Rapid urbanization and increasing demand for transportation burdens urban road infrastructures. The interplay of number of vehicles and available road capacity on their routes determines the level of congestion. Although approaches to modify demand and capacity exist, the possible limits of congestion alleviation by only modifying route choices have not been systematically studied. Here we coup...

Average Winter electricity consumption for rural residents in Utah is significantly greater than for those living in urban areas. Based on data from a 1980 survey of Utah residents, this rural-urban consumption differential was investigated using multiple regression analysis. It was determined that the stock of electricity-using devices, climate, and demographic characteristics were the most im...

China has been experiencing rapid urbanization in parallel with its economic boom over the past three decades. To date, the organic carbon storage in China's urban areas has not been quantified. Here, using data compiled from literature review and statistical yearbooks, we estimated that total carbon storage in China's urban areas was 577 ± 60 Tg C (1 Tg = 10(12) g) in 2006. Soil was the larges...

The role for Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) has been expanding rapidly in recent years. Applications are increasing and encompass industries as diverse as telecommunications, forestry, municipal engineering and precision agriculture to name only a few. The accuracy and detail required varies with application, and a number of technologies are able to provide DEMs appropriate to particular mappi...

Modelling and simulation applications for operations in urban areas often set high resolution and fidelity requirements for the 3D environment models. For applications supporting ongoing operations, e.g decision support, mission planning, etc., additional requirements such as time frame and accessibility to the area of interest must also be taken into account in the modelling task. One possible...

Digital orthoimage is a widely used cartographic product, either as a complement to the traditional topographic map-when the latter has not been updated-or to allow the extraction of different kinds of information. The geometric precision of an orthoimage is strongly dependent on the quality of the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and the geometric correction algorithm used. It is well known that ...

The rapid growth of population in urban areas is jeopardizing the mobility and air quality worldwide. One of the most notable problems arising is that of traffic congestion which in turn affects air pollution. With the advent of technologies able to sense real-time data about cities, and its public distribution for analysis, we are in place to forecast scenarios valuable to ameliorate and contr...

Little is known regarding levels and source strength of carbonaceous aerosols in Scandinavia. In the present study, ambient aerosol (PM10 and PM2.5) concentrations of elemental carbon (EC), organic carbon (OC), waterinsoluble organic carbon (WINSOC), and water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) are reported for a curbside site, an urban background site, and a suburban site in Norway in order to inve...

technological advancement has led to a clearer understanding of future risks and impacts. With increasing urbanization, understanding the impacts of climate change upon the urban environment will become ever more important. Evidence is mounting that climate change presents unique challenges for urban areas and their growing populations. Where urban areas grow rapidly without regard to current a...

In this paper, we combine the most complete record of daily mobility, based on large-scale mobile phone data, with detailed Geographic Information System (GIS) data, uncovering previously hidden patterns in urban road usage. We find that the major usage of each road segment can be traced to its own--surprisingly few--driver sources. Based on this finding we propose a network of road usage by de...