The impact of urbanization on Austria’s carbon footprint

2020 ◽  
Vol 263 ◽  
pp. 121326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Muñoz ◽  
Sabrina Zwick ◽  
Alisher Mirzabaev
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 550-562

Drawn upon field research in two peri-urban villages of Hanoi in 2014 and short re-visits recently, the research examines the widespread of gambling and other social issues in Hanoi’s urbanizing peri-urban communities which happened concurrently with the phenomenon of “land fever,” and at the time local villagers received compensation from land appropriation. The article aims to understand the impact of urbanization on these communities and the interface between urbanization and the increase of social problems. It argues that gambling, drug use, and other social problems have been existing in Vietnamese rural communities long before; however, when urbanization came, some people have higher chances to engage in these activities. Those are villagers who want to transform quickly into entrepreneurs or bosses by joining the “black credit” market and gambling. Together with middle-aged and old farmers who greatly relied on agricultural production and face difficulties in transforming their occupation, they formed the group of losers in the urbanization process. Received 6th January 2019; Revised 26th April 2019; Accepted 15th May 2019


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Colin J. McMahon ◽  
Justin T. Tretter ◽  
Theresa Faulkner ◽  
R. Krishna Kumar ◽  
Andrew N. Redington ◽  
...  

Abstract Objective: This study investigated the impact of the Webinar on deep human learning of CHD. Materials and methods: This cross-sectional survey design study used an open and closed-ended questionnaire to assess the impact of the Webinar on deep learning of topical areas within the management of the post-operative tetralogy of Fallot patients. This was a quantitative research methodology using descriptive statistical analyses with a sequential explanatory design. Results: One thousand-three-hundred and seventy-four participants from 100 countries on 6 continents joined the Webinar, 557 (40%) of whom completed the questionnaire. Over 70% of participants reported that they “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that the Webinar format promoted deep learning for each of the topics compared to other standard learning methods (textbook and journal learning). Two-thirds expressed a preference for attending a Webinar rather than an international conference. Over 80% of participants highlighted significant barriers to attending conferences including cost (79%), distance to travel (49%), time commitment (51%), and family commitments (35%). Strengths of the Webinar included expertise, concise high-quality presentations often discussing contentious issues, and the platform quality. The main weakness was a limited time for questions. Just over 53% expressed a concern for the carbon footprint involved in attending conferences and preferred to attend a Webinar. Conclusion: E-learning Webinars represent a disruptive innovation, which promotes deep learning, greater multidisciplinary participation, and greater attendee satisfaction with fewer barriers to participation. Although Webinars will never fully replace conferences, a hybrid approach may reduce the need for conferencing, reduce carbon footprint. and promote a “sustainable academia”.


Urban Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Yuejuan Yang ◽  
Hao Zhang ◽  
Xinquan Zhao ◽  
Zhizhang Chen ◽  
Aiguo Wang ◽  
...  

Ecosystem services are the material basis of economic and social development, and play essential roles in the sustainable development of ecosystems. Urbanization can remarkably alter the provision of ecosystem services. Most studies in this area have focused on densely populated metropolises with poor ecological environments, while comparatively few studies have focused on cities with low ecological pressures. Therefore, to avoid continuing to engage in the repetitive pattern of destroying first and rehabilitating later, quantitative analyses of urbanization and ecosystem services should be carried out in representative cities. In this study, based on partial least squares-discriminant analysis, kernel density estimation, and correlation analysis, we quantitatively evaluated the impact of urbanization on ecosystem services in Weifang city. The Data Center for Resources and Environmental Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research provided remote sensing data on land use, the gross domestic production (GDP), population data, and ecosystem services. The results were as follows: (1) The variation in population, GDP, and built-up areas consistently increased throughout the study period, whereas the ecosystem service values (ESVs) decreased; (2) food production, raw material production, nutrient cycle maintenance, and soil conservation were decisive ecosystem services that led to vast reductions in ESVs during the process of urbanization; and (3) the negative correlation coefficient between built-up areas and ecosystem services was greater than that between the population or GDP and ecosystem services, which indicated that the impacts of population and economic urbanization on ecosystem services lagged behind the impact of land urbanization. This study provides references for fully recognizing the ecological effects of urbanization, and make suggestions regarding the application of ecosystem services in sustainable development.


Author(s):  
Wenyi Yang ◽  
Xueli Wang ◽  
Keke Zhang ◽  
Zikan Ke

In the context of the rapid development of urbanization and increasing population mobility in China, the outbreak of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on China’s economy and society. This article uses China UnionPay transaction data and takes Hubei, the worst-hit region by COVID-19 in China, as an example, to conduct empirical analysis using the generalized method of moments (GMM) of the impact of current urbanization patterns on the spread of the epidemic and economic recovery from the perspectives of time, industry, and regional differences. The study found that during the different stages of COVID-19, including discovery, outbreak, and subsidence, the overall impact of urbanization on the economy in Hubei Province was first positive, then became negative, and finally gradually increased. This process had significant industrial and urban heterogeneity, which was mainly manifested in losses in tourism and catering industries that were significantly greater than those in the audio-visual entertainment and digital office industries. Similarly, the recovery speed of large cities was lower than that of small and medium-sized cities. The main reason for these differences is that the one-sided problem of urbanization is more obvious in areas with higher urbanization rates. COVID-19 has drawn attention to the development of urbanization in the future, that is, the development path of one-sided economic resource agglomeration and scale expansion should be abandoned, with greater attention paid to the improvement of service functions and the development of amenities. This transformation is necessary to enhance urban economic resilience and reduce public health risks.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2992
Author(s):  
Jens Schirmel

The COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions strongly affect the higher education community and require diverse teaching strategies. We designed a course where we combined online teaching with independently conducted ecological data collections by students using a “citizen science” approach. The aim was to analyze the impact of urbanization on biota by comparing urban and rural grasslands. Seventy-five students successfully conducted the data collections and the results provide evidence for prevailing negative effects of urbanization. Individual numbers of ground-dwelling invertebrates (−25%) and pollinating insects (−33%) were generally lower in urban sites. Moreover, animal and seed predation were reduced in urban grasslands, indicating the potential of urbanization to alter ecosystem functions. Despite the general limitations of online teaching and citizen science approaches, outcomes of this course showed this combination can be a useful teaching strategy, which is why this approach could be used to more actively involve students in scientific research.


Author(s):  
Min Shang ◽  
Ji Luo

The expansion of Xi’an City has caused the consumption of energy and land resources, leading to serious environmental pollution problems. For this purpose, this study was carried out to measure the carbon carrying capacity, net carbon footprint and net carbon footprint pressure index of Xi’an City, and to characterize the carbon sequestration capacity of Xi’an ecosystem, thereby laying a foundation for developing comprehensive and reasonable low-carbon development measures. This study expects to provide a reference for China to develop a low-carbon economy through Tapio decoupling principle. The decoupling relationship between CO2 and driving factors was explored through Tapio decoupling model. The time-series data was used to calculate the carbon footprint. The auto-encoder in deep learning technology was combined with the parallel algorithm in cloud computing. A general multilayer perceptron neural network realized by a parallel BP learning algorithm was proposed based on Map-Reduce on a cloud computing cluster. A partial least squares (PLS) regression model was constructed to analyze driving factors. The results show that in terms of city size, the variable importance in projection (VIP) output of the urbanization rate has a strong inhibitory effect on carbon footprint growth, and the VIP value of permanent population ranks the last; in terms of economic development, the impact of fixed asset investment and added value of the secondary industry on carbon footprint ranks third and fourth. As a result, the marginal effect of carbon footprint is greater than that of economic growth after economic growth reaches a certain stage, revealing that the driving forces and mechanisms can promote the growth of urban space.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 2538
Author(s):  
Praveen K. Cheekatamarla

Electrical and thermal loads of residential buildings present a unique opportunity for onsite power generation, and concomitant thermal energy generation, storage, and utilization, to decrease primary energy consumption and carbon dioxide intensity. This approach also improves resiliency and ability to address peak load burden effectively. Demand response programs and grid-interactive buildings are also essential to meet the energy needs of the 21st century while addressing climate impact. Given the significance of the scale of building energy consumption, this study investigates how cogeneration systems influence the primary energy consumption and carbon footprint in residential buildings. The impact of onsite power generation capacity, its electrical and thermal efficiency, and its cost, on total primary energy consumption, equivalent carbon dioxide emissions, operating expenditure, and, most importantly, thermal and electrical energy balance, is presented. The conditions at which a cogeneration approach loses its advantage as an energy efficient residential resource are identified as a function of electrical grid’s carbon footprint and primary energy efficiency. Compared to a heat pump heating system with a coefficient of performance (COP) of three, a 0.5 kW cogeneration system with 40% electrical efficiency is shown to lose its environmental benefit if the electrical grid’s carbon dioxide intensity falls below 0.4 kg CO2 per kWh electricity.


Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 1271
Author(s):  
Humberto. J. Prado-Galiñanes ◽  
Rosario Domingo

Industries are nowadays not only expected to produce goods and provide services, but also to do this sustainably. What qualifies a company as sustainable implies that its activities must be defined according to the social and ecological responsibilities that are meant to protect the society and the environment in which they operate. From now on, it will be necessary to consider and measure the impact of industrial activities on the environment, and to do so, one key parameter is the carbon footprint. This paper demonstrates the utility of the LCI as a tool for immediate application in industries. Its application shall facilitate decision making in industries while choosing amongst different scenarios to industrialize a certain product with the lowest environmental impact possible. To achieve this, the carbon footprint of a given product was calculated by applying the LCI method to several scenarios that differed from each other only in the supply-chain model. As a result of this LCI calculation, the impact of the globalization of a good’s production was quantified not only financially, but also environmentally. Finally, it was concluded that the LCI/LCA methodology can be considered as a fundamental factor in the new decision-making strategy that sustainable companies must implement while deciding on the business and industrial plan for their new products and services.


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