How Can Landscape Architecture Influence Systemic Change to Achieve Sustainable Cities and Regions

This paper presents how the ideas of landscape, design quality and drawings can influence systemic change to result in sustainable cities and regions. The research related to this paper explores project frameworks and design methods in order to reveal innovative ways and processes for creating environmentally friendly cities and regions that will have the power to adapt and mitigate climatic issues of the future. Through a series of explorations on existing landscape projects and while using a series of stakeholder engagement workshops contacted at a pan-European level the paper examines ways in which systemic change is possible and the outcomes it has in relation to the landscape. Using previously implemented and ongoing landscape projects such as the Room for the River (the Netherlands) and the West Midlands National Park (UK), the paper discusses how bold landscape-led visions influence decision making and support systemic change on a spatial scale. Drawing on experience gained during a series of stakeholder engagement workshops, where the projects of the Tame Valley Wetlands Partnership (UK) and the Urban Farming and Growing Network (UK) were selected as case studies, the research presents key findings and presents lessons learned that can build capacity and improve the understanding and management of stakeholders when it comes to spatial planning and urban design. The paper argues that a new way of thinking in design, policy or governance is not enough if these disciplines act individually. The breakthrough comes when each discipline collaborates with the aim to future proof our cities and regions. By presenting pioneering examples and models giving us tools for a systemic change, the paper aims to demonstrate that large scale developments can be brilliant examples of the new methodologies applied and lessons learnt. This research concludes that systemic change is represented across all levels, policy, decision making, governance, design and implementation if the aim is to deliver a sustainable city.

Expect: EXplainable Prediction Model for Energy ConsumpTion

With the steady growth of energy demands and resource depletion in today’s world, energy prediction models have gained more and more attention recently. Reducing energy consumption and carbon footprint are critical factors for achieving efficiency in sustainable cities. Unfortunately, traditional energy prediction models focus only on prediction performance. However, explainable models are essential to building trust and engaging users to accept AI-based systems. In this paper, we propose an explainable deep learning model, called Expect, to forecast energy consumption from time series effectively. Our results demonstrate our proposal’s robustness and accuracy when compared to the baseline methods.

Sustainable cities through household waste management: an unexplored approach to challenges confronting private solid waste management

Purpose In less than a decade to sustainable development goals (SDGs) there is a threat of household waste emanating from sub-urban sprawl especially in developing countries. Private approaches with government-enabling environments have been proved a successful platform for urban services such as housing provision and telecommunication in developing cities. Still private solid waste management (PSWM) seems different in Nigeria. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the possible perceived hindrances facing PSWM organisations and proffer feasible policies to enhance sustainable clean and healthy cities. Design/methodology/approach Seven communities within Benin City sub-urban environs were adopted as the study area to accomplish the research’s objectives via a phenomenology type of qualitative research design. The study analysed the collated data from the knowledgeable participants via a thematic approach. Findings Lax legislative, absence of institutional framework, inadequate economic motivation, inadequate technical operations, among others, emerged as the encumbrances faced by PSWM firms. Wastes dumped along unethical locations such as streets, roads, uncompleted buildings, culverts and drainage channels, and undeveloped plots emerged as the encumbrance outcomes. Findings show that proffering feasible policy solutions to tackle identified hindrances can promote the achievement of SDGs across semi-urban locations in Nigeria. Research limitations/implications This research is restricted to urban household waste management by PSWM within Nigeria. Also, the study identified the challenges and proffer policy solutions to enhance improved clean environment within the sub-urban and urban cities. Practical implications As part of this study’s implications, results from this research intend to guide government policymakers and PSWM firms to encourage collaboration in designing appropriate strategic and educational programmes for the householders (customers) in sub-cities. It will be achieved via feasible policies that are tailored towards achieving sustainable health and environment-friendly sub-urban locations. Originality/value This paper intends to enhance proper PSWM and create sustainable cities via collaboration. Also, the paper engaged key stakeholders via a qualitative research design to proffer possible solutions to the menace of sub-urban and urban household waste management.

High concentrations of pharmaceuticals emerging as a threat to Himalayan water sustainability

The sixth UN Sustainable Development Goal, Clean Water and Sanitation, directly underpins other goals of Health, Life in Water and Sustainable Cities. We highlight that poor sanitation, exemplified through some of the highest concentrations of pharmaceuticals ever detected in rivers, will amplify societal and environmental stress where climate-induced reductions in flow are predicted. Rapidly growing urban centres with inadequate water treatment works will need to prioritise water quality improvement before supply reductions become a reality. For 23 river locations within Kathmandu City and the Annapurna region, Nepal, we show the presence of 28 of 35 monitored human-use pharmaceuticals. Concentrations of antibiotics measured in this sampling campaign in both Kathmandu City (sulfamethazine, metronidazole and ciprofloxacin) and rural locations (ciprofloxacin) are in excess of predicted no effect concentrations, suggesting these sites are at risk of proliferating antimicrobial resistance as well as affecting other ecotoxicological endpoints. It is anticipated that climate-induced reductions in flow combined with contaminated river systems will amplify future societal and environmental stress.

Citizen Science for Traffic Monitoring: Investigating the Potentials for Complementing Traffic Counters with Crowdsourced Data

Traffic counts are among the most frequently employed data to assess the traffic patterns and key performance indicators of next generation sustainable cities. Automatised counting is often based on conventional traffic monitoring systems such as inductive loop counters (ILCs). These are costly to install, maintain, and support. In this paper, we investigate the possibilities to complement and potentially replace the existing traffic monitoring infrastructure with crowdsourcing solutions. More precisely, we investigate the capabilities to predict the ILC-obtained data using Telraam counters, low-cost camera counters voluntarily employed by citizens and freely accessible by the general public. In this context, we apply different exploratory data analysis approaches and demonstrate a regression procedure with a selected set of regression models. The presented analysis is demonstrated on different urban and highway road segments in Slovenia. Our results show that the data obtained from low-cost and easily accessible counters can be used to replace the existing traffic monitoring infrastructure in different scenarios. These results confirm the prospective to directly apply the citizen engagement in the process of planning and maintaining sustainable future cities.