Self-Governing Public Decentralised Systems

2021 ◽  
pp. 154-167
Author(s):  
Moritz Platt ◽  
Peter McBurney
Keyword(s):  
Decentralised Systems

Monitoring and validation of decentralised water and wastewater systems for increased uptake

2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (11) ◽  
pp. 2576-2581 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. K. Sharma ◽  
S. Cook ◽  
M. N. Chong
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Limited Information ◽  
Actual Performance ◽  
Decentralised Systems ◽  
Wastewater Systems ◽  
Water And Wastewater

Decentralised water and wastewater systems are being implemented to meet growing demand for municipal services either in combination with centralised systems or as standalone systems. In Australia, there has been increased investment in decentralised water and wastewater systems in response to the capacity constraints of existing centralised systems, an extended period of below average rainfall, uncertainly in traditional water sources due to potential climate change impacts, and the need to reduce the environmental impact of urban development. The implementation of decentralised water systems as a mainstream practice at different development scales is impeded by the knowledge gaps on their actual performance in a range of development types and settings. As the wide-spread uptake of these approaches in modern cities is relatively new compared to centralised approaches, there is limited information available on their planning, design, implementation, reliability and robustness. This paper presents a number of case studies where monitoring studies are under way to validate the performance of decentralised water and wastewater systems. The results from these case studies show the yield and reliability of these decentralised systems, as well as the associated energy demand and ecological footprint. The outputs from these case studies, and other monitoring studies, are important in improving decentralised system design guidelines and developing industry wide management norms for the operation and maintenance of decentralised systems.

scholarly journals The Australian industrial system in the era of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
pp. 002218562110128
Author(s):  
Michele O’Neil
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
National Level ◽  
Recovery Phase ◽  
Public Health Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
Paid Leave ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Health Response ◽  
Decentralised Systems ◽  
Australian Economy

COVID-19 caused sudden and serious damage to the Australian economy. The effects have been spread unevenly, and highlighted the shortcomings of over-reliance on insecure forms of work. The lack of any form of paid leave for casual and other insecure workers undermined the public health response, and was emblematic of the broader consequences of insecurity. Despite its limitations, Australia’s industrial relations system responded to the challenges of the pandemic in a way that less regulated and ‘decentralised’ systems would not have been able to. This article argues that the union movement was critical to Australia’s successful response, and that the award system proved to be an adaptable mechanism to deliver change at a national level while ensuring that the representative voice of workers was heard, and basic industrial protections were not jettisoned. Industry bargaining would have also been a beneficial tool to deal with economy-wide issues of this kind. The article urges that the lessons of the pandemic be learned as we move to a recovery phase and that we ensure there are more secure jobs, better bargaining rights and improvements to basic protections to ensure that workers’ rights are not eroded.

scholarly journals Influence of Loose Urban Development Control on Domestic Wastewater System in Suleja, Nigeria

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 5781-5786
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Domestic Wastewater ◽  
Environmental Safety ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Wastewater Management ◽  
Domestic Water ◽  
Development Control ◽  
Urban Quality Of Life ◽  
Organic Growth ◽  
Decentralised Systems

Domestic water supply and wastewater management are essential indicators of urban quality of life globally, and yet remain major environmental issues in Nigeria. The rapid growth in population has resulted in a higher rate of wastewater generation in Nigerian cities. However, many city plans are unable to cope with these issues appropriately. As a result, the poor management of wastewater is an ever-present problem with its attendant risks to public health and environmental safety. Therefore, this study attempts to analyse the control of urban development and management of domestic wastewater in Suleja, Nigeria. The study critically examines the current urban planning systems and presents an overview of selected technologies adopted for the decentralised treatment and disposal of wastewater in emerging nations. To this end, a documented and dissertation based analysis technique was employed in this study. Firstly, the paper begins by providing a methodical framework for comparative examination of the centralised and decentralised systems. The legal setting and policy framework, present city plan, and wastewater management are also explained. The study finds that loose development control and organic growth of residential development have a strong influence on wastewater management in the community

scholarly journals Research Proposal: Cryptocurrency User Attitudes Towards the Environmental Impact of Proof-of-Work

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moritz Platt ◽  
Francesco Pierangeli
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Electrical Energy ◽  
Consensus Protocol ◽  
Energy Needs ◽  
User Attitudes ◽  
Decentralised Systems ◽  
Consensus Models ◽  
Potential Impact

The consumption of electrical energy is a requisite for ‘proof-of-work’, a class of consensus protocols for decentralised systems. ‘Ethereum’ and ‘Bitcoin’, along with various other cryptocurrencies, use implementations of such a consensus protocol. Among experts, the vast energy demand associated with the rising popularity of cryptocurrencies and the potential impact on climate change have been discussed extensively. It is, however, unclear what attitudes the users of cryptocurrencies themselves have towards the consequences of its growing energy demand. The proposed study aims to answer this question through survey research, using ‘Bitcoin’ as an archetype of a proof-of-work cryptocurrency. Conducting the study will reveal whether cryptocurrency users themselves consider their energy needs to be problematic, and which stakeholders they hold accountable to reduce consumption. The outcome can provide a theoretical grounding in social science for the ongoing implementation of alternative consensus models, for example in the context of the ‘Eth2’ upgrade of the ‘Ethereum’ blockchain.

scholarly journals Water softeners add comfort and consume water – comparison of selected centralised and decentralised softening technologies

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (7) ◽  
pp. 2088-2097 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Tang ◽  
Cornelis Wilhelmus Adrianus Maria Merks ◽  
Hans-Jørgen Albrechtsen
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Water Consumption ◽  
Treatment Plant ◽  
Drinking Water Treatment ◽  
Water Hardness ◽  
Hard Water ◽  
Water Treatment Plant ◽  
Treatment Technology ◽  
Decentralised Systems ◽  
Softened Water

Abstract Selected technologies for centralised or decentralised drinking water softening were evaluated based on technical, economic, environmental and aesthetic indicators to identify the optimal treatment technology for a given setting. To achieve this, we demonstrated that a number of important indicators beyond hardness reduction and costs have to be included. All the evaluated centralised softening technologies could reduce water hardness to the target of 1.3 mmol/L at the Dutch drinking water treatment plant Beilen. CARIX® treatment and pellet softening with Ca(OH)2 resulted in a lower CCPP90 (0.25–0.30 mmol/L) than nanofiltration (0.30–0.35 mmol/L). Decentralised reverse osmosis had a water consumption of >100%, whereas decentralised cation exchange had a water consumption of 2.5–4.5% which was comparable to centralised pellet softening (3.6%). Except for the electronic water conditioner that does not remove water hardness, the decentralised technologies were 7–10 times more expensive than the centralised technologies per m3 of softened water. The centralised softening technologies furthermore ensured supply of softened water to all customers in a water supply zone. Thus, in areas with hard water and limescale problems, investment in centralised softening at the local water utility is more optimal than widespread implementation of decentralised systems.

scholarly journals Governance at the Local Level in Melanesia – Absent the State

2009 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hegarty
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Solomon Islands ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Informal Governance ◽  
Short Article ◽  
Decentralised Systems ◽  
Tier System

At independence the three Melanesian states of the Pacific Islands region – Papua New Guinea (1975), Solomon Islands (1978) and Vanuatu (1980) – opted for decentralised systems of government. In all cases a three-tier system of national, provincial and local government was introduced, although the specific arrangements and allocation of powers differed substantially. Since that time there has been a good deal of analysis about the policy processes of decentralisation itself and about the effectiveness (or otherwise) of national-level governance in these countries; but until recently little has been written about the lower levels.This short article surveys some of the recent research and commentary on local-level governance relating particularly to Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Solomon Islands. It focuses on both the poor condition of formal local-level government as well as on the rise of informal governance-type activity at the local level which might be described as ‘civil society in formation’.

Assessing decentralised wastewater treatment technologies: correlating technology selection to system robustness, energy consumption and GHG emission

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 338-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meng Nan Chong ◽  
Angel N. M. Ho ◽  
Ted Gardner ◽  
Ashok K. Sharma ◽  
Barry Hood
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Requirement ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Technology Selection ◽  
Recycled Water ◽  
Shock Loads ◽  
Filtration System ◽  
Treated Sewage ◽  
Decentralised Systems ◽  
System Robustness

In this study, we compared two different types of decentralised systems in South East Queensland (SEQ) designed to produce Class A+ recycled water, and assessed their system robustness to shock loads, energy consumption and fugitive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We found that through BioWin® modelling, the membrane reactor (MBR) system was relatively robust to hydraulic shock loads with tolerance up to 1.5 times of the design dry weather daily flow. However, the stability of nitrification process in MBR was significantly affected when the total nitrogen load in the influent increased by 30% while maintaining the constant inlet wastewater flow rate. For energy consumption, we found that the specific energy requirement for the MBR system was 6.1 kWh/kL of treated sewage, which was substantially higher than that for the other decentralised aerobic bio-filtration system (1.9 kWh/kL of treated sewage). We also used a mass balance approach to estimate the fugitive GHG emissions and concluded that electrical energy consumption data alone could substantially underestimate the overall GHG footprints for the decentralised systems. When the estimated CH4 fluxes were added to the energy consumption, the communal septic tanks with aerobic bio-filtration system generated a carbon dioxide equivalent footprint similar to that of the MBR system.

scholarly journals INCELS ON REDDIT: A STUDY IN SOCIAL NORMS AND DECENTRALISED MODERATION

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalie Mary Gillett ◽  
Nicolas Suzor
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Decentralised Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
News Website ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social News

The social news website Reddit has a long history of hosting communities (‘subreddits’) that advocate or encourage white supremacy (Gillespie 2018), disparagement of minority groups (Topinka 2017), and violence against women (Massanari 2017). As a platform that relies heavily on volunteer moderators to self-govern the subreddits (Matias 2016), Reddit has been criticised for failing to adequately enforce its site-wide rules (Gillespie 2018). Incels—an internet subculture that ascribes to deeply misogynistic beliefs—grew in visibility when they developed subreddits on Reddit. After ongoing criticism and media attention about harmful behaviour of incels both on and off the platform, Reddit imposed escalating sanctions and ultimately banned the most visible of these subreddits over a period of several years. In this paper, we focus on the interaction between formal rules and social norms in incel and related subreddits. This paper aims to improve understanding about how problematic norms are contested in (partially-) decentralised systems of content moderation. We examine discourse about moderation to better understand the role of moderation teams in maintaining and changing social norms in their communities and to examine the interaction between these norms and both sitewide and subreddit-specific rules. Our analysis suggests that the threat of prohibition alone is unlikely to be sufficient to drive cultural change in problematic subreddits. We argue that content moderation is an insufficient frame to understand the regulation of harmful communities; real change requires addressing the underlying cultural norms rather than focusing on individual pieces of content.

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