scholarly journals Adaptation to flooding and mitigating impacts of road construction − a framework to identify practical steps to counter climate change

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 346-354
Author(s):  
Rajib B. Mallick ◽  
Martins Zaumanis ◽  
Robert Frank

Adaptation and mitigation are the two critical actions that are needed to counter the looming threats of climate change on transportation. For roadways, flooding constitutes one of the most important impacts of climate change, and adaptation to build more resilient roadways must be made. For a proper adaptation, the first step is a way to properly assess the vulnerability of roadways to flooding. Road construction impacts the environment negatively through emissions and energy consumption, and a proper way to determine the practical methods to reduce the impact is also necessary. This paper presents a framework to assess the vulnerability of roadways to flooding and evaluate the impact of different changes in construction on energy consumption and emission. Two system dynamics based models were developed and results of the simulations have been presented. Simulation tools for these two models have also been developed and made available on the public domain. The results of the simulation point out the beneficial effects of providing low permeability and dense and thick surface layers to reduce vulnerability to flooding and that of using drier aggregates, reducing heat losses, reduced mix temperatures and extension of pavement lives on the emission and energy consumption during roadway construction.

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
M Jevtic ◽  
C Bouland

Abstract Public health professionals (PHP) have a dual task in climate change. They should persuade their colleagues in clinical medicine of the importance of all the issues covered by the GD. The fact that the health sector contributes to the overall emissions of 4.4% speaks to the lack of awareness within the health sector itself. The issue of providing adequate infrastructure for the health sector is essential. Strengthening the opportunities and development of the circular economy within healthcare is more than just a current issue. The second task of PHP is targeting the broader population. The public health mission is being implemented, inter alia, through numerous activities related to environmental monitoring and assessment of the impact on health. GD should be a roadmap for priorities and actions in public health, bearing in mind: an ambitious goal of climate neutrality, an insistence on clean, affordable and safe energy, a strategy for a clean and circular economy. GD provides a framework for the development of sustainable and smart transport, the development of green agriculture and policies from field to table. It also insists on biodiversity conservation and protection actions. The pursuit of zero pollution and an environment free of toxic chemicals, as well as incorporating sustainability into all policies, is also an indispensable part of GD. GD represents a leadership step in the global framework towards a healthier future and comprises all the non-EU members as well. The public health sector should consider the GD as an argument for achieving goals at national levels, and align national public health policies with the goals of this document. There is a need for stronger advocacy of health and public-health interests along with incorporating sustainability into all policies. Achieving goals requires the education process for healthcare professionals covering all of topics of climate change, energy and air pollution to a much greater extent than before.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (14) ◽  
pp. 4084
Author(s):  
Hassan Bazazzadeh ◽  
Peiman Pilechiha ◽  
Adam Nadolny ◽  
Mohammadjavad Mahdavinejad ◽  
Seyedeh sara Hashemi safaei

A substantial share of the building sector in global energy demand has attracted scholars to focus on the energy efficiency of the building sector. The building’s energy consumption has been projected to increase due to mass urbanization, high living comfort standards, and, more importantly, climate change. While climate change has potential impacts on the rate of energy consumption in buildings, several studies have shown that these impacts differ from one region to another. In response, this paper aimed to investigate the impact of climate change on the heating and cooling energy demands of buildings as influential variables in building energy consumption in the city of Poznan, Poland. In this sense, through the statistical downscaling method and considering the most recent Typical Meteorological Year (2004–2018) as the baseline, the future weather data for 2050 and 2080 of the city of Poznan were produced according to the HadCM3 and A2 GHG scenario. These generated files were then used to simulate the energy demands in 16 building prototypes of the ASHRAE 90.1 standard. The results indicate an average increase in cooling load and a decrease in heating load at 135% and 40% , respectively, by 2080. Due to the higher share of heating load, the total thermal load of the buildings decreased within the study period. Therefore, while the total thermal load is currently under the decrease, to avoid its rise in the future, serious measures should be taken to control the increased cooling demand and, consequently, thermal load and GHG emissions.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (16) ◽  
pp. 4805
Author(s):  
Shu Chen ◽  
Zhengen Ren ◽  
Zhi Tang ◽  
Xianrong Zhuo

Globally, buildings account for nearly 40% of the total primary energy consumption and are responsible for 20% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. Energy consumption in buildings is increasing with the increasing world population and improving standards of living. Current global warming conditions will inevitably impact building energy consumption. To address this issue, this report conducted a comprehensive study of the impact of climate change on residential building energy consumption. Using the methodology of morphing, the weather files were constructed based on the typical meteorological year (TMY) data and predicted data generated from eight typical global climate models (GCMs) for three representative concentration pathways (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5) from 2020 to 2100. It was found that the most severe situation would occur in scenario RCP8.5, where the increase in temperature will reach 4.5 °C in eastern Australia from 2080–2099, which is 1 °C higher than that in other climate zones. With the construction of predicted weather files in 83 climate zones all across Australia, ten climate zones (cities)—ranging from heating-dominated to cooling-dominated regions—were selected as representative climate zones to illustrate the impact of climate change on heating and cooling energy consumption. The quantitative change in the energy requirements for space heating and cooling, along with the star rating, was simulated for two representative detached houses using the AccuRate software. It could be concluded that the RCP scenarios significantly affect the energy loads, which is consistent with changes in the ambient temperature. The heating load decreases for all climate zones, while the cooling load increases. Most regions in Australia will increase their energy consumption due to rising temperatures; however, the energy requirements of Adelaide and Perth would not change significantly, where the space heating and cooling loads are balanced due to decreasing heating and increasing cooling costs in most scenarios. The energy load in bigger houses will change more than that in smaller houses. Furthermore, Brisbane is the most sensitive region in terms of relative space energy changes, and Townsville appears to be the most sensitive area in terms of star rating change in this study. The impact of climate change on space building energy consumption in different climate zones should be considered in future design strategies due to the decades-long lifespans of Australian residential houses.


Author(s):  
Nimra Kanwal ◽  
Nuhzat Khan

Buildings are the most important part of development activities, consumed over one-thirds of the global energy. Household used the maximum energy around the world, likewise in Pakistan residential buildings consumed about half of total energy (45.9% per year). The study aims to analyze the impact of building design on climate of Metropolitan City Karachi, Pakistan and to evaluate the change in urbanization patterns and energy consumption in the buildings. To have better understanding of the issues correlations was established amongst population, urbanization patterns, green area, number of buildings (residential and commercial), building design, energy consumption and metrological records (climate change parameters) by collecting the data from the respective departments. With the help of the collected data amount of carbon dioxide was estimated. The results reveled that during last 36 years the urban population of Karachi increased exponentially from 5,208,000 (1981) to 14,737,257 (2017) with increase in urbanized area from 8.35 km2 (1946) to 3,640 km2 (2017) that may led to reduce the green area of the city from 495,000 hectors (1971) to 100,000 hectors (2015). Moreover, the building’s design and numbers are being changed from 21 high-rise buildings (2009) to 344 (2017). It may be concluded that change in temperature pattern and climatic variability of the city may be due to increase in population and change in lifestyle that lead to high energy consumption that is prime source of increased in CO2 emission in the environment of Karachi city, However, Greenhouse Gases (GHG) releases are much lower than the levels reported from metropolitan cities around the world.


Sustainability and nutrition 380 Sustainable development 382 Food security 383 Climate change and obesity 384 Useful websites and further reading 388 The public health nutrition field has identified a need to encompass the inter-relationship of man with his environment (The Giessen Declaration, 2005). Ecological public health nutrition places nutrition within its wider structural settings including the political, physical, socio-cultural and economic environment that influence individual behaviour and health. As a consequence, it includes the impact of what is eaten on the natural environment as well as the impact of environmental and climate change on all components of food security, i.e. on what food is available, accessible, utilizable and stable (...


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (22) ◽  
pp. 8225
Author(s):  
Ana C. Borbon-Almada ◽  
Jorge Lucero-Alvarez ◽  
Norma A. Rodriguez-Muñoz ◽  
Manuel Ramirez-Celaya ◽  
Samuel Castro-Brockman ◽  
...  

The thermal performance of economical housing located in hot climates remains a pending subject, especially in emerging economies. A cellular concrete mixture was designed, considering its thermophysical properties, to apply the new material into building envelopes. The proposed materials have low density and thermal conductivity to be used as a nonstructural lightweight construction element. From the design stage, a series of wall systems based on cellular concrete was proposed. Whereas in the second phase, the materials were analyzed to obtain the potential energy savings using dynamic simulations. It is foreseen that the energy consumption in buildings located in these climates will continue to increase critically due to the temperature increase associated with climate change. The temperatures predicted mean vote (PMV), electric energy consumption, and CO2 emissions were calculated for three IPCC scenarios. These results will help to identify the impact of climate change on the energy use of the houses built under these weather conditions. The results show that if the conventional concrete blocks continue to be used, the air conditioning energy requirements will increase to 49% for 2030 and 61% by 2050. The proposed cellular concrete could reduce energy consumption between 15% and 28%, and these saving rates would remain in the future. The results indicate that it is necessary to drive the adoption of lightweight materials, so the impact of energy use on climate change can be reduced.


Author(s):  
Annie Rajoria ◽  
Amit Khandelwal ◽  
Narendra Kohli

<p>In today's world, with the rapid growth in industries in every sector, the environment is at stake without the implementation<br />of environment friendly practices. However, with the rising prices and climate change, the public and corporate companies<br />are keen to follow eco friendly measures which will not only conserve energy but also help to sustain balance in the<br />environment. In this paper, we have presented such measures to be practiced at the individual level. Green computing<br />refers to the ways in which energy consumption can be reduced, more recyclable products can be manufactured and the<br />adverse impact on the environment can be diminished. The study and practice of using computing resources efficiently by<br />the individuals or computer users can be termed as 'individual green computing'. The key to 'individual green computing' is<br />the creation of awareness at the student as well as the college level about the significance of their pivotal role in this eco<br />friendly initiative.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Hassan Bazazzadeh ◽  
Adam Nadolny ◽  
Seyedeh Sara Hashemi Safaei

The growth of urban population as the result of economic and industrial development has changed our place of living from a prosperous place to where the resources are carelessly consumed. On the other hand, long-term climate change, i.e. global warming, has had adverse impact on our resources. Certain resources are on the verge of depletion as the consequence of climate change and inconsiderate consumption of resources, unless serious measures are implemented immediately. The building sector, whose share in the municipal energy consumption is considerably high, is a key player that may successfully solve the problem. This paper aims to study the effects of climate change on the energy consumption of buildings and analyze its magnitude to increase the awareness of how construction can reduce the overall global energy consumption. A descriptive-analytical method has been applied to analyze valid models of energy consumption according to different scenarios and to interpret the conditions underlying current and future energy consumption of buildings. The results clearly show that the energy consumption in the building sector increasingly depends on the cooling demand. With that being said, we can expect the reduction of overall energy consumption of buildings in regions with high heating demands, whereas rising the energy consumption in buildings is expected in regions with high cooling demand. To conclude, the long-term climate change (e.g. global warming) underlies the increased energy consumption for the cooling demand whose share in total energy consumption of buildings much outweighs the heating demand. Therefore, to conserve our resources, urban energy planning and management should focus on working up a proper framework of guidelines on how to mitigate the cooling loads in the energy consumption patterns of buildings.


Author(s):  
Dasaraden Mauree ◽  
Silvia Coccolo ◽  
Dasun Perera ◽  
Vahid Nik ◽  
Jean-Louis Scartezzini ◽  
...  

Building more energy efficient and sustainable urban areas that will both mitigate the effect of climate change and adapt for the future climate, requires the development new tools and methods that can help urban planners, architect and communities achieve this goal. In the current study, we designed a workflow that links different methodologies developed separately, to derive the energy consumption of a university school campus for the future. Three different scenarios for typical future years (2039, 2069, 2099) were run as well as a renovation scenario (Minergie-P). We analyse the impact of climate change on the heating and cooling demand of the buildings and determined the relevance of the accounting of the local climate in this particular context. The results from the simulations showed that in the future there will a constant decrease in the heating demand while for the cooling demand there will be a significant increase. It was further demonstrated that when the local climate was taken into account there was an even higher rise in the cooling demand but also that the proposed renovations were not sufficient to design resilient buildings. We then discuss the implication of this work on the simulation of building energy consumption at the neighbourhood scale and the impact of future local climate on energy system design. We finally give a few perspective regarding improved urban design and possible pathways for the future urban areas.


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