economic, cultural and environmental aspects of sustainable development. Urban green spaces can be a comprehensive tool for long term protection of environmental sustainability through improving the quality of life and air quality, increasing property value due to their amenity and aesthetic characteristics, and reducing the energy costs of cooling buildings. Urban green spaces also can provide ecosystem services in which the recreation and relaxation facilities are especially available to urban dwellers and tourists too. To confirm the multiple roles played by green spaces, certain level of qualitative improvements and distribution of green spaces within the urban area should be considered and incorporated effectively into the environmental sustainability agenda. To do this, an integrated approach regarding the planning, monitoring, designing and maintaining of urban green spaces is required for improving the environmental sustainability in cities in different countries

Urban planners, designers, and ecologists, therefore, need to focus on urban green space strategies that are ‘just green enough’ and that explicitly protect social as well as ecological sustainability. Hope that through this research for ecological and green city to provide a reference.

Urban form is a decisive factor for the energy efficiency of the city. The compact city has been suggested as the most sustainable urban form, but it has been questioned as well by many researchers. Urban morphology is not a simple aggregation of geometry factors, but also the interaction among a set of parameters, that include constructional, functional and building regulation constraints concerning a range of different scales as well. This paper examines in which way the interaction of such parameters affects the energy efficiency of the urban tissue focusing in the Greek city context. A set of building block typologies are analyzed with regard to their geometry factors such as S/V ratios, plot ratio and building ratio. Thermal loads are calculated in order to draw conclusions about the relation between geometry factors and energy efficiency. The results of the research indicate that there is a strong relationship between urban morphology factors and energy efficiency. The theory of compactness of the urban form is generally confirmed by the results of the study which are valuable, since they indicate the energy profile of each typology and can be used for predicting the performance of potential energy demand of urban blocks with similar geometry.

EU-SOLARIS project is a European project, co-funded by the 7^th framework programme of the European Union. It is a Research Infrastructure (RI) initiative aimed to foster and promote the scientific and technological development of Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) and Solar Chemistry technologies. EU-SOLARIS aims to create a new legal entity to explore and implement new and improved rules and procedures for the overall coordination and join exploitation of the main European RI for CST and Solar Chemistry technologies, in order to optimize RI development and Research and technology Development (R&D) coordination. It is expected to be the first of its kind, where industrial needs and private funding will play a significant role. The success of the EU-SOLARIS initiative will be the establishment of a new governance body, aided by sustainable financial models for this unique European large and distributed research infrastructure in the CST and Solar Chemistry fields. EU-SOLARIS is expected to be an important tool in consolidating Europe's leadership in these areas. This will be accomplished by linking the research community and the industry involved in the CST sector and providing them the research infrastructures needed to innovate and advance the state of the art of CST and Solar Chemistry technologies. EU-SOLARIS is also expected to increase the efficient use of the economic and human resources required throughout the European research context and to provide efficient resource management to complement research and to avoid unnecessary technological duplication and repetition.

This article presents the vision, objectives, activities and current status of the EU-SOLARIS project and discusses the most important - expected to be achieved - outcomes of the project, which is currently at its last year of its preparatory phase.

Seismic risk assessment and loss estimation are of major importance for decision-making with respect to the reduction of earthquake-induced losses in large urban areas. However, the methodological chain of seismic risk assessment, from seismic hazard assessment to evaluation of potential losses, encompasses both aleatory and epistemic uncertainties associated with different sources. The present study aims to give an insight into epistemic uncertainties in seismic risk assessment at urban scale when applying the Capacity Spectrum Method (CSM), using the city of Thessaloniki, Greece as a case study. Quantification of uncertainties related to structural capacity and fragility curves parameters was performed using a logic tree approach. A sensitivity analysis of the computed seismic risk results was also performed in order to determine which input parameters have the greatest impact on the output. For the considered set of input parameters, it was found that the epistemic uncertainties related to damage states thresholds of the fragility curves are the most significant ones, while those associated with the capacity curve parameters may also be substantial. On the contrary, the sensitivity of computed seismic risk on CSM parameters a1, a2 and γ appears to be negligible. The results highlight the critical points to which special attention should be paid when implementing the Capacity Spectrum Method for seismic risk assessment.

Starting from the definitions of illegal building and synthesizing the historical roots of the phenomenon in Italy, this contribution identifies three types of illegal building and traces the development of the regulations that have characterized this problem. The proposal of a reading methodology is described through its application to the case-study of the municipality of Dragoni (Ce) in Campania Region. After proposing a distinction between illegal building and unauthorized urban-planning and recognizing three approaches to solving the problem: repression, amnesty and mitigation, the paper reflects on the latter since it addresses redevelopment with an urban vision and not exclusively a building one. After a brief analysis of national and regional legislation, where it is possible to resort to the Recovery of Illegal Building Plans, even through variants to the municipal general planning instruments, follows the highlighting of the main objectives and guidelines in reference to the preparation of specific implementation planning instruments.

This article addresses the city form as way to ease urban mobility, with a case study in the city of Brasilia, symbol of modern urbanism. Identifies the characteristics of the area that attributes mobility to the urban space and how these elements are shown in Brasilia, while exploring the possibilities in intervening the heritage city as a way to enhance mobility to pedestrian. As conceptual bases the characteristics of compact and dispersed cities and their influences over the levels of mobility blend in to four aspects: high density, usage of mixed soil, continuity of the urban mesh and continuity of elements of composition of public spaces are utilized as reference. The fundamentals of modern urbanism and how their characteristics, shown in Brasilia, are analyzed to verify the possibilities of intervention. The empirical study falls upon the connection between public spaces and the “superquadras”, residential areas that utilized spatial analysis, by a composition of elements that structures public spaces, to analyze their presence in the studied area. Found that the city space was treated continually where: access, tours, meeting points, barriers and urban furniture does not have attributes such as safety, comfort and amenity. The results points to connectivity as a characteristic of urban form with the biggest viability to suffer interventions in consonance with the heritage, for not to talk about, necessarily, the characteristics of modern urbanism were recommended interventions to improve low connectivity between buildings, bus stop points, car parks with rides and interconnection access, removing barriers, creating meeting places and street furniture to facilitate the mobility of pedestrians.

Improvement of living standards and increased demand for consumer goods have as consequence the increase of energy and water consumption. At the same time, increasing awareness of the respective environmental impact has prompted the European Union (E.U.) to issue a list of Directives for the Member States that promote conservation of natural resources. Moreover, this environment-friendly attitude may alleviate the impact of the economic crisis, since energy and water savings result in saving money.

In the present paper, some ways toimprove sustainability of swimming pools through reducing energy and water consumption, are analyzed and compared.An open municipal swimming pool in Thessaloniki, Greece, is used as case study. Research is focused on heating energy, where more savings can be achieved. Especially, installation of solar thermal collectors, geothermal heat pumps, or photovoltaic panels and construction of a light roof are analyzed. Moreover, some recommendations are made, concerning the general improvement of a swimming pool and its surroundings. The goal is to reduce the operation expensesof the pool and, if possible, to increase the income, so that it can be economically viable throughout the year.

Finally, several suggestions are evaluated by means of the RETScreen software, in order to find out which investments are reasonable. For the evaluation a Cost – Benefit Analysis has been carried out, using the Net Present Value criterion, the Internal Rate of Return criterion and the Benefit – Cost ratio. Finally, a SWOT analysis is performed and a policy is suggested, which should be followed by the administration of the swimming pool.