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Abstract This paper empirically evaluates the extent of energy resilience achieved in a socially-deprived community in Oxford, through deployment of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and smart batteries (internet enabled and controllable) across a cluster of 82 dwellings (households). The methodological approach comprised dwelling and household surveys, along with high frequency monitoring of household electricity consumption, solar PV generation, battery charge and discharge data. In the monitored households, average daily electricity consumption was found to be positively related with dwelling size, number of occupants and number of appliances used. Although 117 MWh of PV electricity was generated within a year across 74 dwellings, peak generation did not match peak consumption, demonstrating the need for battery storage. Home batteries were found to increase self-consumption of PV electricity and offset grid demand through discharge of stored PV electricity marginally at an average of 6%, depending on the size of the PV system, surplus PV electricity available and size of the battery. Aggregating solar generation and storage at a community level showed that peak grid electricity demand between 17:00 and 19:00 was reduced by 8% through the use of smart batteries across 74 dwellings. In future, a local energy sharing scheme could be developed, wherein not all dwellings would need to have solar PV systems, but rather have internet enabled batteries that could be monitored and controlled virtually.

Twenty-minute neighbourhoods highlight the importance of well-connected and mixed-used neighbourhoods and communities with proximate access to employment, essential services, public transport, and open spaces. Shorter distances together with re-prioritised public spaces encourage more active transport choices, resulting in public health benefits and reduced environmental pollution. Higher liveability brought about by mixed-use developments enables people to have equitable access to local facilities, amenities, and employment opportunities, promoting vibrancy, social cohesion, and intergenerational connections. The attributes of 20-minute neighbourhoods also combine to create places, that are acknowledged as friendly for all ages, address changing needs across the life course, and provide better support for the ageing population. Furthermore, there are indications that 20-minute neighbourhoods may be more resilient against many of the negative impacts of stringent public health protocols such as those implemented in periods of lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this article, we evaluate and compare planning policies and practices aimed at establishing 20-minute neighbourhoods in Melbourne (Australia) and Scotland (the UK). Using case studies, we discuss similarities and differences involved in using place-based approaches of 20-minute neighbourhoods to address 21st-century challenges in key areas of health and wellbeing, equity, environmental sustainability, and community resilience.

SUMMARYThis article discusses how decentralisation policies are enacted in the planning and implementation of natural resource management interventions in rural Ethiopia. A key element of decentralisation policy is the emphasis on greater participation by local communities. Drawing on qualitative research conducted with government staff and farmers, this paper illustrates how different actors perceive and implement national policy and how these actions affect the longer‐term sustainability of land management interventions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

With the fast growth of the global economy, energy supply and demand have a strong impact on social, economic, and environmental aspects. As a consequence, this has pushed the decision-makers to formulate objectives, guiding economic policies toward sustainable goals. The process is known as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that have been proposed by the United Nations. This being said, the energy sector is a vital domain with a vast potential for improvments in terms of technologies and ligistalations. Solar energy is among the most efficient solutions proposed to reduce the economic and environmental footprints of energy. In this frame, the current paper aims to localize solar energy within SDGs and analyze the contribution of the solar energy towards the achievement of the SDGs. Moreover, the current work highlights the contributions of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (MBR) Solar Park in the United Arab Emirates to achieving the SDGs. Indeed, the MBR Solar Park concept offers valuable insights of environmental impacts by deploying clean and affordable energy sources in place of conventional fossil fuel power plants that are still heavily used in the region. The MBR Solar Park operation has already mitigated 6.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent and this number will likely rise when all phases are installed and operational. Moreover, it has been shown that MBR Solar Park achieve several SDGs such SDG 8: decent work and economic growth, SDG 9: industry, innovation and infrastructure, SDG 11: sustainable cities and communities, and SDG 15: life on land.

Wind power is an important potential source of electricity/energy generation, which also reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. Turkey is one of the largest markets in the wind energy production sector across the world. With the growing energy demand and for sustainability, the production is increasingly moving towards offshore wind farms. This study briefly reviews the offshore wind farms across the world and evaluates three alternatives for selecting the best site for an offshore wind farm based on 4 main and 15 sub-criteria in the Black Sea region of Turkey. The integrated distance measures and intuitionistic fuzzy sets based on multi-criteria decision-making are employed for that purpose. The ranking for the alternatives results with Inebolu, Amasra, Karasu, repectively in that order from the best to the worst option.

Room occupancy prediction based on indoor environmental quality may be the breakthrough to ensure energy efficiency and establish an interior ambience tailored to each user. Identifying whether temperature, humidity, lighting, and CO2 levels may be used as efficient predictors of room occupancy accuracy is needed to help designers better utilize the readings and data collected in order to improve interior design, in an effort to better suit users. It also aims to help in energy efficiency and saving in an ever-increasing energy crisis and dangerous levels of climate change. This paper evaluated the accuracy of room occupancy recognition using a dataset with diverse amounts of light, CO2, and humidity. As classification algorithms, K-nearest neighbors (KNN), hybrid Adam optimizer–artificial neural network–back-propagation network (AO–ANN (BP)), and decision trees (DT) were used. Furthermore, this research is based on machine learning interpretability methodologies. Shapley additive explanations (SHAP) improve interpretability by estimating the significance values for each feature for classifiers applied. The results indicate that the KNN performs better than the DT and AO-ANN (BP) classification models have 99.5%. Though the two classifiers are designed to evaluate variations in interpretations, we must ensure that they have accurate detection. The results show that SHAP provides successful implementation following these metrics, with differences detected amongst classifier models that support the assumption that model complexity plays a significant role when predictability is taken into account.

The environmental control and management of municipal solid waste (MSW) dumping sites is considered one of the sensitive challenges faced by executive municipalities. This is especially true in Makkah due to the gradual increase in urban population and visitors, with an overall MSW generation of about one million tons per year. Consequently, the geo-environmental evaluation of the Kaakia dumping site shed light on the potential environmental threats, in terms of ambient air quality levels and meteorological parameters, in addition to geophysical inspection. An air quality survey discussed the major trends of ambient air pollutants (SO2, NO2, CO, O3, CH4, and PM10) downwind from the Kaakia dumping site. It indicated the presence of a significant increase in sporadic plumes of Methane concentration. The maximum hourly averages ranged between 22.9–26.6 µg/m3 for SO2, 44.4–64.0 µg/m3 for NO2, 0.86–1.38 mg/m3 for CO, 150.2–158.8 µg/m3 for O3, 5.09–5.9 ppm for CH4, and 955–994 µg/m3 for PM10. The ground penetrating radar (GPR) geophysical survey indicated the subsurface sequence of three geological layers, as confirmed by nearby bores of the investigated site: (1) a surface layer formed of alluvial sediments of sand, which were 2.5–3.1 m thick; (2) a second layer represented by sand and gravel, with a thickness of 4.6–6.5 m; and (3) a third layer equivalent to saturated alluvial sediments mixed with rock fragments that extended to a depth of 13 m. The signals of the GPR were attenuated at the base of the conducted profiles due to the percolation of generated leachate to the subsurface sequence and contaminated groundwater aquifer.

The basins of the Indus and Ganges rivers cover 2.20 million km2 and are inhabited by more than a billion people. The region is under extreme pressures of population and poverty, unregulated utilization of the resources and low levels of productivity. The needs are: (1) development policies that are regionally differentiated to ensure resource sustainability and high productivity; (2) immediate development and implementation of policies for sound groundwater management and energy use; (3) improvement of the fragile food security and to broaden its base; and (4) policy changes to address land fragmentation and improved infrastructure. Meeting these needs will help to improve productivity, reduce rural poverty and improve overall human development.