With the urbanization process of the hot summer and cold winter (HSCW) zone in China, the energy consumption of space and water heating in urban residential buildings of the HSCW zone has increased rapidly. This study presents the energy efficiency and sustainability evaluation of various ways of space and water heating taking 10 typical cities in the HSCW zone as research cases. Two indicators...

Previous studies of public transport sustainability in cities have been very limited to date, particularly in more developing countries located throughout Asia and the Middle East. This paper assesses the sustainability of urban public transport systems in cities by adopting a quantitative measurement framework containing 15 public transport sustainability indicators. It compares aggregate sust...

Shanghai’s urban environmental management in the past three decades has been focused primarily on the environmental problems at the intra-urban level. While this ‘end of pipe’ approach greatly mitigated domestic and industrial pollution, progresses were much slower in dealing with environmental impacts both at a smaller (i.e., those related to people’s daily activities) scale and at a larger (i...

Shanghai’s urban environmental management in the past three decades has been focused primarily on the environmental problems at the intra-urban level. While this ‘end of pipe’ approach greatly mitigated domestic and industrial pollution, progresses were much slower in dealing with environmental impacts both at a smaller (i.e., those related to people’s daily activities) scale and at a larger (i...

Water supply is a key consideration in sustainable urban planning. Ideally, detailed quantitative sustainability assessments are undertaken during the planning stage to inform the decision-making process. In reality, however, the significant time and cost associated with undertaking such detailed environmental and economic assessments is often cited as a barrier to wider implementation of these...

One of the fundamental notions of realization of sustainable city within the framework of the theory of sustainable development is what affects the urban green spaces as well as the influence they may have. As the upshot of years’ worth of experiences in the ideology of Iranian urban design, Iranian garden is of magnificently high position which possesses the potentials to act as the green spac...

36 AI MAGAZINE It might be thought that artificial intelligence techniques or other types of computational methods are irrelevant in countries with few technological resources. As just one example of the possibilities, however, take road traffic in cities. The chaotic and spectacular road congestion that is characteristic of developing-world cities is a microcosm of opportunities for applying A...

Urban land has increasingly expanded and encroached upon a significant number of paddy fields in Hang-Jia-Hu Plain, due to the rapid socio-economic development and agro-pedoclimatic conditions favorable to rice cultivation and human settlement. Although many studies have analyzed the characteristics of urban land expansion, relatively less attention has been paid to exploring the various urban ...

The idea of sustainable cities is linked to an older concept of sustainable plant communities. The theoretical basis for both is a closed system where everything is continuously recycled. Natural resources are renewed rather than depleted. In undisturbed natural areas a kind of sustainability is achieved through the natural cycles of the biosphere. However, this kind of sustainability for trees...