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The united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (UNESCO) considers the historic urban landscapes as the world heritages. Managing historic city centers and maintaining historic cores are the emerging challenges for sustainable urban planning. Today, the historic cores form an important part of the economic, social, environmental, and physical assets and capacities of contemporary cities, and play a strategic role in their development. One of the most important approaches to the development of central textures, especially in historical and cultural cities, is the sustainable urban regeneration approach, which encompasses all aspects of sustainability, such as the economic, social, cultural and environmental aspects. To maintain sustainability and regeneration of historic cores of cities, it is necessary to provide insight into the underlying characteristics of the local urbanization. Furthermore, the fundamental assets are to be investigated as indicators of sustainable regeneration and drivers of urban development. In the meantime, a variety of research and experience has taken place around the world, all of which has provided different criteria and indicators for the development of strategies for the historic cores of cities. The present study, through a meta-analytic and survey method, analyzing the experience and research reported in 139 theoretical and empirical papers in the last twenty years, seeks to provide a comprehensive conceptual model taking into account the criteria and indices of sustainable regeneration in historic cores of cities. The quality of the survey has been ensured using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA).

Nature-based solutions may actively reduce hydro-meteorological risks in urban areas as a part of climate change adaptation. However, the main reason for the increasing uptake of this type of solution is their many benefits for the local inhabitants, including recreational value. Previous studies on recreational value focus on studies of existing nature sites that are often much larger than what is considered as new NBS for flood adaptation studies in urban areas. We thus prioritized studies with smaller areas and nature types suitable for urban flood adaptation and divided them into four common nature types for urban flood adaptation: sustainable urban drainage systems, city parks, nature areas and rivers. We identified 23 primary valuation studies, including both stated and revealed preference studies, and derived two value transfer functions based on meta-regression analysis on existing areas. We investigated trends between values and variables and found that for the purpose of planning of new NBS the size of NBS and population density were determining factors of recreational value. For existing NBS the maximum travelling distance may be included as well. We find that existing state-of-the-art studies overestimate the recreational with more than a factor of 4 for NBS sizes below 5 ha. Our results are valid in a European context for nature-based solutions below 250 ha and can be applied across different NBS types and sizes.

Global demand for both clean energy carriers and agricultural nutrients continues to grow rapidly, alongside increasing quantities of waste globally, interlinked challenges that may be addressed with interlinked solutions. We report on the potential efficiency and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) intensity of several configurations of a new, sustainability-driven ammonia (NH3) production processes to determine whether a waste-based process designed first around carbon dioxide (CO2) capture can compete with other available NH3 technologies. This is assessed via different scenarios: Two hydrogen generating options are paired with four CO2 fates. For either an anaerobic digestion-centered process or a two-stage dark fermentation coupled with anaerobic digestion process, the resultant CO2 may be captured and injected, sold to the marketplace, released directly in the atmosphere, or converted to urea in order to produce a green substitute for synthetic NH3. Modeled yields range from 47 t NH3 when the resultant CO2 is released or captured, or 3.8 t NH3 and 76.5 t urea when the system is designed to produce no unutilized CO2. Among the technologies assessed, NH3 production where CO2 is captured for anaerobic digestion-only is the most efficient for GHG emissions and water consumption, while the two-stage requires less energy on a fertilizer-N basis. GHG emissions for anaerobic digestion-only are approximately 8% lower than the two-stage. The best of the proposed technology configurations consumes about 41% less energy than water electrolysis coupled with Haber-Bosch and approximately 27% lower energy than Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) coupled with Haber-Bosch per kg NH3.

This article demonstrates how a cultural reading of consumption that focuses on the meaning and materiality of domestic indoor microclimates can contribute to conceptual developments in the field of practice theory that refocus attention on cultural patterns, including prevailing norms and prescriptions regarding indoor temperature and thermal comfort. Drawing on evidence collected during a research-led change initiative that encouraged people to reduce energy use in the home by lowering indoor temperature to 18°C, we deploy the heuristic device of “indoor microclimate as artifact” to show how the manifestation of this new artifact initiated significant changes in everyday practices that revolve around heating. We observe that these changes may also spill over into the public sphere – from home to workplace. By making the microclimate a tangible and visible thing, we describe how people appropriate and appreciate this new object of consumption, what it says about different bodies in diverse and bounded spaces, and what the artifact as a commodity reveals about broader systems of heating and energy provision, and associated actors. Due to the increasing spread of central heating and the growing importance of complex technological devices to monitor and control indoor temperature, heating is no longer a practice in and of itself for many urban dwellers in Europe. However, when people appropriate the indoor microclimate, new heating-related practices emerge that can lead to energy sufficiency. We thus argue that by deliberately “materializing” domestic indoor microclimate as part of a change initiative, more sustainable forms of energy use can be made to matter.

The importance of LCEM (life cycle energy management) has been recognized from the view of life cycle energy savings for sustainable buildings. The purposes of this research are the proposal of an LCEM framework and development of prototype HVAC system simulation tools for LCEM. In this paper, the necessity of energy simulation tools for LCEM is discussed, and the outline and solution method of the simulation tool are shown.

A brisk building boom of hydropower mega-dams is underway from China to Brazil. Whether benefits of new dams will outweigh costs remains unresolved despite contentious debates. We investigate this question with the "outside view" or "reference class forecasting" based on literature on decision-making under uncertainty in psychology. We find overwhelming evidence that budgets are systematically biased below actual costs of large hydropower dams - excluding inflation, substantial debt servicing, environmental, and social costs. Using the largest and most reliable reference data of its kind and multilevel statistical techniques applied to large dams for the first time, we were successful in fitting parsimonious models to predict cost and schedule overruns. The outside view suggests that in most countries large hydropower dams will be too costly in absolute terms and take too long to build to deliver a positive risk-adjusted return unless suitable risk management measures outlined in this paper can be affordably provided. Policymakers, particularly in developing countries, are advised to prefer agile energy alternatives that can be built over shorter time horizons to energy megaprojects.

This Article examines the genesis and context of SE4All, placing the effort within both itshistorical and international policy contexts. It highlights the voluntary nature of the initiative andargues that its effective implementation and the achievement of its goals require the articulation ofan applicable international legal framework that aids the transformation of SE4All’s policy actionsinto binding international legal commitments. The article contends that such a transformation doesnot depend on the creation of entirely new legal rules or institutions. Instead, an effective frame-work for successful implementation of SE4All can be derived from existing rules of internationalhuman rights law and sustainable development law. Reliance on these twin bodies of interna-tional law will increase the prospects for SE4All to achieve energy access and related goals thatits predecessor initiatives have failed to accomplish