Consuming water smartly: the significance of sociocultural differences to water-saving initiatives

This article explores how strategies to encourage households to consume less water, through education and the installation of smart meters, play out in actual social worlds where the texture and complexity of households, and the individuals within them, have a tendency to be simplified to average or statistical norms. Building on research and critical analysis from earlier studies, particularly in Australia, this research set out to explore Thames Water’s smarter home initiative deploying three frames – affect, habit, and the meaning of home – for thinking through the different responses of householders to the intervention. The study revealed that differences in response to the smarter home visit were articulated across income, education, gender, age, and ethnicity – not as homogenous or fixed categories, but rather as categories which emerged through the smart metering intervention. The research concluded that demand management interventions such as the smarter home visits, conceived as a relatively simple technology-driven behavioural change strategy, are more complex and nuanced in their reception and effects, especially on the user–provider relationship, in the constitution of social differences, and in the definitions of public and private spaces and practices. Acceptance or resistance of these programmes is not knowable in advance of their dissemination. For such interventions to be successful, water companies thus need to recognise the differentiated social, cultural, and economic environments in which their strategies are enacted. A failure to do so can only limit their stated objectives of reducing household water consumption.     

A role-playing game as a tool to facilitate social learning and collective action towards Climate Smart Agriculture: Lessons learned from Apuí, Brazil

Addressing the global challenges of climate change (CC), food security and poverty alleviation requires enhancing the adaptive capacity and mitigation potential of land use systems. To this end, Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) aims to identify land use practices that sustainably increase productivity, enhance climate change (CC) adaptation and contribute to CC mitigation. A transition towards CSA requires technical, but also socio-institutional changes, for improved smallholder agricultural systems. Such changes may be triggered by stakeholder participation processes that stimulate social learning and collective action. This article evaluates whether a role-playing game (RPG) is an effective participatory tool to encourage social learning and collective action among local stakeholders towards adoption of CSA strategies. We designed and implemented an RPG with three groups of farmers in Apuí (Southern Amazonas), evaluating the game’s impact on social learning by interviewing each farmer before and after the RPG. Our findings show that the RPG induced not only technical learning, but also socio-institutional learning and engagement for collective action, though outcomes varied between different RPG sessions and among farmer participants.     

国外光伏发电并入智能电网发展探讨

智能电网是未来电网发展的主要趋势。随着人们对环境保护的重视,如何将风能、太阳能等可再生能源大规模接入电网已经成为智能电网下一阶段的研究方向。介绍了国外光伏发电技术发展,概述了国外对光伏发电并入智能电网的最新研究,提出了光伏并网发电面临的问题以及相关建议,为我国未来光伏并网发电的实施提供参考。     

基于物联网的土壤样品库建设与实践

为满足国家土壤样品制备与流转中心(华北分中心)及北京市土壤样品库的流转与存储需求,采用了一种基于物联网的智能土壤样品库建设方案。通过射频识别、气动传输、智能存取、信息关联与信息管理系统等技术手段,除可满足国家土壤环境监测样品制备、流转和质量控制的基本需求外,实现了对暂存土壤样品和长期保存土壤样品的智能化、自动化、信息化和规范化保存。该样品库的建设实践为环境样品的智能化、自动化和信息化存储提供了全新的方案,其设计思路可为各部门土壤等环境样品库的建设和管理提供借鉴。     

香港住宅室内环境及污染暴露量研究

对选定的14间香港住宅的PM10、CO、NO2等主要室内污染物浓度进行监测，通过建立多元线性回归模型，分析了室内．外PM10浓度与居民室内各种活动等其它有关因素之间的相关关系．结合香港居民日常时间安排调查的结果，计算出各种室内污染物的暴露量，对住宅室内环境污染对居民健康的影响进行了初步评估，提出了改善住宅室内环境的一些建议。     

A novel framework-based cuckoo search algorithm for sizing and optimization of grid-independent hybrid renewable energy systems

Hybrid renewable energy systems (HRES) turned into an appealing choice for supplying loads in remote areas. The application of smart grid principals in HRES provides a communication between the load and generation from the HRES. Using smart grid in the HRES will optimally utilize the generating resources to reschedule the loads depending on its importance. This paper presents a new proposed design and optimization simulation program for techno-economic sizing of grid-independent hybrid PV/wind/diesel/battery energy system using Cuckoo search (CS) optimization algorithm. Using of CS will help to get the global minimum cost condition and prevent the simulation to be stuck around local minimum. A new proposed simulation program (NPSP) is acquainted using CS to determine the optimum size of each component of the HRES for the lowest cost of generated energy and the lowest value of dummy energy, at highest reliability. A detailed economic methodology to obtain the price of the generated energy has been introduced. Results showed that using CS reduced the time required to obtain the optimal size with higher accuracy than other techniques used iterative techniques, Genetic Algorithm (GA), and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). Numerous significant outcomes can be extracted from the proposed program that could help scientists and decision makers.     

Smart meter data and equitable energy transitions – can cities play a role?

ABSTRACT

The ability of smart cities to address multiple priorities is currently receiving a great deal of attention from governments, industry and academia; however, there are relatively few explorations of how smart cities will be enacted and the equity implications of various elements of the agenda. This paper aims to begin to address this by considering the case of smart meter data in Great Britain and reviewing the potential for public interest benefits to be realised at both a national and city-scale. In order to interrogate how societal benefits of smart metering might be enabled or constrained at different scales, both transition management approaches to understanding the intricacies of transforming socio-technical systems, and urban governance literatures which explore the problems in aligning “smart” and “sustainable” agendas, are engaged with. The case suggests that there is great potential for smart meter data to deliver public interest benefits and in doing so contribute to equity in energy transitions through promoting the accrual of benefits to collective rather than solely individual or commercial interests. Despite this, under the current smart metering framework city-scale actors are largely excluded from utilising smart metering data unless they partner with a large incumbent company. This suggests that the configuration of national smart metering arrangements could be further embedding a marketised approach to smart cities and demonstrates the complex interlinking of socio-political processes operating across multiple scales in energy transitions.     

面向国土空间安全的工业园区风险监测评估系统设计思路

随着城市化的推进,城市的脆弱性不断加剧。近年来频发的生产安全事故,凸显了传统风险治理范式的局限性。源头防控、多元参与、数据驱动是当下生产安全风险治理的重要议题,而多元主体风险和系统性风险是治理的焦点。以整体性思维为指引,建构“三生”空间相互作用下的“双环模型”,为安全多维及时空多维视角下生产安全风险的治理提供理论基础和总体思路。挖掘信息技术对国土空间动态监测、风险认知积累和风险防控能力成长的积极作用,提出“扁平化”的风险监测评估框架体系并探讨信息平台的需求与架构。以风险交织的化工行业为例,重点关注工业园区主导下的生产安全风险多元防控范式和基础框架,为不同行业的多类型风险防控提供思路借鉴。     

面向未来的污水处理厂关键技术研发与工程实践专栏序言

污水处理行业碳排放水平约占全社会碳排放水平的1%～2%,为实现行业碳达峰、碳中和目标以及满足建设面向未来污水处理厂的需要,污水处理行业碳减排技术的开发及碳中和路线图的搭建迫在眉睫.本文是国家水专项“面向未来污水处理厂关键技术研发与工程示范”课题近年来科研成果的总结,致力于构建面向未来污水处理技术体系,从污水处理厂“碳减排”和“碳中和”角度出发,在污水“碳转向”、污水处理过程“碳减排”、基于大数据和云平台的智慧水务3个关键技术的研究以及对面向未来污水处理厂工程实践等方面进行了总结凝练,以期为我国污水处理行业的“碳减排”及“碳中和”提供技术支撑.     

基于智慧生态城市建设的西部主要城市绿色发展研究

十八届五中全会提出绿色发展理念,成为指导中国未来经济与社会发展的重要指导方针.西部地区在加快城市化进程的同时面临资源环境与经济发展之间的矛盾.大数据与信息时代的来临,使智慧生态城市建设成为城市发展的主流,绿色发展也成为智慧生态城市的核心举措.通过分析智慧生态城市的建设背景,测度西部主要城市的生态足迹与环境承载力,明确城市绿色可持续发展的目标,提出基于智慧生态城市推进西部城市绿色发展的路径与对策.