Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability最新文献

{"title":"Shifting urban mobility patterns due to COVID-19: comparative analysis of implemented urban policies and travel behaviour changes with an assessment of overall GHG emissions implications","authors":"F. Creutzig, S. Lohrey, Mercedes Vázquez Franza","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac949b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac949b","url":null,"abstract":"COVID-19-induced confinements rapidly change behavioural patterns and social norms of street space use worldwide. In the following study we compile data to assess shifting urban mobility during confinement (phase 1), and in reaction to COVID-19 induced physical distancing policies (phase 2). In a comparative analysis of 16 cities, we show that public transit decreased by 80% during confinement, but individual motorized transport only by 64%. Cycling modal share increased in some cities. COVID-19 and sustainability are intertwined via risks, susceptibility, and positive and negative outcomes, in particular via sustainable development goal 3 (SDG3) (health), SDG5 (gender equality), SDG11 (sustainable cities) and SDG13 (climate action). Confinement-induced social gains are realized in reduced congestion, improved air quality, and less accidents, partially compensated by unhealthy eating, and domestic violence. Our analysis reveals that cities around the world provided more space for cyclist and pedestrians as part of pandemic-related measures, pedestrianizing streets, implementing 550 km ad-hoc bicycle infrastructure and planning additional 1500 km. Our computation indicates that GHG emissions savings due to increased uptake of cycling in the EU reduced urban land transport GHG emissions by 0.3% (1 Mt CO2), while GHG emission savings were larger in cities with pop-up bicycle lanes (between 0.43% and 1.87%). Our findings also demonstrate that proactive cities had already plans in their drawers and demonstrated institutional alignment of vocal civil society, administrations and politicians. We argue that long-term sustainability trajectories of cities will depend on transformation of both physical and digital infrastructures.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"576 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116066644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rural electrification in Africa: a case study of Yebu community solar minigrid","authors":"Norbert Edomah","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac9014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac9014","url":null,"abstract":"Using field observation and focus group semi-structured interviews, we explored rural electrification dynamics within a rural community setting. We investigated the issues surrounding the emergence, deployment, operation and management of solar minigrid technology within Yebu community in the Federal Capital Territory, north-central Nigeria, and the associated issues that emerged over time. The study revealed that: (1) many solar minigrid energy access interventions do not have a viable business and sustainability plan that guarantees long term impact; (2) a lack of participatory decision making by all concerned stakeholders (from the project conception stage) has hindered the potential of many solar minigrid energy access projects to achieve their intended developmental and economic benefits. The paper concludes by highlighting the key recommendations that can help address these challenges.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116496907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Anticipating water distribution service outages from increasing temperatures","authors":"Emily N Bondank, M. Chester, Austin Michne, Nasir Ahmad, B. Ruddell, N. Johnson","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac8ba3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac8ba3","url":null,"abstract":"With projected temperature increases and extreme events due to climate change for many regions of the world, characterizing the impacts of these emerging hazards on water distribution systems is necessary to identify and prioritize adaptation strategies for ensuring reliability. To aid decision-making, new insights are needed into how water distribution system reliability to climate-driven heat will change, and the proactive maintenance strategies available to combat failures. To this end, we present the model Perses, a framework that joins a water distribution network hydraulic solver with reliability models of physical assets or components to estimate temperature increase-driven failures and resulting service outages in the long term. A theoretical case study is developed using Phoenix, Arizona temperature profiles, a city with extreme temperatures and a rapidly expanding infrastructure. By end-of-century under hotter futures there are projected to be 1%–5% more pump failures, 2%–5% more PVC pipe failures, and 3%–7% more iron pipe failures (RCP 4.5–8.5) than a baseline historical temperature profile. Service outages, which constitute inadequate pressure for domestic and commercial use are projected to increase by 16%–26% above the baseline under maximum temperature conditions. The exceedance of baseline failures, when compounded across a large metro region, reveals potential challenges for budgeting, management, and maintenance. An exploration of the mitigation potential of adaptation strategies shows that expedited repair times are capable of offsetting the additional outages from climate change, but will come with a cost.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"124 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133105035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"OpenConcrete: a tool for estimating the environmental impacts from concrete production","authors":"Alyson Kim, P. Cunningham, Kanotha Kamau-Devers, Sabbie A. Miller","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac8a6d","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac8a6d","url":null,"abstract":"As the increasing global consumption of concrete drives notable environmental burdens from its production, particularly greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, interest in mitigation efforts is increasing. Yet current environmental impact quantification tools rely on user decision-making to select data for each concrete constituent, have inconsistent scopes and system boundaries, and often utilize third-party life cycle inventories. These factors limit customization or tracking of data and hinder the ability to draw robust comparisons among concrete mixtures to mitigate its environmental burdens. To address these issues, we introduce a cohesive, unified dataset of material, energy, and emission inventories to quantify the environmental impacts of concrete. In this work, we detail the synthesis of this open dataset and create an environmental impact assessment tool using this data. Models can be customized to be region specific, expanded to varying concrete mixtures, and support data visualization throughout each production stage. We perform a scenario analysis of impacts to produce a representative concrete mixture across the United States, with results ranging from 189 kg CO2-eq/m3 of concrete (California) to 266 kg CO2-eq/m3 of concrete (West Virginia). The largest driver of GHG, nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide, and volatile organic compound emissions as well as energy demand is cement production, but aggregate production is the largest driver of water consumption and particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5) emissions.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"73 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127098623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Incorporating uncertainty from downscaled rainfall projections into climate resilience planning in U.S. cities","authors":"Tania Lopez‐Cantu, Marissa Webber, C. Samaras","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac8a6c","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac8a6c","url":null,"abstract":"The planning, design, and maintenance of stormwater infrastructure must be informed by changing rainfall patterns due to climate change. However, there is little consensus on how future climate information should be used, or how uncertainties introduced by use of different methods and datasets should be characterized or managed. These uncertainties exacerbate existing challenges to using climate information on local or municipal scales. Here we analyze major cities in the U.S., 48 of which developed climate adaptation and resilience plans. Given the prevalence of depth duration frequency (DDF) curves for planning infrastructure for rainfall, we then assessed the underlying climate information used in these 48 plans to show how DDF curves used for resilience planning and the resulting outcomes can be affected by stakeholders’ methodological choices and datasets. For rainfall extremes, many resilience plans varied by trend detection method, data preprocessing steps, and size of study area, and all used only one of the available downscaled climate projection datasets. We evaluate the implications of uncertainties across five available climate datasets and show the level of climate resilience to extreme rainfall depends on the dataset selected for each city. We produce risk matrices for a broader set of 77 U.S. cities to highlight how local resilience strategies and decisions are sensitive to the climate projection dataset used in local adaptation plans. To help overcome barriers to using climate information, we provide an open dataset of future daily rainfall values for 2-, 5-, 10-, 25-, 50-, and 100 years annual recurrence intervals for 77 cities and compare resilience outcomes across available climate datasets that each city can use for comparison and for robust resilience planning. Because of uncertainty in climate projections, our results highlight the importance of no-regret and flexible resilience strategies that can be adjusted with new climate information.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130889801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Is smart water meter temporal resolution a limiting factor to residential water end-use classification? A quantitative experimental analysis","authors":"Z. Heydari, A. Cominola, A. Stillwell","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac8a6b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac8a6b","url":null,"abstract":"Water monitoring in households provides occupants and utilities with key information to support water conservation and efficiency in the residential sector. High costs, intrusiveness, and practical complexity limit appliance-level monitoring via sub-meters on every water-consuming end use in households. Non-intrusive machine learning methods have emerged as promising techniques to analyze observed data collected by a single meter at the inlet of the house and estimate the disaggregated contribution of each water end use. While fine temporal resolution data allow for more accurate end-use disaggregation, there is an inevitable increase in the amount of data that needs to be stored and analyzed. To explore this tradeoff and advance previous studies based on synthetic data, we first collected 1 s resolution indoor water use data from a residential single-point smart water metering system installed at a four-person household, as well as ground-truth end-use labels based on a water diary recorded over a 4-week study period. Second, we trained a supervised machine learning model (random forest classifier) to classify six water end-use categories across different temporal resolutions and two different model calibration scenarios. Finally, we evaluated the results based on three different performance metrics (micro, weighted, and macro F1 scores). Our findings show that data collected at 1- to 5-s intervals allow for better end-use classification (weighted F-score higher than 0.85), particularly for toilet events; however, certain water end uses (e.g., shower and washing machine events) can still be predicted with acceptable accuracy even at coarser resolutions, up to 1 min, provided that these end-use categories are well represented in the training dataset. Overall, our study provides insights for further water sustainability research and widespread deployment of smart water meters.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123768709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Life cycle assessment of expanded polystyrene shipping boxes at a public research institution: insights for infrastructure at the end of life","authors":"T. Lindstrom, A. Hicks","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac80d1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac80d1","url":null,"abstract":"Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is a synthetic plastic used in various industrial and commercial applications. EPS is popular for its unique physical properties, specifically insulating capabilities and low density. These properties become problematic at the end of its useful life as EPS cannot be recycled with other conventional plastics. Though possible, recycling EPS often is practically or economically prohibitive and the material typically is consigned to landfill after a single use. This study investigates the EPS handling system and several disposal alternatives using the methodology of life cycle assessment. The results are applied to evaluate the environmental impacts and economic tradeoffs of a recycling program for EPS shipping boxes at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The approach in this study pertains to infrastructure sustainability through exploring the challenges and lack of existing infrastructure for managing EPS. The four disposal scenarios under consideration in this study are (1) consignment to a sanitary landfill, (2) a closed-loop reuse arrangement with a biotechnology company, (3) a conventional open-loop recycling arrangement with a specialty recycler, and (4) a novel open-loop recycling arrangement with an on-campus lab. While a closed-loop reuse system for EPS was most environmentally desirable, the study results indicate that conventional recycling of EPS is the only disposal scenario that generates net environmental benefits while also being logistically feasible. Thus, the study results contribute to the body of knowledge related to post-consumer EPS management and can inform decision-making at comparable institutions that generate large quantities of EPS waste.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128671949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Estimating global demand for land-based transportation services using the shared socioeconomic pathways scenario framework","authors":"Joan Nkiriki, P. Jaramillo, N. Williams, Alex Davis, D. Armanios","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac823b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac823b","url":null,"abstract":"The global demand for transportation is growing owing to accelerated socioeconomic development worldwide. If the current modes of transportation, consisting mostly of personal internal combustion engine vehicles, dominate this growth, greenhouse gas emissions will rise and worsen the climate crisis. A key empirical challenge in understanding the barriers and opportunities for low-carbon transportation systems in developing countries is the lack of demand data. Because existing country-specific transport demand models focus on countries with robust historical datasets, it has been difficult to estimate the service demand for developing countries. To address this limitation, we develop a log–log regression model linking socioeconomic variables with demand for land-based passenger and freight transport services. Using socioeconomic data from the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) developed for climate analysis, we then produce scenario-based estimates for land-based transportation services for 179 countries around the world. The global average annual land-based passenger demand growth rate ranges between 1.3% and 4.1%, while the annual growth rate for land-based freight demand ranges between 3.1% and 3.6% across the 30 years between 2020 and 2050. Middle-income countries in Asia such as India and China, show the highest expected transport demand across all scenarios. Meanwhile, the results suggest that low-income countries in the sub-Saharan African region are likely to experience the largest growth in demand for passenger and freight transport services. These two trends come together at an inflection point around the year 2030. Prior to 2030, the transport demand was the highest in East Asia. After 2030, there is an ascendancy in transport demand in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, whereby the cumulative demand share of these two regions reaches near parity with that of East Asia by 2050. Sustainably meeting this growing demand will require the adoption of data-driven transport planning tools and leveraging cross-linkages across other energy sectors such as electricity.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114741336","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Does the metric matter? Climate change impacts of light-duty vehicle electrification in the US","authors":"Alexandre Milovanoff, H. MacLean, Amir F.N Abdul-Manan, I. D. Posen","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac8071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac8071","url":null,"abstract":"Vehicle electrification is one of the most promising climate change mitigation strategies for light-duty vehicles (LDVs). But vehicle electrification shifts the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission profiles of conventional LDVs with emissions moving upstream from vehicle use to electricity generation and vehicle production. Electric vehicle (EV) deployment needs to be examined with life cycle assessment (LCA), both at vehicle and fleet levels. Climate change assessments of EVs are usually conducted using global warming potential (GWP), a normalized metric that aggregates GHG emissions. GWP suffers from some limitations as it ignores the emission timing over the product life cycle. In this study, we examine climate change impacts of four vehicle technologies (conventional, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery electric vehicles) in the US at vehicle and fleet levels using four climate change metrics (GWP, dynamic global warming impact, radiative forcing impact and global temperature change impact). One of our key findings is that while the choices of the metric, the analytical time period, and some other key parameters, such as methane leakage rate, may have substantial influences on the results, partial and full electrification remain effective solutions to reduce climate change impacts of the US LDVs. However, the transient effects that exist between GHG emissions, radiative forcing, and global temperature changes imply that climate change impact reductions of vehicle electrification take time to materialize and are overestimated with GWP. It is therefore critical to evaluate large-scale implications of climate change mitigation strategies with multiple metrics to fully capture and assess the expected benefits. We nonetheless found that GWP is a robust metric for climate change mitigation targets of vehicle electrification and remains a good choice for most analysis.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122340163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Electric bicycles sharing: opportunities and environmental impacts","authors":"Wissam Kontar, Soyoung Ahn, A. Hicks","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac7c8b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac7c8b","url":null,"abstract":"Electric bicycles (E-bikes) are an emerging transportation technology with the potential to replace other available modes. In this work, we investigate the ability of an E-bike sharing program to compete with different modes of transportation and the resulting use-phase environmental impacts. A survey study on users of an E-bike program in Madison, Wisconsin was conducted to reveal modal shifts before and after access to the program’s membership. An environmental investigation based on well-to-wheel life cycle analysis, coupled with mode choice modeling reveals the users of this technology, the underlying modal shifts triggered by its usage, and the cascading environmental implications. The analysis reveals E-bike’s ability in attracting users, which translates into beneficial environmental impacts across five studied categories: energy consumption, greenhouse gas emission, particulate matter, sulfate and nitrate emissions. We further explore the implications of trip distance on the ability of E-bikes to compete with other modes of transportation, and the resultant environmental impacts. Finally, the electricity generation scheme is analyzed to showcase the dependency between environmental benefits of E-bike and the energy infrastructure it is operating under.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124197761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}