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Sustainable Urban Planning
A sustainable city, eco-city, or green city is a city designed with consideration for the social, economic, and environmental impact (commonly referred to as the triple bottom line), as well as a resilient habitat for existing populations. The UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 defines as one that is dedicated to achieving green, social, and economic sustainability, facilitating opportunities that prioritize inclusivity as well as maintaining a sustainable economic growth. Furthermore, the objective is to minimize the inputs of energy, water, and food, and to drastically reduce waste, as well as the outputs of heat, air pollution (including CO2, methane, and water pollution). The UN Environment Programme calls out that most cities today are struggling with environmental degradation, traffic congestion, inadequate urban infrastructure, in addition to a lack of basic services, such as water supply, sanitation, and waste management. A sustainable city should promote economic grow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tram In Front Of The Taschenbergpalais Hotel, Dresden - 1448
A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include segments on segregated Right-of-way (property access), right-of-way. The tramlines or tram networks operated as public transport are called tramways or simply trams/streetcars. Because of their close similarities, trams are commonly included in the wider term ''light rail'', which also includes systems separated from other traffic. Tram vehicles are usually lighter and shorter than Main line (railway), main line and rapid transit trains. Most trams use electrical power, usually fed by a Pantograph (transport), pantograph sliding on an overhead line; older systems may use a trolley pole or a bow collector. In some cases, a contact shoe on a third rail is used. If necessary, they may have dual power systems—electricity in city stre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Efficient Energy Use
Efficient energy use, or energy efficiency, is the process of reducing the amount of energy required to provide products and services. There are many technologies and methods available that are more energy efficient than conventional systems. For example, building insulation, insulating a building allows it to use less heating and cooling energy while still maintaining a Thermal comfort, comfortable temperature. Another method made by Lev Levich is to remove energy subsidies that promote high energy consumption and inefficient energy use. Improved energy efficiency in Green building, buildings, industrial processes and Energy efficiency in transport, transportation could reduce the world's energy needs in 2050 by one third. There are two main motivations to improve energy efficiency. Firstly, one motivation is to achieve Operating cost, cost savings during the operation of the appliance or process. However, installing an energy-efficient technology comes with an upfront cost, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar Panel
A solar panel is a device that converts sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells are made of materials that produce excited electrons when exposed to light. These electrons flow through a circuit and produce direct current (DC) electricity, which can be used to power various devices or be stored in battery (electricity), batteries. Solar panels are also known as solar cell panels, solar electric panels, or PV modules. Solar panels are usually arranged in groups called arrays or systems. A photovoltaic system consists of one or more solar panels, an solar inverter, inverter that converts DC electricity to alternating current (AC) electricity, and sometimes other components such as charge controller, controllers, Measuring instrument, meters, and solar tracker, trackers. Most panels are in solar farms or Rooftop solar power, rooftop solar panels which grid-connected photovoltaic system, supply the electricity grid. Some advantages of solar panels are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wind Turbine
A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. Wind turbines are an increasingly important source of intermittent renewable energy, and are used in many countries to lower energy costs and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. One study claimed that, wind had the "lowest relative greenhouse gas emissions, the least water consumption demands and the most favorable social impacts" compared to photovoltaic, hydroelectricity, hydro, geothermal power, geothermal, coal power, coal and gas-fired power plant, gas energy sources. Smaller wind turbines are used for applications such as battery charging and remote devices such as traffic warning signs. Larger turbines can contribute to a domestic power supply while selling unused power back to the u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vertical Farming
Vertical farming is the practice of growing crops in vertically and horizontally stacked layers. It often incorporates controlled-environment agriculture, which aims to optimize plant growth, and soilless farming techniques such as hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics. Some common choices of structures to house vertical farming systems include buildings, shipping containers, underground tunnels, and abandoned mine shafts. The modern concept of vertical farming was proposed in 1999 by Dickson Despommier, professor of Public and Environmental Health at Columbia University. Despommier and his students came up with a design of a skyscraper farm that could feed 50,000 people. Although the design has not yet been built, it successfully popularized the idea of vertical farming. Current applications of vertical farming coupled with other state-of-the-art technologies, such as specialized LED lights, have resulted in over 10 times the crop yield as would be received through tradi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Food Miles
Food miles is the distance food is transported from the time of its making until it reaches the consumer. Food miles are one factor used when testing the environmental impact of food, such as the carbon footprint of the food. The concept of food miles originated in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. It was conceived by Professor Tim Lang at the Sustainable Agriculture Food and Environment (SAFE) Alliance and first appeared in print in a report, "The Food Miles Report: The Dangers of Long-Distance Food Transport", researched and written by Angela Paxton.Paxton, A (1994). "The Food Miles Report: The Dangers of Long-Distance Food Transport". SAFE Alliance, London, UK. https://www.sustainweb.org/publications/the_food_miles_report/ Some scholars believe that an increase in the distance food travels is due to the globalization of trade; the focus of food supply bases into fewer, larger districts; drastic changes in delivery patterns; the increase in processed and packaged fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
City Center
A city centre, also known as an urban core, is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely equivalent terms that exist in other languages, such as "" in French, in German, or ''shìzhōngxīn'' () in Chinese. In the United States, the term "downtown" is generally used, though a few cities, like Philadelphia, use the term "Center City" or "City Center". Overview and related concepts The city centre is the (often historical) area of a city where commerce, entertainment, shopping, and political power are concentrated. The term is commonly used in many English-speaking countries and has direct equivalents in many other languages. However, noticeably, in the United States, the term "downtown" is commonly used to denote a city centre, and in Canada the terms "city centre" and "downtown" are used interchangeably, most notable in the modern, purpose-built cores of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suburbs
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated than the city and can have a higher or lower rate of detached single family homes than the city as well. Suburbs can have their own political or legal jurisdictions, especially in the United States, but this is not always the case, especially in the United Kingdom, where most suburbs are located within the administrative boundaries of cities. In most English-speaking countries, suburban areas are defined in contrast to central city or inner city areas, but in Australian English and South African English, ''suburb'' has become largely synonymous with what is called a "neighborhood" in the U.S. Due in part to historical trends such as white flight, some suburbs in the United States have a higher population and higher incomes than their near ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agriculture
Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in the cities. While humans started gathering grains at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers only began planting them around 11,500 years ago. Sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle were domesticated around 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least 11 regions of the world. In the 20th century, industrial agriculture based on large-scale monocultures came to dominate agricultural output. , small farms produce about one-third of the world's food, but large farms are prevalent. The largest 1% of farms in the world are greater than and operate more than 70% of the world's farmland. Nearly 40% of agricultural land is found on farms larger than . However, five of every six farm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants. Although environmental pollution can be caused by natural events, the word pollution generally implies that the contaminants Human impact on the environment, have a human source, such as manufacturing, Extractivism, extractive industries, poor waste management, transportation or Agricultural pollution, agriculture. Pollution is often classed as point source pollution, point source (coming from a highly concentrated specific site, such as a factory, Environmental effects of mining, mine, construction site), or nonpoint source pollution (coming from a widespread distributed sources, such as microplastics or agricultural runoff). Many sources of po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecological Footprint
The ecological footprint measures human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people and their economies. It tracks human demand on nature through an ecological accounting system. The accounts contrast the biologically productive area people use to satisfy their consumption to the biologically productive area available within a region, nation, or the world (biocapacity). Biocapacity is the productive area that can regenerate what people demand from nature. Therefore, the metric is a measure of human impact on the environment. As Ecological Footprint accounts measure to what extent human activities operate within the means of our planet, they are a central metric for sustainability. The metric is promoted by the Global Footprint Network which has developed standards to make results comparable. FoDaFo, supported by Global Footprint Network and York University are now providing the national assessments of Footprints and biocapacity. Footprint and b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Renewable Energy
Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind power, and hydropower. Bioenergy and geothermal power are also significant in some countries. Some also consider Nuclear power proposed as renewable energy, nuclear power a renewable power source, although this is controversial, as nuclear energy requires mining uranium, a nonrenewable resource. Renewable energy installations can be large or small and are suited for both urban and rural areas. Renewable energy is often deployed together with further electrification. This has several benefits: electricity can heat pump, move heat and Electric vehicle, vehicles efficiently and is clean at the point of consumption. Variable renewable energy sources are those that have a fluctuating nature, such as wind power and solar power. In contrast, ''contro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
