A new framework for urban sustainability assessments: Linking complexity, information and policy

A new framework for urban sustainability assessments: Linking complexity, information and policy

Urban systems emerge as distinct entities from the complex interactions among social, economic and cultural attributes, and information, energy and material stocks and flows that operate on different temporal and spatial scales. Such complexity poses a challenge to identify the causes of urban environmental problems and how to address them without causing greater deterioration. Planning has tra...

New Frameworks for Urban Sustainability Assessments: Linking Complexity, Information and Policy

Linking Complexity and Sustainability Theories: Implications for Modeling Sustainability Transitions

In this paper, we deploy a complexity theory as the foundation for integration of different theoretical approaches to sustainability and develop a rationale for a complexity-based framework for modeling transitions to sustainability. We propose a framework based on a comparison of complex systems’ properties that characterize the different theories that deal with transitions to sustainability. ...

A Pathway to Linking Risk and Sustainability Assessments

The US National Research Council recently released a report promoting sustainability assessment as the future of environmental regulation. Thirty years earlier, this organization (under the same senior author) had issued a similar report promoting risk assessment as a new method for improving the science behind regulatory decisions. Tools for risk assessment were subsequently developed and adop...

A New Framework for Increasing the Sustainability of Infrastructure Measurement of Smart Grid

Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is one of the most significant applications of the Smart Grid. It is used to measure, collect, and analyze data on power consumption.  In the AMI network, the smart meters traffics are aggregated in the intermediate aggregators and forwarded to the Meter Data Management System (MDMS). The infrastructure used in this network should be reliable, real-time an...