Suchergebnisse

This analysis focuses on the disappearance of the Indian villages during the colonial period in the town of Purification belonging to Nueva Galicia. The natural physical characterization of the region was first addressed in order to make the historical man-nature relationship relevant since pre-Columbian times. This relationship highlights the importance of the loss of population during the colonial period as a central research topic. This research not only analyzes historical demography, but also addresses the consequences of the disappearance of these entities from the geographical area in which they were located; furthermore, it is an analysis of the relationship of the people as geospatial entities and their environment. Based on the theoretical premise of so-called "nodes" and "networks" for the construction of a territory, this essay argues that as the indigenous people were disappearing, they failed to socially articulate the emergence of spaces that in theory became part of the government. These areas were ultimately "nobodyareas"; areas not controlled by survivors or new settlers who took centuries to settle in the region of study. ; El presente análisis se centra en la desaparición de los pueblos de indios en la alcaldía mayor de la Purificación perteneciente a la Nueva Galicia durante el virreinato. Para la realización de este trabajo se abordó primero la caracterización físico natural de la región, para posteriormente hacer relevante la relación histórica hombre-naturaleza desde la época precolombina, ello con la finalidad de destacar la importancia de la pérdida de población durante el periodo colonial, como tema central de investigación. Más que un estudio de demografía histórica, este trabajo aborda las consecuencias de la desaparición de dichas entidades en el espacio geográfico en que estuvieron ubicadas, por tanto, es un análisis de la relación de los pueblos como entidades geoespaciales y su entorno. Partiendo de la premisa teórica de los llamados "nudos" y "redes" para la construcción de un territorio, en este ensayo se plantea que a medida que las poblaciones indígenas fueron desapareciendo, dejaron de cumplir su papel como articuladoras sociales del territorio surgiendo espacios que en teoría pasaron a ser realengos pero que en realidad fueron "zonas de nadie", áreas no controladas por las localidades sobrevivientes ni por los nuevos colonizadores que demoraron siglos en consolidarse en la región de estudio

This doctoral dissertation evaluated the use of sustainable biomass sources (agri-food waste and residues, and industry streams) in anaerobic digestion with the goal of replacing maize silage in a large-scale biogas production and investigated alternative pathways of biogas utilisation incorporated in energy systems operating with high share of renewable energy sources. The methods applied in the research included elements of chemical and mechanical engineering in order to create a holistic approach that could be applicable to various biogas plant cases. Experimental investigations showed the biogas yield of residue lignocellulosic biomass of 0.192-0.275 Nm3/kgTS, and bulk food waste of 0.252-0.566 Nm3/kgTS. Meat and bone meal and wastewater sludge were shown to be co-substrates with antagonistic effect in biogas production, however they increased the reaction rate of overall degradation. Pyrolysis of digestate showed lower energy requirements and higher biochar yield (38%) compared to direct pyrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass (24%). The gate fee business model for receiving biodegradable waste and the implementation of new technologies, namely biogas upgrading, are the most likely options for biogas plants in the future. A robust mathematical model of power-to-gas integration showed that the installation of 18 MWel of wind and 9 MWel of photovoltaics with an additional import of 16 GWhel from the grid could produce 36 GWh of renewable methane which could be economically competitive with natural gas if the feedstock gate fee in the proposed system was -120 €/t. Geospatial availability of an energy potential of biogas production from examined feedstocks, combined with Life Cycle Assessment of the alternative biogas utilisation pathways created the synergistic effects in terms of reduced environmental burdens by 4-36 times compared to the current operation. Based on the applied methods and outcomes of the doctoral thesis, the research hypothesis "Applying holistic approach on biogas plants, both on the production and utilisation side, can increase economic profitability and environmental benefits over current subsidised operation" was tested and confirmed. The economic feasibility of biogas plants after exiting subsidy schemes will include the implementation of the gate fee business model for substrates, new investments in biomass pretreatment lines, increase of on-site biogas storage capacity and additional investments in renewable methane production system, primarily biomethane. Environmental burdens of such actions will be reduced through a contribution of biowaste management on urban and rural level, combined with the utilization of biogas for production of biomethane as a replacement to natural gas. ; Biomasa je obnovljiv izvor energije (OIE) te ima važnu ulogu u diverzifikaciji opskrbe energijom u Europskoj Uniji (EU) [1]. Ona doprinosi ravnoteži ugljikovog dioksida (CO2), stvaranju radnih mjesta, smanjenju emisija stakleničkih plinova (eng. Greenhouse gas, GHG) te osiguravanju dostupnosti resursa i njihovom ekonomičnom gospodarenju [2]. U Republici Hrvatskoj biomasa je definirana prema Zakonu o obnovljivim izvorima energije i visokoučinkovitoj kogeneraciji kao "biorazgradivi dio proizvoda, otpada i ostataka biološkog podrijetla iz poljoprivrede (uključujući tvari biljnoga i životinjskoga podrijetla), šumarstva i srodnih proizvodnih djelatnosti, uključujući ribarstvo i akvakulturu, kao i biorazgradivi dio industrijskoga i komunalnog otpada" [3]. Biomasa se može direktno koristiti kao gorivo za dobivanje energije (npr. drvna biomasa u kotlovima), ili se može biokemijskim, kemijskim, ili termokemijskim postupcima pretvoriti u materijal dodane vrijednosti – biogorivo, čime se postiže njezina šira primjenjivost u energetske svrhe [4]. Biogoriva prve generacije dobivena iz prehrambenih usjeva kao uzgojene biomase [5] naišla su na neodobravanje znanstvene zajednice i šire javnosti, primarno zbog korištenja obradivih površina za njihov uzgoj. Napredna biogoriva (druge i treće generacije [5]) proizvedena su iz biomase koja nije kompetitivna s proizvodnjom hrane, a u nju spada otpadna biomasa iz kućanstva i industrije, poljoprivredni ostatci, neprehrambeni usjevi te alge. Ova doktorska disertacija stavlja fokus na korištenje biomase u procesu anaerobne razgradnje za dobivanje bioplina. Cilj istraživanja je ostvariti sinergijski učinak između ekonomičnog korištenja otpadne biomase i proizvodnje energije u sustavima s velikim udjelom OIE kako bi se postiglo smanjenje utjecaja na okoliš u usporedbi s trenutnom praksom u bioplinskim postrojenjima koja uključuje korištenje kukuruzne silaže i proizvodnju električne energije uz zajamčenu otkupnu cijenu. Mjesto nastanka, tip biomase, te njezine količine bitan su faktor za strateško pozicioniranje novih bioplinskih postrojenja, te za planiranje novih lanaca opskrbe sirovinama u postojećim postrojenjima. Geografski informacijski sustav (eng. Geographic Information System, GIS) [6] prepoznat je kao vrijedan alat za mapiranje potencijala izvora biomase, kao i određivanje transportnih udaljenosti od mjesta nastanka biomase do postrojenja. GIS analiza na razini EU pokazala je ukupni energetski potencijal za proizvodnju bioplina iz poljoprivrednih ostataka i životinjske gnojovke na godišnjoj razini jednak 0.7 EJ (oko 195 TWh) [7], što je dvostruko više nego proizvodnja bioplina iz tih supstrata ostvarena u 2016 godini u EU. Primjenom GIS alata na lokalnoj razini u Grčkoj, Sjedinjenim Američkim Državama i Finskoj pokazano je da ekonomski prihvatljive transportne udaljenosti za supstrate mogu varirati između 10 i 40 km [8–10]. Povećanjem radijusa raspoloživosti biomase povećava se i kapacitet postrojenja čime je moguće ostvariti veću proizvodnju obnovljive energije, no istovremeno stvara se dodatan teret na okoliš, kako je još uvijek većina biomase transportirana teretnim vozilima na fosilna goriva [10]. Ono što također treba uzeti u obzir prilikom procjene korištenja biomase u bioplinskom postrojenju je njezina tržišna vrijednost, odnosno plaća li bioplinsko postrojenje za biomasu, ili dobiva naknadu za njezino gospodarenje (eng. Gate fee, GF). U postojećim okvirima proizvodnje bioplina, cijena kukuruzne silaže je između 15 i 40 € po toni sirovine [11], dok alternativni izvori biomase (npr. miješani komunalni biootpad i otpadna hrana) postižu GF u iznosu od -60 do 0 €/tona [11]. Nakon što biomasa uđe u prostor bioplinskog postrojenja, potrebno ju je adekvatno pripremiti za proces anaerobne razgradnje. U tu svrhu mogu se koristiti metode predobrade koje se služe termičkim, mehaničkim, kemijskim ili biološkim postupcima (ili nekim njihovim kombinacijama) [12]. Metode predobrade služe kako bi potaknule proces razgradnje kompleksnih polimernih molekula prisutnih u organskoj tvari, čime se postiže viša konverzija biomase u bioplin [13]. Uspješnost razgradnje biomase te proizvodnje bioplina, kao i stabilnost u procesu određuju se eksperimentalnim mjerenjima, pri čemu se prate procesne varijable kao što su sadržaj suhe tvari (eng. Dry Matter, DM, ili Total Solids, TS), proizvodnja i sastav bioplina, pH, koncentracija hlapljivih masnih kiselina (eng. Volatile Fatty Acids, VFA), ukupni anorganski ugljik (eng. Total Inorganic Carbon, TIC), prisutnost amonijakalnog dušika (eng. Ammonium-nitrogen, NH4-N), koncentracija soli, teških metala i ostalo [14]. Na temelju vrijednosti navedenih procesnih varijabli operatori bioplinskih postrojenja znaju odvija li se proces unutar dozvoljenih vrijednosti te kako reagirati ukoliko je primijećena nestabilnost u procesu. Eksperimentalni podatci također služe za modeliranje kinetike anaerobne razgradnje [15] pri čemu se ovisnosti o kompleksnosti ulaznih podataka i traženih rezultata mogu primijeniti razni kinetički modeli [16–18]. Složeniji modeli zahtijevaju veći broj ulaznih podataka, ali također daju i detaljniji uvid u mehanizam reakcija i otkrivanju tzv. uskog grla procesa koji određuje ukupnu brzinu nastanka bioplina. Osim bioplina, drugi proizvod anaerobne razgradnje je digestat kojeg čine nerazgrađeni ostatci biomase u tekućoj fazi [19]. Tekuća frakcija digestata je obično bogata makronutrijentima – dušikom (N), fosforom (P) i kalijem (K), što ju čini primjenjivom kao gnojivo za tlo [20]. Čvrsta frakcija digestata također sadrži P, ali i zaostali organski ugljik (C) što ga čini prikladnim za poboljšavanje karakteristika tla, kompostiranje [21] ili za neki od oblika energetske oporabe [22]. Prednost korištenja digestata u opisanim načinima leži u činjenici da je njegova tržišna vrijednost mala, tek 2-4 €/t [23]. Proizvedeni bioplin najčešće se koristi kao gorivo u kombiniranoj proizvodnji električne i toplinske energije, kogeneracija (eng. Combined Heat and Power, CHP). Proteklih desetljeća na razini EU mehanizmi subvencija za bioplinske kogeneracije u vidu feed-in-tariffa i feed-in-premija rezultirale su intenzivnom penetracijom bioplina u elektroenergetski sektor [24]. Razina subvencija je definirana na nacionalnoj razini, ali u svim članicama EU nije niža od 80 €/MWhel, što je gotovo dvostruko veći iznos od prosječne veleprodajne tržišne cijene električne energije u EU [25]. Također, ono što je važno napomenuti jest da su subvencije izdane na određeni period (12-20 godina od statusa stjecanja povlaštenog proizvođača električne energije [26]) nakon čega će bioplinska postrojenja morati razmotriti neke druge načine iskorištavanja (eng. Utilisation) bioplina da bi zadržale ekonomski isplativo poslovanje. Prema podatcima Europske udruge za bioplin (eng. European Biogas Association, EBA) u 2020. godini u Europi je bilo instalirano 18,943 bioplinskih postrojenja, od kojih je 18,214 (96%) radilo u kogeneracijskom načinu, a ostalih 4% kao postrojenja za proizvodnju biometana kroz tehnologiju poboljšavanja bioplina (eng. Biogas upgrading) odnosno uklanjanje svih ne-CH4 komponenti bioplina [27]. Ova doktorska disertacija detaljno razlaže inovativnije načine iskorištavanja bioplina u budućim energetskim sustavima, što će uključivati rad kogeneracijskih postrojenja u tržišnim okvirima [28], pretvorbu bioplina u biometan te proizvodnju e-metana kroz implementaciju power-to-gas (P2G) koncepta [29] u sustavima s visokim udjelom energije iz varijabilnih OIE. Primjena procjene životnog ciklusa (eng. Life Cycle Assessment, LCA) [30] može otkriti utjecaje promjene politika sirovina u proizvodnji bioplina i njegovog iskorištavanja u sprezi s budućim energetskim sustavima u odnosu na okoliš. Usporedba LCA performansi za bioplinsko postrojenje koje koristi životinjsku gnojovku i energetske usjeve pokazala je da bioplin za proizvodnju električne energije stvara uštede od oko 300 kgCO2-eq/MWhel, dok upgrading bioplina u biometan i njegovo ubrizgavanje u plinsku mrežu štedi oko 191 kgCO2-eq za proizvedeni MWh biometana [31]. Za preglednije tumačenje opisanih rezultata potrebno je izraziti emisije istom jedinicom, ali i prezentirati podatke o sastavu miksa električne energije (eng. Electricity mix). Za slučaj Irske, LCA je pokazao da integracija P2G koncepta za upgrading bioplina, uz korištenje električnog miksa od 85% OIE, može rezultirati smanjenjem GHG emisija za 70% u odnosu na fosilna goriva [32]. Na temelju pregleda literature (detaljniji prikaz u poglavlju Introduction), dosad nije zabilježeno istraživanje u području anaerobne razgradnje koje povezuje mapiranje i korištenje ostatne i otpadne biomase za proizvodnju bioplina sa njegovim iskorištavanjem u budućim energetskim sustavima. Ova doktorska disertacija je ocijenila takav cjeloviti pristup i predstavila rezultate istraživanja iz perspektive jednog, odnosno više bioplinskih postrojenja. Interdisciplinarni i cjeloviti pristup prema promatranoj temi koristio je elemente kemijskog i strojarskog inženjerstva za ispunjavanje četiri glavna cilja istraživanja: • • Kvantificirati proizvodnju bioplina koristeći nove supstrate biomase kao što su lignocelulozni ostatci iz poljoprivredne proizvodnje, otpadna hrana i industrijski nusproizvodi koji nisu konkurentni proizvodnji hrane, kao što je to slučaj s kukuruznom silažom u sadašnjoj proizvodnji bioplina. • • Procijeniti kinetičke parametre anaerobne razgradnje novih supstrata kombinirajući matematičko modeliranje i eksperimentalne podatke kako bi utvrdili utjecaj kemijskog sastava supstrata na stabilnost procesa i eventualna ograničenja u procesu. • • Utvrditi ekonomski isplative načine budućeg rada bioplinskih postrojenja na naprednim energetskim tržištima nakon što bioplinska postrojenja ostanu bez financijskih potpora i zajamčene cijene električne energije. • • Procijeniti utjecaje na okoliš različitih načina korištenja bioplina integriranih u buduće energetske sustave s visokim udjelom obnovljivih izvora energije. Ostvareni ciljevi istraživanja te rezultati prezentirani su široj znanstvenoj zajednici kroz sedam objavljenih znanstvenih radova (šest radova u kvartilu Q1 te jedan rad u Q2). Znanstveni članak 1 (ARTICLE 1) [33] prikazuje detaljnu analizu lanaca vrijednosti biomase iz različitih poljoprivrednih ostatka, nusproizvoda i otpada (eng. Agricultural wastes, co-products and by-products, AWCB). Rad opisuje faze u kojima i kako nastaje otpad kroz tri specifična koraka u lancu vrijednosti: proizvodnja/uzgoj, obrada u industriji te potrošnja/konzumacija. Analiza uključuje razdoblje od 7 godina, od 2010. do 2016. u 28 zemalja članica Europske unije (EU28) te uključuje četiri različita sektora sa 26 analiziranih dobara (eng. Commodity) i prikladnim vrstama otpada koji se pojavljuju u tim sektorima. Za izračun tehničkog potencijala AWCB korišteni su javno dostupni podaci iz EUROSTAT i FAOSTAT baze, a metoda proračuna uključivala je upotrebu specifične količine AWCB po analiziranim dobrima i sektoru. Rezultati su pokazali da je u analiziranom periodu u EU28 procijenjena količina AWCB iznosila oko 18,4 milijarde tona, a prema udjelima: animalni sektor ~ 31%, sektor povrća ~ 44%, sektor žitarica ~ 22% te sektor voća ~ 2%. Analizirajući pojedine sektore i količine nastalog AWCB, daljnje istraživanje bilo je usmjereno na evaluaciju korištenja određenih AWCB iz lanca vrijednosti biomase u procesu anaerobne razgradnje s ciljem proizvodnje bioplina. Znanstveni članci 2, 3 i 4 pokazuju rezultate takvog pristupa uz primjenu istraživačkih metoda kemijskog inženjerstva. ARTICLE 2 [34] istražuje upotrebu lignoceluloznih ostataka trave kao zamjene za silažu kukuruza u anaerobnoj razgradnji. Uzorci trave prikupljeni su s područja koja nisu kompetitivna s proizvodnjom hrane: neobrađeno zemljište, obala rijeke Save u gradu Zagrebu te bankina autoceste. U istraživanju je određen svježi i suhi prinos biomase, njezin kemijski sastav, prinos te sastav proizvedenog bioplina, a primjenom Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1 (ADM1) modela određeni su kinetički parametri razgradnje trave. Ujedno, na kraju je dana usporedba okolišnijih učinaka zamjene kukuruzne silaže ostatnom travom u proizvodnji električne i toplinske energije. Rezultati istraživanja su pokazali da je najveći prinos ostatne trave utvrđen za obalu rijeke, sa prosječnom vrijednošću od 19 t/ha svježe mase i 2.6 t/ha suhe mase. Svi uzorci trave pokazali su zadovoljavajuće parametre za primjenu u anaerobnoj razgradnji − omjer C/N između 16.6: 1 do 22.8: 1. Ostvareni biokemijski potencijal metana u monorazgradnji (monodigestiji) ostataka trave su: 0.275 Nm3/kgTS za travu s neobrađenog zemljišta, 0.192 Nm3/kgTS za travu s obale rijeke i 0.255 Nm3/kgTS za travu s bankine autoceste. Procijenjeni kinetički parametri razgradnje trave razlikuju se od do sada objavljenih rezultata, prvenstveno zato što prijašnje analize uključuju specifične tipove travnate biomase, a ne ostatnu (miješanu) travu. Procijenjeni okolišniji utjecaji zamjene kukuruzne silaže travnatom biomasom u proizvodnji električne i toplinske energije pokazali su prednosti u smislu ostvarenog doprinosa kvaliteti ekosustava (eng. Ecosystem quality) i ljudskog zdravlja (eng. Human health), no također i nešto veće emisije GHG uzrokovane izgaranjem fosilnih goriva u poljoprivrednoj mehanizaciji i povećanim transportom trave zbog nižeg prinosa bioplina u odnosu na silažu. Čvrsta frakcija digestata dobivena u procesu monodigestije trave korištena je u znanstvenom članku 3 (ARTICLE 3) kao ulazni materijal za istraživanje procesa pirolize. Cilj istraživanja u ARTICLE 3 [35] bio je odrediti utjecaj anaerobne razgradnje na sastav lignocelulozne biomase korištenjem termogravimetrijske analize (eng. Thermogravimetric analysis, TGA). Također, procijenjeni su iznosi energije aktivacije i modificiranog predeksponencijalnog faktora za travu i njezine digestate, kao i prinos konačnog ostatka pirolize (eng. Biochar). Rezultati su pokazali da je procijenjena količina razgrađene celuloze i hemiceluloze u istraživanim uzrocima trave oko 44–50%. Nadalje, digestati trave pokazali su veći prinos biochar-a (oko 38%) u odnosu na uzorke trave (oko 24%). Kombinirani proces anaerobne razgradnje trave i pirolize njezinih digestata pokazao je manje vrijednosti procijenjenih kinetičkih parametra što upućuje na niže energetske potrebe takvog procesa u odnosu na direktnu pirolizu trave. ARTICLE 4 [36] bio je izrađen u suradnji sa industrijom biomase i bioplina. U radu je eksperimentalno istražena razgradnja otpadne hrane (eng. Food waste, FW) iz bioplinskog postrojenja zajedno s nusproizvodnima iz kafilerije (eng. Rendering plant): mesno-koštano brašno (eng. Meat and bone meal, MBM) i mulj sa otpadnih voda (eng. Wastewater sludge, WWS). Prvo je provedena termička predobrada uzoraka FW (FW1 i FW2) pri temperaturi od 35 °C i trajanju 5 dana u koju su bili dodani MBM i WWS u udjelima od 5, 10 i 15% TS. Nakon toga slijedila je anaerobna razgradnja pri 40.5 °C u trajanju od 40 dana. Uvjeti termičke predobrade i proizvodnje bioplina u laboratorijskom mjerilu replicirani su iz rada samog bioplinskog postrojenja. Također, za vrijeme procesa u laboratoriju bile su praćene sve procesne varijable kao i u radu digestora na postrojenju. Kao rezultat predobrade kemijska potrošnja kisika (eng. Chemical Oxygen Demand, COD) ispitivanih uzoraka povećala se za 7 – 26%. Dodavanjem MBM u FW1 došlo je do povećanja vrijednosti COD kao i NH4-N, dok se u slučaju dodatka WWS u FW2 postiglo smanjenje, što je i bilo očekivano, budući da je WWS materijal s niskim udjelom organske tvari. Kao rezultat testa anaerobne razgradnje dobiveni su sljedeći prinosi bioplina: za FW1 – 0.566 Nm3/kg TS, za FW1-MBM – 0.499 Nm3/kg TS, za FW2 – 0.252 Nm3/kg TS i 0.195 Nm3/kg TS za FW2-WWS. Tako širok raspon vrijednosti rezultat je heterogenosti FW (FW1 i FW 2 uzete su s vremenskim razmakom od dva mjeseca na istom postrojenju). Prema sastavu proizvedenog bioplina, kao i ostalim procesnim varijablama može se zaključiti da su FW1 i FW2 vrlo slični po sastavu, ali da je istovremeno postojao neki uzročnik inhibicije u proizvodnji bioplina za uzorak FW2, koji se nije mogao procijeniti na temelju dostupne opreme i provedenih mjerenja. Tek su mjerenja električne vodljivosti ukazala na to da uzorak FW2 sadrži nešto veću koncentraciju soli koja bi mogla biti uzročnik smanjenog prinosa bioplina. Nusproizvodi kafilerije dodani u 5%-tnom udjelu uzrocima FW rezultirali su smanjenjem proizvodnje bioplina za 12% u slučaju MBM i 23% u slučaju WWS, ali nisu utjecali na stabilnost proizvodnje. Štoviše, analizom kinetike razgradnje ustanovljeno je da MBM i WWS ubrzavaju proces razgradnje FW što se vidi iz višeg iznosa reakcijske konstante. Također, pokazano je da ispitivani uzorci najbolje koreliraju sa kinetikom prvog reda što je vidljivo iz najniže ostvarene vrijednosti RMSE (eng. Root mean square error) koja je iznosila 0.015 Nm3/kg TS. U znanstvenom članku 5 (ARTICLE 5) [37] provedena je tehno-ekonomska i scenarijska analiza rada bioplinskog postrojenja nakon isteka subvencija za proizvodnju električne energije. Vođenje takvog sustava temeljilo se na iznosu cijena električne energije i biometana (eng. Unit commitment with economic dispatch) koje su određivale koja od jedinica za prihvat bioplina: CHP, upgrading ili spremnik ima najveću ekonomsku isplativost u danom trenutku. Za opis dinamike korišten je program MATLAB/Simulink, a za ekonomsku analizu MS Excel. U prvom scenariju prikazan je utjecaj cijene proizvodnje električne energije u bioplinskom postrojenju (eng. Break-even point of electricity production, BECPel) na broj radnih sati kada ono može ostvariti svojevrstan profit na dan-unaprijed tržištu (eng. Day-ahead market) električne energije. Rezultati su pokazali da kada vrijednost BECPel postane 40 €/MWhel, bioplinsko postrojenje može ostvariti (neki) profit radeći samo 4,000 sati godišnje, kako je ostalo vrijeme cijena električne energije na tržištu niža od cijene proizvodnje. Kada BECPel postane 100 €/MWhel bioplinsko postrojenje ne može ostvariti nikakav profit radeći na dan-unaprijed tržištu. Kao jedno od rješenja koje se nameće za smanjenje vrijednosti BECPel je korištenje supstrata s negativnom cijenom (GF model) koja je detaljnije prikazana u članku 6 (ARTICLE 6). Drugi scenarij uključivao je instaliranje upgrading jedinice i proizvodnju biometana, a proizvodnja električne energije ovisila je o cijenama na tržištu uravnoteženja (eng. Balancing market). Takav pristup je pokazao da bioplinsko postrojenje i uz relativno visoku cijenu biometana od 80 €/MWh, može u određenim trenutcima ostvariti i veći profit ako radi na balancing tržištu. Treći scenarij za bioplinsko postrojenje uključivao je integraciju industrijskog otpada iz proizvodnje šećera za proizvodnju bioplina i njegovo korištenje za proizvodnju procesne topline u vrijeme šećerne kampanje. Takav pristup pokazao se relativno neisplativim za bioplinsko postrojenje kako je cijena prirodnog plina na veleprodajnom tržištu još uvijek dosta niska i bioplin joj ne može u tom smislu biti konkurentan. ARTICLE 6 [38] predstavlja rezultate integracije P2G koncepta u rad bioplinskog postrojenja koje se nalazi u GF poslovnom modelu, odnosno prima naknadu za ulazni supstrat pri proizvodnji bioplina. Cilj istraživanja bio je razviti robustan matematički model na satnoj razini za procjenu optimalnih kapaciteta vjetroelektrane i solarne elektrane, veličine spremnika za bioplin te kapacitete elektrolizera, upgrading jedinice i metanatora (eng. Methanation unit) koristeći linearno programiranje i besplatni (eng. Open source) programski jezik Julia. Kao funkcija cilja korištena je minimizacija ukupnih troškova. Matematički model testiran je na postojećoj bioplinskoj elektrani instalirane snage 1 MWel. Utvrđeno je da P2G koncept zahtijeva integraciju 18 MWel vjetra i 9 MWel solara na lokaciji, uz dodatan uvoz električne energije iz mreže u iznosu 16 GWhel kako bi se na godišnjoj razini proizvelo 36 GWh obnovljivog metana. Analiza je pokazala da GF (u promatranom slučaju za otpadnu hranu) značajno doprinosi ekonomskoj održivosti obnovljivog metana: promjena GF za 100 €/toni rezultira smanjenjem troškova njegove proizvodnje za 20-60%. Ustanovljeno je da za vrijednost GF=-120 €/tona obnovljivi metan iz prikazanog koncepta postaje cjenovno konkurentan prirodnom plinu. Robusna priroda modela pokazala je da nesigurnosti povezane s proizvodnjom električne energije iz vjetra i solara na lokaciji mogu povećati troškove proizvodnje obnovljivog metana za 10-30%. ARTICLE 7 [39] integralno obuhvaća rezultate svih dotad objavljenih radova u sklopu izrade doktorske disertacije i smješta ih u kontekst testiranja hipoteze. U njemu je provedena geoprostorna analiza (eng. Geospatial analysis) bioplinskog sektora korištenjem javno dostupnog programa QGIS te procjena okolišnijih utjecaja pomoću programa SimaPro. Cilj rada bio je mapirati energetski potencijal otpadne trave, industrijskih nusproizvoda i otpada, te komunalnog biootpada (otpadne hrane) za zamjenu kukuruzne silaže u postojećoj proizvodnji bioplina te planiranje proširenja bioplinskog sektora. Kao studija slučaja (eng. Case study) korištena je Sjeverna Hrvatska (eng. Northern Croatia), područje s intenzivnim bioplinskim sektorom te snažnom industrijom, poljoprivredom i velikom gustoćom stanovništva. Rezultati su pokazali da bi navedene sirovine mogle zamijeniti 212 GWh bioplina iz kukuruzne silaže u postojećim bioplinskim postrojenjima te stvoriti dodatnih 191 GWh biometana u novim postrojenjima. Također, geoprostorna analiza je pokazala da su neka bioplinska postrojenja izgrađena u neposrednoj blizini plinske transportne mreže (<2km udaljenosti) i da imaju potencijal za utiskivanje biometana u plinsku mrežu. Cjelokupna analiza utjecaja na okoliš postojećih bioplinskih postrojenja pokazala je da integralni pristup proizvodnji i korištenju bioplina stvara sinergijske učinke u smislu smanjenja opterećenja na okoliš, što izravno dokazuje hipotezu studije. Kompleksnost P2G koncepta i njegovi intenzivni energetski zahtjevi čine ga trenutno nepovoljnijim u usporedbi sa klasičnim upgradingom bioplina, no isti dolazi do izražaja kada se u razmatranje uzmu budući energetski sustavi s visokim udjelom OIE. Znanstveni doprinosi ovog rada ostvareni su kroz provedena istraživanja te prikazani kroz objavljene rezultate u radovima kako slijedi: • Eksperimentalnim istraživanjem anaerobne razgradnje novih supstrata biomase odredit će se potencijalne prepreke u proizvodnji bioplina, poput pojave inhibicije ili utjecaja tipa biomase na stabilnost procesa: ARTICLE 2: Ustanovljeno je da lignocelulozna biomasa u obliku ostatne trave ne sadrži fizikalno-kemijske karakteristike koje bi ograničile njezinu upotrebu za proizvodnju bioplina. Štoviše, pokazalo se da ista uzrokuje poboljšanu kontrolu pH što doprinosi stabilnosti proizvodnje bioplina. Nedostatak njezinog korištenja je taj što je za ostvarivanje većih prinosa potrebno primijeniti neki oblik predobrade. ARTICLE 4: Heterogenost otpadne hrane utječe na vođenje procesa za što je potrebno ustanoviti robusnu kontrolu procesnih varijabli. Pokazalo se da i na razini bioplinskog postrojenja postoje neke varijable koje se ne prate na dnevnoj razini (prisutnost soli i metala), a koje mogu uzurpirati proizvodnju bioplina. Ustanovljeno je da kafilerijski nusprodukti i otpad u manjim količinama mogu doprinijeti povećanju brzine razgradnje otpadne hrane. • Predložiti alternativne mjere za trenutni sektor bioplina uzimajući u obzir tržišne cijene i analizu utjecaja na okoliš koristeći pristup procjene životnog ciklusa. ARTICLE 5: Alternativne mjere za bioplinski sektor u vidu proizvodnje biometana i rada bioplinskih postrojenja na day-ahead i balancing tržištu električnom energijom pokazala se kao najvjerojatnija opcija nakon napuštanja poticajnih sustava za proizvodnju električne energije. U takvim okvirima tranzicija s kukuruzne silaže na supstrate alternativne supstrate postati će prihvatljiva operativna odluka uz dodatne investicije u novu opremu. ARTICLE 6: Integracija varijabilnih OIE u rad bioplinskih postrojenja pokazala je da će se u budućnosti paradigma bioplinskih postrojenja kao takvih promijeniti – više neće biti samo pasivni proizvođači struje, nego će postati aktivni sudionici na tržištima energijom. ARTICLE 2: Pokazano je da otpadana trava više doprinosi kvaliteti ekosustava i ljudskom zdravlju nego kukuruzna silaža, iako uzrokuje veće emisije stakleničkih plinova, prvenstveno zbog intenzivnijih potreba za transportom na fosilna goriva. ARTICLE 7: LCA predloženih mjera za sektor bioplina koje uključuju zamjenu kukuruzne silaže alternativnih oblicima biomase te iskorištavanje bioplina u sustavima s visokim udjelom OIE pokazala je sinergistički efekt u smislu smanjenja cjelokupnog tereta na okoliš. Analiza je također pokazala da je integracija P2G u promatranim okvirima još uvijek neatraktivna zbog kompleksnosti sustava i energetski intenzivnih procesa. • Napredni model geografskog informacijskog sustava mapiranja novih izvora biomase koji će u kombinaciji s različitim načinima korištenja bioplina integriranim u sustave visokih obnovljivih izvora energije u naprednim energetskim tržištima rezultirati robusnim matematičkim modelima primjenjivim na različite slučajeve bioplinskih postrojenja. ARTICLE 6: Razvijeni robusni model integracije P2G koncepta u rad bioplinskog postrojenja pokazao je sinergiju između GF poslovnog modela te integracije obnovljive električne energije i topline koji su objedinjeni u postavljenoj matematičkoj formulaciji nivelirane cijene obnovljivog metana (eng. Levelized cost of renewable methane, LCORM). ARTICLE 7: Razvijeni GIS model obuhvaća analizu postojećih bioplinskih postrojenja i pozicioniranje budućih biometanskih postrojenja na temelju geoprostorne analize dostupnih alternativnih supstrata i položaja plinske mreže. Hipoteza ovog istraživanja je da je primjenom cjelovitog pristupa u radu bioplinskih postrojenja, i na strani proizvodnje i iskorištavanja bioplina, moguće povećati ekonomsku profitabilnost i doprinos zaštiti okoliša u usporedbi s trenutnim subvencioniranim radom. Kroz provedena istraživanja hipoteza je testirana i potvrđena uzevši u obzir sljedeće: • Ekonomska profitabilnost bioplinskih postrojenja nakon napuštanja subvencija i ograničenja u korištenju kukuruzne silaže bit će teže ostvariva. Uključivat će implementaciju GF poslovnog modela za supstrate za što će biti potrebne nove investicije po pitanju linije za predobradu, povećanje kapaciteta za spremanje bioplina na lokaciji kako bi postrojenje bilo fleksibilnije na tržištu električne energije te dodatne investicije u sustav za proizvodnju obnovljivog metana, prvenstveno biometana. • Cjeloviti pristup pokazao je da će doprinos budućeg bioplinskog sektora smanjenju okolišnih tereta ići kroz dvostruki doprinos: iz gospodarenja otpadom za proizvodnju bioplina koji će uključivati prvenstveno komunalni i industrijski biootpad u urbanim bioplinskim postrojenjima, a poljoprivredne ostatke u ruralnim bioplinskim postrojenjima, te iskorištavanja bioplina za proizvodnju obnovljive energije u vidu biometana.

Chapter 1 -- The construction and destruction of successful agricultural lands: case study of viticultural areas in Northern Mexico. Chapter 2 -- Pastoralism and achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: a missing piece of the puzzle. Chapter 3 -- Trends in the use of groundwater in dry lands of Mexico: case of a complex urbanized socio -- ecosystem of the Chihuahua desert. Chapter 4 -- The socio -- ecological systems approach to research the integrated aquifer management in an agricultural dryland in Mexico. Chapter 5 -- Assessment of climate change impact on drought and flood regime using climatological data derived from GLDAS -- 1, GLDAS -- 2, and MERRA -- 2 over semi -- arid zones of northern Mexico: analysis of temporal patterns of precipitation. Chapter 6 -- Understanding Drylands with a transdisciplinary and participatory approach: participatory observatories and the case of RISZA. Chapter 7 -- Sustainable development Goals and drylands. Chapter 8 -- Conservation and Development in the Mapimi Biosphere: a transdisciplinary and participatory project to understand climate change adaptation. Chapter 9 -- Education for sustainable development (ESD): expert net as promoter of transdisciplinarity through the SDGs. Chapter 10 -- The forced modernization of the Altiplano: disruption of the ecosystem function of the dryland zones in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. Chapter 11 -- Sustainable development in modern times: forgotten native communities in northwestern México. Chapter 12 -- Looking at the past to face the challenges for sustainable development in drylands: the protection of the biocultural heritage in the Tehuacán -- Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve. Chapter 13 -- The Agadir Platform: a tripartite transatlantic cooperation to achieve sustainable Dryland. Chapter 14 -- The Atlas Workshops of Agdz, Morocco: a model region for a scientific -- artistic dialogue. Chapter 15 -- Drylands, aridification and land governance in Latin America: a regional geospatial perspective. Chapter 16 -- Vulnerability to the effects of climate change: coastal watersheds of arid Mexico. Chapter 17 -- Desert experts through time: traditional hunter -- gatherers from Northern Mexico and its implications for resource management and governance. Chapter 18 -- Governing drylands through Environmental Mainstreaming: how to cope with natural resources scarcity and climate change

Several studies on spatial patterns of COVID-19 show huge differences depending on the country or region under study, although there is some agreement that socioeconomic factors a ect these phenomena. The aim of this paper is to increase the knowledge of the socio-spatial behavior of coronavirus and implementing a geospatial methodology and digital system called SITAR (Fast Action Territorial Information System, by its Spanish acronym). We analyze as a study case a region of Spain called Cantabria, geocoding a daily series of microdata coronavirus records provided by the health authorities (Government of Cantabria-Spain) with the permission of Medicines Ethics Committee from Cantabria (CEIm, June 2020). Geocoding allows us to provide a new point layer based on the microdata table that includes cases with a positive result in a COVID-19 test. Regarding general methodology, our research is based on Geographical Information Technologies using Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) Technologies. This tool is a global reference for spatial COVID-19 research, probably due to the world-renowned COVID-19 dashboard implemented by the Johns Hopkins University team. In our analysis, we found that the spatial distribution of COVID-19 in urban locations presents a not random distribution with clustered patterns and density matters in the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, large metropolitan areas or districts with a higher number of persons tightly linked together through economic, social, and commuting relationships are the most vulnerable to pandemic outbreaks, particularly in our case study. Furthermore, public health and geoprevention plans should avoid the idea of economic or territorial stigmatizations. We hold the idea that SITAR in particular and Geographic Information Technologies in general contribute to strategic spatial information and relevant results with a necessary multi-scalar perspective to control the pandemic. ; This research was funded by Government of Cantabria (Spain) grant number UC: 10.3834.64001 called "Asistencia en la adecuación de Cantabria al plan para la transición haca una nueva normalidad en tiempos del Covid-19: aportaciones socioeconómicas" University of Cantabria—IDIVAL Valdecilla—Government of Cantabria (Spain). And the APC was funded by IDIVAL support program.

Now-a-days, collecting accurate and meaningful information about the urban localities/environment with the maximum efficiency in terms of cost and time has become more relevant for urban, rural and city level development planning and administration. This work presents a technical procedure for automatic extraction of building information and characterization of different urban building types within the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) jurisdiction areas using UAVs. The methodology consists of a number of sequential processes of acquisition and generation of high resolution Orthomosaic images, creation of 3D point cloud data, and image classification algorithm for feature extraction using exclusively the geometric coordinates. The main parameters of the urban structures/buildings assessed in this work are site area of the building, built-up area, and building dimensions, building setbacks and building height. Different geometric and appropriate metrics were automatically extracted for each of the elements, defining the urban typology. In this study, residential and commercial buildings were considered for the analysis and the measurements from Drone were validated with respective approved plans and manual inspections and showed positive results with threshold parameters like setbacks and height as per building bye-laws of Andhra Pradesh Government Order (G.O) 119. Based on the results, measurements from Drone are used for the buildings occupancy permissions following the State government building rules. This automated system would replace physical inspections and manual reports and significantly reduce costs and improve efficiency. As an important component in this pilot study, visualisation of the building information were represented / displayed on a web application in an interactive mode. This added value of UAV technology with an automated system in comparison with traditional ways provides geospatial information and can also be considered as an essential Earth Observation indicator which has the potential to lead to next generation Urban Information Services and in the Smart cities development. The considerable potential use of these indicators in urban planning and development offers an opportunity in appropriate decision making in day to day urban planning measures.

Now-a-days, collecting accurate and meaningful information about the urban localities/environment with the maximum efficiency in terms of cost and time has become more relevant for urban, rural and city level development planning and administration. This work presents a technical procedure for automatic extraction of building information and characterization of different urban building types within the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) jurisdiction areas using UAVs. The methodology consists of a number of sequential processes of acquisition and generation of high resolution Orthomosaic images, creation of 3D point cloud data, and image classification algorithm for feature extraction using exclusively the geometric coordinates. The main parameters of the urban structures/buildings assessed in this work are site area of the building, built-up area, and building dimensions, building setbacks and building height. Different geometric and appropriate metrics were automatically extracted for each of the elements, defining the urban typology. In this study, residential and commercial buildings were considered for the analysis and the measurements from Drone were validated with respective approved plans and manual inspections and showed positive results with threshold parameters like setbacks and height as per building bye-laws of Andhra Pradesh Government Order (G.O) 119. Based on the results, measurements from Drone are used for the buildings occupancy permissions following the State government building rules. This automated system would replace physical inspections and manual reports and significantly reduce costs and improve efficiency. As an important component in this pilot study, visualisation of the building information were represented / displayed on a web application in an interactive mode. This added value of UAV technology with an automated system in comparison with traditional ways provides geospatial information and can also be considered as an essential Earth Observation indicator which has the potential to lead to next generation Urban Information Services and in the Smart cities development. The considerable potential use of these indicators in urban planning and development offers an opportunity in appropriate decision making in day to day urban planning measures.

IntroductionHealth and environmental exposure databases are generally siloed in different research institutions across Canada and integrating them for environmental health research is a considerable challenge. Facilitating the linkage of these databases is essential to provide new analytical opportunities and help create efficiencies for research on environmental determinants of health.
Objectives and ApproachCANUE is a Canadian Institutes of Health Research-funded platform for supporting environmental health research. CANUE collates and generates standardized environmental data on air and noise pollution, land use, green/natural spaces, climate change/extreme weather, and socioeconomic conditions for every postal code in Canada and makes them freely available to researchers. Systems and procedures are being developed by CANUE to facilitate the sharing and integration of these extensive geospatial exposures with existing observational cohorts and administrative health databases across Canada. This linkage will enable investigators to test hypotheses on the interdependent associations of environmental features with health impacts or benefits.
ResultsCANUE now hosts a dozen national exposure databases and related metadata files, and actively adds new regional and national datasets. Streamlined processes for data sharing have been developed to facilitate easy merging with health data. Substantial consultation has also taken place with a wide range of health data holders to establish appropriate processes for receiving and managing environmental data, with particular focus on addressing challenges presented by differing ethics, consent and confidentiality requirements. These processes help accelerate the research process by making analysis-ready data available to investigators, create opportunities to study how multiple environmental factors are linked to a wide range of health outcomes, and generally increase the use of health and population databases for environmental health research.
Conclusion/ImplicationsThe CANUE collaborative model illustrates how the production of policy-relevant evidence can be advanced through better coordination among environmental health researchers and linkage with health databases. CANUE is improving the scientific potential and cost-effectiveness of research in environmental epidemiology through streamlining linkage and access to standardized exposure datasets.

Presentamos el desarrollo de una herramienta web que permite consultar información y realizar cálculos básicos para la implementación de sistemas de energía solar en la provincia de Salta. Surge de la interacción entre el sector académico-científico (grupo Planificación Energética y Gestión Territorial del Instituto de Investigación en Energías No Convencionales) y el sector gubernamental a nivel provincial (Secretaría de Energía de Salta). Fue realizado en un entorno SIG (Sistemas de Información Geográfica) mediante la utilización de metodologías ágiles de desarrollo de software. El Sistema de Información Solar (SISol) generado cuenta con cinco módulos. Dos de ellos de consulta geoespacial de radiación solar y temperatura, otros dos de análisis técnico y financiero para la instalación de sistemas fotovoltaicos y de colectores solares para agua caliente. El último con la documentación de respaldo. Será un facilitador al acceso a la información y la toma de decisiones en el ámbito público y privado. ; The work presents the development of a web tool that allows consulting information and performing basic calculations for the implementation of solar energy systems in the province of Salta. The application arises from the interaction between the academic-scientific sector (Energy Planning and Territorial Management group of the Research Institute in Unconventional Energies) and the governmental sector at provincial level (Secretariat of Energy of Salta). The program was carried out in a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) environment with agile software development methodologies. The Solar Information System (SISol) generated has five interfaces or modules. The first two allow the geospatial query of solar radiation and temperature. Modules 3 and 4 allow a technical and financial analysis for the installation of photovoltaic systems and solar collectors for hot water. The last interface presents the supporting documentation for the calculations and provides technical and operational details of the program. It is expected that this application will have a positive impact on the implementation of renewable energy policies in the province, facilitating access to information and decision-making in the public and private sectors. ; Asociación Argentina de Energías Renovables y Medio Ambiente (ASADES)

ln 2001, Brazil was able to eliminate the outbreaks of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) in bovine herds. After that, meat exports had an increase of 200%. However, in September 2005 occurred a FMD outbreak in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul (MS) and Parana, and then, not only them, but also other states, lost the status of the "FMD free zone with vaccination" and they were forbidden to export meat to other countries. According ta Gazeta Mercantil Journal (2005) the loss related to the return of the FMD disease in Mato Grosso do Sul, reached US$ 1.5 billion, due to commercial restriction of meat exportations. Only in July, 2008, after three years of the outbreak, Mato Grosso do Sul was considered free with vaccination by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). Because of the different production systems, socio-economical conditions and geographieal eharaeteristie over the State of Mato Grosso do Sul, which has one of the Brazilian's biggest bovine herd (20-million heads) working on FMD risk assessment of FMD involves to address the problematic with an holistie approach. The aim of the Ph.D. project is to analyze the potential use of geographical informations as weil as geospatial tools (maps, satellite images) and use with OTAG decisional support system to make risk assessment of FMD. Two experimental eounties in the state of Mato Grosso do Su 1 in the frontier between Brazi 1 and Paraguay eonsidered by the Brazi 1ian Government a high surveillance region for FMD disease were seleeted. Production praetiees and their specifie geographieal eharaeteristies (land cover, land use, infrastructure, etc.) will be studied with the use of Landsat 5 satellite images and field survey. Soeio-eeonomical, sanitary and animal movements data for eaeh eounty will be analysed. The researeh will also involve a temporal analysis, based on the evolution of the territories and human practices, the aetual picture of these counties, regarding the 2005 FMD outbreak. Ali the parameters will be analyzed in order to develop a methodology to determine and improve deeisional ind ieators that wi Il have potentia 1 issue for FMD risk assessment. (Texte intégral)

Recent years have witnessed an explosion in the science of networks. Much of this research has been stimulated by advances in statistical physics and the study of complex systems – that is, systems that comprise many interrelated components whose interactions produce unpredictable large-scale emergent behavior. Cities are complex systems formed both through decentralized, bottom-up, self-organizing processes as well as through top-down planning interventions. Humans shape their urban ecosystems (the built environment, institutions, cultures, etc.) and are in turn shaped by them. Cities comprise numerous interdependent components that interact through networks – social, virtual, and physical – such as street networks.This dissertation examines urban street networks, their structural complexity (emphasizing density, connectedness, and resilience), and how planning eras and design paradigms shape them. Interventions into a complex system often have unpredictable outcomes, even if the intervention is minor, as effects compound or dampen nonlinearly over time. Such systems' capacity for novelty, through emergent features that arise from their components' interactions, also makes them unpredictable. These interactions and the structure of connections within a system are the subject of network science. In cities, the structural characteristics of circulation networks influence how a city's physical links organize its human dynamics. Urban morphologists have long studied the built form's complexity and, following from scholars such as Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander, various urban design paradigms today speak both directly and indirectly to the value of complexity in the built environment. However, these claims are often made loosely, without formally connecting with theory, implications, or evaluation frameworks.This dissertation develops an interdisciplinary typology of measures for assessing the complexity of urban form and design, particularly emphasizing street network analytic measures. Street network analysis has held a prominent place in network science ever since Leonhard Euler presented his famous Seven Bridges of Königsberg problem in 1736. The past 15 years have been no exception as the growth of interdisciplinary network science has included numerous applications to cities and their street networks. These studies have yielded new understandings of urban form and design, transportation flows and access, and the topology and resilience of urban street networks. However, current limitations of data availability, consistency, and technology have resulted in four substantial shortcomings: small sample sizes, excessive network simplification, difficult reproducibility, and the lack of consistent, easy-to-use research tools. While these shortcomings are by no means fatal, their presence can limit the scalability, generalizability, and interpretability of empirical street network research.To address these challenges, this dissertation presents OSMnx, a new tool to download and analyze street networks and other geospatial data from OpenStreetMap for any study site in the world. OSMnx contributes five capabilities for researchers and practitioners: first, the downloading of political boundaries, building footprints, and elevation data; second, the scalable retrieval and construction of street networks from OpenStreetMap; third, the algorithmic correction of network topology; fourth, the ability to save street networks as shapefiles, GraphML, or SVG files; and fifth, the ability to analyze street networks, including projecting and visualizing networks, routing, and calculating metric and topological measures. These measures include those common in urban design and transportation studies, as well as measures of the structure and topology of the network. This study illustrates the use of OSMnx and OpenStreetMap to consistently conduct street network analysis with extremely large sample sizes, with clearly defined network definitions and extents for reproducibility, and using non-planar, directed graphs.This study collects and analyzes 27,000 U.S. street networks from OpenStreetMap at metropolitan, municipal, and neighborhood scales – namely, every U.S. city and town, census urbanized area, and Zillow-defined neighborhood. It presents wide-ranging empirical findings on U.S. urban form and street network characteristics, emphasizing measures relevant to graph theory, urban design, and morphology such as structural complexity, connectedness, density, centrality, and resilience. We find that the typical American urban area has approximately 26 intersections/km2, 2.8 streets connected to the average node, 160m average street segment lengths, and a network that is 7.4% more circuitous than straight-line streets would be. The typical city has approximately 25 intersections/km2, 2.9 streets connected to the average node, 145m average street segment lengths, and a network that is 5.5% more circuitous than straight-line streets would be. The typical Zillow neighborhood has approximately 46 intersections/km2, 2.9 streets connected to the average node, 135m average street segment lengths, and a network that is 4.4% more circuitous than straight-line streets would be. At all three scales, 3-way intersections are by far the most prevalent intersection type across the U.S.We find a strong linear relationship, invariant across scales, between total street length and the number of nodes in a network. This contradicts some previous findings in the literature that relied on smaller sample sizes and different geographic contexts. We also find that most networks demonstrate a lognormal distribution of street segment lengths. However, an obvious exception to lognormal distribution lies in those networks that exhibit substantial uniformity network-wide. At the neighborhood scale, examples include downtown neighborhoods with consistent orthogonal grids, such as that of Portland, Oregon. At the municipal scale, examples include towns in the Great Plains that have orthogonal grids with consistent block sizes, platted at one time, and never subjected to sprawl. These spatial signatures of the Homestead Act, successive land use regulations, urban design paradigms, and planning instruments remain etched into these cities' urban forms and street networks today. Nebraska's cities have the lowest circuity, the highest average number of streets per node, the second shortest average street segment length, and the second highest intersection density. These findings illustrate how street networks across the Great Plains developed all at once and grew little afterwards – unlike, for instance, cities in California that were settled in the same era but were later subjected to substantial sprawl.The characteristics of a city street network fundamentally depend on what "city" means: municipal boundaries, urbanized areas, or certain core neighborhoods? The first is a political/legal definition, but it captures the scope of city planning jurisdiction and decision-making for top-down interventions into a street network. The second captures the wider self-organized human system and its emergent built form, but tends to aggregate multiple heterogeneous built forms together into a single unit of analysis. The third captures the nature of the local built environment and lived experience, but at the expense of a broader view of the urban system and metropolitan-scale trip-taking. In short, multiple scales in concert provide planners a clearer view of the urban form and the topological and metric complexity of the street network than any single scale can.The emerging methods of computational data science, visualization, network science, and big data analysis have broadened the scope of urban design's traditional toolbox. Such methods may yield new insights and rigor in urban form/design research, but they may also promulgate the weaknesses of reductionism and scientism by ignoring the theory, complexity, and qualitative nuance of human experience crucial to urbanism. The tools we use shape the kinds of questions we can even ask about cities. Today, the dissemination of quantitative network science into the social sciences offers an exciting opportunity to study the dynamics and structure of cities and urban form, but paths forward must consider cities as uniquely human complex systems, inextricably bound up with politics, privilege, power relations, and planning decisions.This dissertation comprises six substantive chapters bookended by introductory and concluding chapters. As a whole, the dissertation is divided into two primary parts. The first comprises chapters 2 and 3 and develops the theoretical framework. Chapter 2 introduces the background of the nonlinear paradigm by discussing systems, dynamics, self-similarity, and the nature of prediction in the presence of nonlinearity. These foundations set up the complexity theories of cities and the study of networks presented in chapter 3. This first part of the dissertation emphasizes the dynamics of complex urban systems before we turn our attention to their structure in the second part. Urban circulation networks serve as a physical substrate that underlies and organizes the city's complex human interactions. Chapter 4 collates various indicators of complexity from multiple research literatures into a typology of measures of the complexity of urban form, emphasizing the scale of urban design practice. In particular, it presents several measures of network complexity and structure that we then operationalize in chapters 5, 6, and 7. Methodologically, chapter 5 introduces OSMnx, a new tool to acquire, construct, correct, visualize, and analyze complex urban street networks. Chapter 6 applies OSMnx empirically in a small case study of street networks in Portland, Oregon. Chapter 7 then expands the empirical application of OSMnx to a large study of 27,000 urban street networks at various scales across the U.S. These street networks and measures data sets have been shared in a public repository for other researchers to re-purpose.

Gerrymandering is the practice of deliberately drawing electoral districts in a way that provides unfair advantage to one group over another, typically with respect to political parties or particular social or ethnic groups (Bunge 1966; Horn 1999). The term itself was coined in 1812, after a Massachusetts Governor, Elbridge Gerry, signed into law a political reapportionment bill with long, sinuous districts that one political cartoonist aptly compared to a winged salamander (Morrill 1973). While this practice was by no means new, the particularly grievous instance had given it a name; because, of the profound impact that voting district boundaries can have on the outcome of single-candidate elections, the practice lives on some two centuries later. Since then, several important legislative and judicial standards have emerged at the level of US Federal Government that were intended to stymie this practice. These include the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which stipulated that US Congressional districts be comprised of contiguous territory in "as compact form as practicable" (Bunge 1966). And yet despite these laws and legal standards, the US Supreme Court has been "reluctant to overturn even fairly blatant partisan gerrymandering," (Horn 1999), in part due to the inherent complexity of ascribing arbitrary boundaries on complex social and geographic landscapes, but also due to the onerous (and sometimes conflicting) legal standards that have been established. As Bill Bunge (1966) put it, "the problem sounds geographically simple—merely construct regions of 'compact form'! But the grouping of locations into an antigerrymandered state touches on some of the deepest and most fundamental problems in regional geography." In the United States, the upcoming 2020 Census, and the resulting redistricting process, has brought gerrymandering back into focus. Specifically, algorithmically conducted geospatial analysis and the resulting cartographic visualizations produced have emerged as a central battleground on which various practices of redistricting are discussed. However, most spatial analysis and cartographic visualization of gerrymandering to date has relied almost exclusively on Euclidean, absolute representations of space (O'Sullivan et al . 2018). In this paper, we demonstrate how strictly Euclidean perspectives may fail to account for the quotidian experiences of space. Further, we argue towards a relational understanding of space that takes into account how individuals move through space in their day-to-day lives. To do so, we first return to a set of complex mathematical approaches first espoused during the quantitative revolution of the 1970s (Forer 1978; Morrill 1976; Morrill 1973; Tobler 1961; and others). Using new and improved computational tools, we improve upon these efforts, providing a process for generating new visualizations that explore relational spaces within congressional districts. Specifically, we use Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) within a graph network to bend and fold congressional districts in accordance with the travel-time it takes to move through them. We conclude by discussing the limitations of this approach and areas for further research. Though quantitative methods in the field of geography seem presently dominated by narrow views of absolute, Euclidean spaces, early efforts at defining quantitative geographic approaches were focused largely on finding new ways to define and visualize space (Janelle 2015; Kitchin 2006; O'Sullivan et al. 2018). Tobler (1961) proposed that much distortion of space by transportation can be understood through the transformation of coordinates. Bunge's transformation of the "real" travel time for commuters is one of the more famous visualization of this type of isochronic transformation (O'Sullivan et al. 2018). Forer (1978) expands upon this idea with a discussion of an all-points-to-all-points reorganization, rather than the bending of adjacent points of interest based on a singular, central anchor point. Such an approach is necessarily computationally intensive as points must be moved over many iterations as the relative location of adjacent points is also in flux, and there exists the possibility of complex inversions in cases where the interior of the geographic space is not navigable (O'Sullivan et al. 2018). Simply put, this type of computationally intensive visualization was extremely difficult in the 1970s and, additionally, newer techniques such as MDS and bidimensional regression not developed or relatively unknown at that time (Ahmed and Miller 2017). While the practical and mathematical execution of these approached failed to overcome the technical barriers of their time, deeper philosophical currents present in such were were carried on through discourse in both feminist and human geography. Much of this work has engaged with Marx's concept of the "annihilation of space by time" particularly as articulated through Harvey's (1990) explication of "time-space compression." Despite academic interest in the relational experiences of space in daily life and a recognition that distance alone is an insufficient means of characterizing the spaces and places in which human interaction takes place, there has been little engagement with these ideas with respect to the creation of representational voting districts where an emphasis on purportedly "neutral" algorithms and their resulting visualizations has dominated the public discourse. We present an approach for the visualization of congressional districts within the United States that is based upon the estimated travel time between points according to Bing Maps API. Such an approach is informed by the relational, lived experiences of individuals as they attempt to traverse space, but also requires significant computational complexity. The approach follows Forer's (1978) conceptual model of continuous spatial transformations between all points. To create a visualization that maintains some similarity to the types seen by traditional maps, points will be assigned as an evenly spaced grid at sufficient density to roughly approximate the full shape of traditional congressional district polygons. In our test case, we demonstrate significant distortion of districts when travel-time is taken into account that reveals otherwise cartographically hidden experiences of lived space. We select three districts in Washington state for this demonstration, although the open-source code can be readily applied to any district for which the user has information. In brief, the process involves the transformation of a congressional district to a set of coordinate points (Figure 1). A distance matrix of travel times between all-points-to-all-points is then constructed. MDS, a process for arranging points based on their dissimilarity (Bouts et al. 2016; Shimizu & Inoue 2009; VanderPlas 2016), allows for the rearranging of these points within a graph network such that the average travel time between all points in the graph is minimized. This follows Morrill's (1973; 1976) approach to the construction of congressional districts.

Gerrymandering is the practice of deliberately drawing electoral districts in a way that provides unfair advantage to one group over another, typically with respect to political parties or particular social or ethnic groups (Bunge 1966; Horn 1999). The term itself was coined in 1812, after a Massachusetts Governor, Elbridge Gerry, signed into law a political reapportionment bill with long, sinuous districts that one political cartoonist aptly compared to a winged salamander (Morrill 1973). While this practice was by no means new, the particularly grievous instance had given it a name; because, of the profound impact that voting district boundaries can have on the outcome of single-candidate elections, the practice lives on some two centuries later. Since then, several important legislative and judicial standards have emerged at the level of US Federal Government that were intended to stymie this practice. These include the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which stipulated that US Congressional districts be comprised of contiguous territory in "as compact form as practicable" (Bunge 1966). And yet despite these laws and legal standards, the US Supreme Court has been "reluctant to overturn even fairly blatant partisan gerrymandering," (Horn 1999), in part due to the inherent complexity of ascribing arbitrary boundaries on complex social and geographic landscapes, but also due to the onerous (and sometimes conflicting) legal standards that have been established. As Bill Bunge (1966) put it, "the problem sounds geographically simple—merely construct regions of 'compact form'! But the grouping of locations into an antigerrymandered state touches on some of the deepest and most fundamental problems in regional geography." In the United States, the upcoming 2020 Census, and the resulting redistricting process, has brought gerrymandering back into focus. Specifically, algorithmically conducted geospatial analysis and the resulting cartographic visualizations produced have emerged as a central battleground on which various practices of redistricting are discussed. However, most spatial analysis and cartographic visualization of gerrymandering to date has relied almost exclusively on Euclidean, absolute representations of space (O'Sullivan et al . 2018). In this paper, we demonstrate how strictly Euclidean perspectives may fail to account for the quotidian experiences of space. Further, we argue towards a relational understanding of space that takes into account how individuals move through space in their day-to-day lives. To do so, we first return to a set of complex mathematical approaches first espoused during the quantitative revolution of the 1970s (Forer 1978; Morrill 1976; Morrill 1973; Tobler 1961; and others). Using new and improved computational tools, we improve upon these efforts, providing a process for generating new visualizations that explore relational spaces within congressional districts. Specifically, we use Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) within a graph network to bend and fold congressional districts in accordance with the travel-time it takes to move through them. We conclude by discussing the limitations of this approach and areas for further research. Though quantitative methods in the field of geography seem presently dominated by narrow views of absolute, Euclidean spaces, early efforts at defining quantitative geographic approaches were focused largely on finding new ways to define and visualize space (Janelle 2015; Kitchin 2006; O'Sullivan et al. 2018). Tobler (1961) proposed that much distortion of space by transportation can be understood through the transformation of coordinates. Bunge's transformation of the "real" travel time for commuters is one of the more famous visualization of this type of isochronic transformation (O'Sullivan et al. 2018). Forer (1978) expands upon this idea with a discussion of an all-points-to-all-points reorganization, rather than the bending of adjacent points of interest based on a singular, central anchor point. Such an approach is necessarily computationally intensive as points must be moved over many iterations as the relative location of adjacent points is also in flux, and there exists the possibility of complex inversions in cases where the interior of the geographic space is not navigable (O'Sullivan et al. 2018). Simply put, this type of computationally intensive visualization was extremely difficult in the 1970s and, additionally, newer techniques such as MDS and bidimensional regression not developed or relatively unknown at that time (Ahmed and Miller 2017). While the practical and mathematical execution of these approached failed to overcome the technical barriers of their time, deeper philosophical currents present in such were were carried on through discourse in both feminist and human geography. Much of this work has engaged with Marx's concept of the "annihilation of space by time" particularly as articulated through Harvey's (1990) explication of "time-space compression." Despite academic interest in the relational experiences of space in daily life and a recognition that distance alone is an insufficient means of characterizing the spaces and places in which human interaction takes place, there has been little engagement with these ideas with respect to the creation of representational voting districts where an emphasis on purportedly "neutral" algorithms and their resulting visualizations has dominated the public discourse. We present an approach for the visualization of congressional districts within the United States that is based upon the estimated travel time between points according to Bing Maps API. Such an approach is informed by the relational, lived experiences of individuals as they attempt to traverse space, but also requires significant computational complexity. The approach follows Forer's (1978) conceptual model of continuous spatial transformations between all points. To create a visualization that maintains some similarity to the types seen by traditional maps, points will be assigned as an evenly spaced grid at sufficient density to roughly approximate the full shape of traditional congressional district polygons. In our test case, we demonstrate significant distortion of districts when travel-time is taken into account that reveals otherwise cartographically hidden experiences of lived space. We select three districts in Washington state for this demonstration, although the open-source code can be readily applied to any district for which the user has information. In brief, the process involves the transformation of a congressional district to a set of coordinate points (Figure 1). A distance matrix of travel times between all-points-to-all-points is then constructed. MDS, a process for arranging points based on their dissimilarity (Bouts et al. 2016; Shimizu & Inoue 2009; VanderPlas 2016), allows for the rearranging of these points within a graph network such that the average travel time between all points in the graph is minimized. This follows Morrill's (1973; 1976) approach to the construction of congressional districts.

Ownership, control of and access to tribal spatial data are long-standing issues for American Indian tribes in the United States. Federal and state court decisions resulting in the disclosure of tribal information under freedom of information laws, the sophisticated data integration and analysis capacity of GIS, and advances in satellite remote sensing heighten concerns. Fundamental issues are at stake, including tribes' rights and interests in their knowledge and resources, federal agencies' authority and decision-making that affect those resources, and the public's right to know. Within the context of the federal-tribal relationship, this research investigates tribes' concerns regarding unwanted disclosure of tribal spatial data and the circumstances under which disclosure may occur. This study also evaluated mechanisms to mitigate these risks. Sensitive tribal spatial data include sacred sites and cultural resources, information about land parcel status, water rights, resource leases, and more. Tribes are concerned about the potential for misuse of their spatial data for several reasons: infringement on individual and group privacy; misappropriation of intellectual property and its use for commercial gain; misinterpretation or discrediting of cultural practices; abrogation of treaty rights; and the impact on the federal Trust relationship. Spatial data about tribes potentially may be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act if the federal government creates or maintains the data, or if tribes share their data with the federal government in response to consultation, litigation, or federal funding requirements. Tribes may strengthen their sovereignty by building the internal capacity to understand and use spatial technologies to their advantage, and by keeping abreast of new spatial technologies and their potential implications. Tribes could develop criteria to assess the sensitivity of spatial data, regardless of the technology; use that criteria to identify the most sensitive and valuable information; ...

This book provides a critical theoretical framework for understanding the implementation and development of smart cities as innovation drivers, with long-term effects on productivity, livability, and the sustainability of specific initiatives. This framework is based on an empirical analysis of 21 case studies, which include pioneer projects from various regions. It investigates how successful smart city initiatives foster technological innovation by combining regulatory governance and private agency. The typologies of smart city-making approaches are thoroughly examined. This book presents the holistic approach of smart cities, which start from current issue and challenges, advanced technological development, disaster mitigation, ecological perspective, social issue, and urban governance. The book is organized into five major parts, which reflect interconnection between theories and practice. Part one explains the introduction which reflects the diversity and challenges of the urban commons and its regeneration. Part two covers the current and future situation of urban growth, anglomeration agglomeration, and urban infrastructure. This section includes rethinking urban sprawl: moving towards sustainable cities, drivers of urban growth and infrastructure, urban land use dynamics and urban sprawl and urban infrastructure sustainability and resilience. Part three describes climate crisis, urban health, and waste management. This section includes climate change and health impacts in urban areas, green spaces: an invaluable resource for delivering sustainable urban health, health and wellbeing and quality of life in the changing urban environment, urban climate and pollution-case study, sustainable urban waste management and urban sustainability and global warming and urban heat Island. Part four covers the ecological perspectives, advanced technology, and social impact for i.e., smart building, ecosystem services, society and future smart cities (SSC). This section includes urban ecosystem services, environmental planning, and city management, artificial intelligence and urban hazards and societal impact, and using geospatial application and urban/smart city energy conservation-case study. Part five covers urban governance, smart solutions, and sustainable cities. It includes good governance, especially e-governance and citizen participation, urban governance, space and policy planning to achieve sustainability, smart city planning and management and Internet of things (IoT), advances in smart roads for future smart cities, sustainable city planning, innovation, and management, future strategy for sustainable smart cities and lessons from the pandemic: the future of smart cities

Anthony K Ma,1 Jun Hui Lee,1 Joshua L Warren,2 Christopher C Teng3 1Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA; 2Department of Biostatistics, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA; 3Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USACorrespondence: Christopher C TengDepartment of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Yale School of Medicine, 40 Temple Street, Suite 1B, New Haven, CT, USATel +1 203-785-3366Fax +1 203-785-6220Email christopher.teng@yale.eduPurpose: To understand the distribution of trabeculectomies, glaucoma drainage implants (GDI) and micro-invasive glaucoma surgeries (MIGS) performed in the United States through geospatial mapping.Methods: We performed an observational cohort study to evaluate glaucoma surgeries in patients age ≥ 65. The most recently released data from Centers for Medicare Part B Carrier Summary Files were queried to determine the number of glaucoma surgeries performed per state during the year of 2017. We created choropleth maps, titled "GlaucoMap", to characterize the rates of various surgeries performed across the United States, defined as the number of procedures performed per 10,000 individuals. A chi-squared analysis was further used to evaluate differences in surgical preferences across geographic region. Standardized residuals (SR) were calculated to determine regional influences on surgical distribution.Results: There were 174,788 glaucoma surgeries performed: 22,862 trabeculectomies (13.1%), 19,991 GDI (11.4%) and 131,935 (75.5%) MIGS. The Northeast had the highest trabeculectomy rate, GDI was highest in the Southeast and MIGS were highest in the Southwest. There was a statistically significant difference in proportional use of conventional surgeries versus MIGS across various regions in the United States (p < 0.0001). Given the high trabeculectomy and GDI rates and relatively low MIGS adoption in the Southeast, we observed a +7.03 SR for conventional surgeries and − 4.01 SR for MIGS. The Southwest and Western states had the highest MIGS rate and contributed +3.29 and +3.24 SR toward disproportional MIGS preference, respectively. The preference for conventional surgeries in the Northeast (SR = +2.93) and MIGS in the Midwest (SR = +0.99) also contribute to the overall differences in glaucoma surgeries across the United States.Conclusion: GlaucoMap is useful for visualizing the distribution of glaucoma surgeries in the United States. The heterogeneity in surgical preferences points to regional differences in glaucoma management.Keywords: glaucoma, MIGS, trabeculectomies, GDI, heatmaps