Procedia environmental sciences最新文献

In the age of super abundance of events and places, landscape becomes one of the key categories through which we can research changes in space and relationship between natural and built environment. Bearing in mind the connection between landscape and lifestyle as well as relationship between natural and built landscape, this paper is focused on changes in landscape that are results of second home phenomena in the specific location on Croatian island Ciovo. By analysing ecological, social and economic elements we explore overall interest in landscape preservation, sustainability awareness and the level of immersion of temporary residents into local community. We find latter important factor for creating local public that could handle and help implement landscape quality objectives.

In the Mediterranean area, rural abandonment and the rapid urbanisation after the 1950's led to complex environmental problems, such as the exploitation of natural resources, the environmental pollution, whilst the unstrained urban growth caused excessive pressure on the existing infrastructure, which affects buildings, public transportation, water quality and public health.

Various studies demonstrate that the implementation of green roof technology can moderate environmental problems, through the reduction of heat flux and solar reflectivity, the minimisation of buildings’ energy consumption, the air pollution removal, the storm water runoff reduction, the air cooling and the effective management of the urban heat island effect.

In this framework, the aim of this study is to assess the green roof potential and the quantification of its benefits over Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. In order to do so, very high spatial resolution satellite image and natural colour orthoimagery were used along with a geographical object-based image analysis approach. Carbon sequestration potential, rainwater retention and energy conservation were estimated based on coefficients adopted after a comprehensive literature review and actual dynamic energy simulations.

This article presents the cumulative experience from the design, the study and the application of energy efficiency technologies in school buildings in Greece, implemented within the frame of a funding action by the European Committee and the Greek State. In total 10 school buildings in Crete, Thessaly, Macedonia and Thrace were studied. All of them were approved for funding.

Among the proposed actions both passive measures, to reduce heating and cooling loads, and active systems, to approach maximum Renewable Energy Sources penetration, were involved. Building envelope insulation, replacement of inadequate openings and, in one case, a green roof construction as a pilot application, constitute the implemented passive measures. On the other hand, photovoltaic (PV) panels on roofs, solar combi-system with biomass heaters for the most southern locations (Crete) or single biomass heaters for the northern locations, installation of low energy consumption lighting equipment and introduction of hybrid cooling techniques mainly with the installation of ceiling fans, compose the set of the introduced active systems.

The calculation of the heating and cooling loads was executed with the use of TRNSYS software, for both the existing situation and after the proposed passive systems introduction. The operation of the solar combi-systems was arithmetically simulated using annual time series of mean hourly values for the heating loads and the available solar radiation. A software application was developed using LabVIEW. Finally, a fundamental economic analysis was executed for each introduced technology separately, as well as for the whole intervention. The examined buildings energy efficiency is expected to be upgraded at least in category B.

Currently, all the proposed works have been integrated. A measuring system for the monitoring of the operation of the introduced technologies has been proposed, accompanied by a user friendly application. This monitoring system will also be exploited demonstratively for the students, as a teaching supporting tool. The measuring of the introduced systems normal operation will provide a reliable evaluation for the initial calculations and the anticipated upgrading of the buildings energy efficiency.

Public awareness on the concepts of sustainable practices has been the main challenge in the way of better, healthier, affordable and environmentally sound urban projects. Lack of public awareness fueled by the lack of interest by stakeholders developed a vicious cycle, hence delaying the gears of the sustainable development in Saudi Arabia. In the other hand, societies that adopt the sustainability concepts succeed in many ways to accomplish their national development plans. This paper will focus on the current status of the public awareness levels after an initial study that showed that more than 52 percent of the sample from Saudi public doesn’t know what is the meaning of sustainable cities. The research method will be of a qualitative nature utilizing on-line surveys to collect responses from a wide range of the Saudi society. The outcomes show that in the past five years (2010-2015), the level of awareness has increased but at a discouraging rate. It is the main recommendation of this paper to further increase the collaborative efforts from all Saudi stakeholders; authorities, universities and civil society following the new 2030 Saudi vision to help raising the public awareness on the importance of leading and applying the core means of sustainability within their cities in design, construction and life style itself while Saudi Arabia is undergoing huge development.

This microclimatic study at a golf course in sub-tropical Hong Kong targets the investigation of differential cooling abilities of a rough grass area and a woodland strip as compared to a bare-concrete rooftop control site. Preliminary results indicate that the woodland strip has a stronger cooling effect and creates more thermally comfortable environments than the other two plots. The research is projected to inform and encourage appropriate use of vegetation in tropical cities to combat rising temperatures due to the urban heat island effect and climate change.

India is a large subcontinent having many diverse regions, each having its own vernacular architecture tradition. These regions are as diverse as hills, desert, coastal area, hot and humid riverine plain, humid rainforests and many more. Similarly, the vernacular forms of architecture are diverse in their layout, form, building materials, methods of construction and structural systems. There is but one basic similarity – they are climatically and geographically most suited to their original regional location.

Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (IGRMS), Bhopal is a museum that houses examples of these vernacular structures in full scale built by their original inhabitants in natural site. The city of Bhopal is capital of the state of Madhya Pradesh (literally translates as the Central Province, and justifies that name with its central position in India) is situated ‘Humid Sub-tropical’ region of India as per Koppen's classification and offers a different context from the original site and climate situation of these vernacular structure.

This paper thus aims at assessing whether and how vernacular architecture performs consistently in regions other than its own when transplanted. Thus, it has recorded and quantified climatological data for some of these vernacular huts belonging to diverse regions to compare and contrast their construction material, design and thermal performances on a iso-climatic framework. In the research, climatic data like ambient temperature, wind velocity, relative humidity have been collected for selected vernacular houses that are originally scattered within the huge geographical area of India, and which also belong to varied climatic regions. These houses vary in terms of their layout, materials and methods of construction and so forth. These data have been compared and analysed to find their dependence on the different building features and components of these houses. The analysis of the collected database have also been used to assess the basic question of the research i.e., to assess and compare the relative performance of these houses brought together in a single place under the same climate.

Nowadays, the study of the outside thermal comfort is more and more taking into consideration in the urban design process. In a climate change context, town planners have to find solutions to mitigate the effects of the global warming and to ensure that outside spaces designed in new districts will remain liveable.

In the framework of the EVA project, simulations were carried out to compare the effect of three urban cooling strategies on the thermal comfort in summer. Various urban greenery types, water aspersion systems and cooling materials are applied to three districts in Lyon, France. A set of simulations was designed to explore different configurations:

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  cooling strategies were first applied one by one in each district,

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  a composition of the three strategies is considered in a second step to optimize their effect,

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  cumulative effect is finally investigated by deducing one of the components from the optimized configuration.

Simulations were performed using Solene-microclimat which realizes the full coupling between a CFD code and a thermo-radiative model. In this way, Solene-microclimat enables to calculate and evaluate the evolution on the urban microclimate at a district scale considering physical parameters in a completely discretized way. Modules have been introduced in this model to represent different kinds of adaptation strategies such as vegetation (green roofs and walls, trees, lawns) and water aspersion. For each case, the daily variations of surface and air temperatures fields are obtained and compared. The resulting mean radiant temperature is evaluated and investigated for the studied space of each district. Finally, the thermal comfort is assessed using the UTCI index. Findings indicate that vegetation, in particular when including trees is the more efficient, due to its shading effect. Even if water aspersion can strongly lower the surface temperatures, its effect on thermal comfort is local and limited compared to the effect of vegetation. Due to reflection effects, high albedo materials are less efficient concerning external thermal comfort.

This paper introduces a new attempt to redefine and re-understand the term of gentrification and its main role in social resilience. Social resilience is a must in order to achieve urban sustainability. However, New Cairo's urban dynamics implicate a new form of “gentrification”, that could be described differently (commercial, social or urban) and controversially (positive or negative). This new ongoing process will threat eventually its “social resilience” by creating social polarization and loss of identity. In order to apprehend this new redefinition of gentrification in relation to social resilience, we will focus on the changes that are taking place in New Cairo's real estate market and urbanization trends as well as their reverberation on both the urban and social sustainability.

This paperis aimed at the experimental characterization of a two- phase composite material namely concrete containing different kind of inclusions by measuring the electric resistivity and the dielectric constant. The model of composite consists of cylindrical samples of concrete in which are introduced different types of cylindrical inclusions. Later are embedded in the centre of the host matrix. The measurements are achieved thanks to an impedance-meter. The effective dielectric constant and resistivity characteristics are investigated versus the concentration and the type of inclusions. The inclusions we consider are cavities (air), cavities filled with water. It's shown that the effective dielectric constant of composite material increases with the water content while the effective resistivity decreases due to the fact that the dielectric constant of water is too higher than that of concrete and the resistivity of water is lower than that of concrete. While the dielectric constant of concrete decrease when increasing the concentration of cavities; the resistivity of heterostructure increases with the concentration of air. This technique can constitute a good tool to follow, for instance, the humidification or the drying of a given heterostructure.