Hydrogen-based fuels for European aviation: A prospective life cycle assessment applying scenario analysis

Through exploratory scenario development, this study delves into the environmental impacts of European commercial aviation. Climate targets and the adoption of alternative aviation fuels (AAF) following ReFuelEU Aviation are assessed, considering e-fuel produced from direct air capture (DAC) and hydrogen aircraft. A novel method is applied,...

Numerical modelling and quantification of coastal urban compound flooding

Low-lying coastal cities are vulnerable to compound floods caused by many factors including river flows, tides and local rainfall. Many previous studies focus on the impacts of rainfall and tidal levels (two driving factors) on estuaries or regions near the main single river, while research about the three influencing factors on the floods...

Stimulating Corporate Climate Action: A Case Study of the Steel Industry Using Agent-Based Modelling

Corporations’ economic activities put significant stress on the environment. In order to limit global warming to 1.5°C, companies need to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. However, shifting the responsibility of decarbonisation from being solely on governments to being shared with these companies is only a recent phenomenon....

Environmental trade-offs of aerostructures: A prospective lifecycle assessment of wing ribs

Emerging in the domain of composite manufacturing, thermoplastic polymers can enable the reduction of process times, costs, and waste. In this study, lifecycle assessment (LCA) is used to evaluate a design for a carbon fibre-reinforced thermoplastic (CFRTP) wing rib, made from carbon fibre and polyetherketoneketone (CF/PEKK). The CF/PEKK rib is...

Decarbonizing the Dutch Energy System: The Impact of Renewable District Heating on the Electricity and Heating Sector

Urgent and significant changes in all parts of the current Dutch energy system are required to achieve the national climate goals. This thesis explores the impact from traditional to renewable district heating (DH) on the Dutch electricity and heating sector, at both a national and regional level. The results provide relevant lessons for policy...

Maritime fuels of the future: A decision support tool for shipowners

This study aims to develop a decision support tool which enables shipowners to select the most appropriate alternative fuel technology to comply with possible different imposed emission regulations while ensuring optimal business performance. In this context, most appropriate is defined as a fuel alternative which minimises required freight rate...

Predicting movable bridge deck expansion: A machine learning and asset management perspective

Movable bridge decks experience critical expansion in summer, leading to uncertainty and unpredictability in its availability doe to improper docking and safety hazard. If the bridges are not cooled soon, the inertia of expansion stays, causing prolongation of availability problems. Structural health monitoring of such bridges with a predictive...

Assess the future social acceptance of the sustainable heating system in Amsterdam Southeast by using Cross-Impact Balances analysis

The long time horizon of sustainable energy developments is often associated with all sorts of issues that are caused by changes in values. The public attitude can be affected by these changes and potential risks in the lack of social acceptance could occur, which always lead to public oppositions to the implementation of the sustainable energy...

Debris-flow hazard assessment at the archaeological UNESCO world heritage site of villa romana del casale (sicily, Italy)

Archaeological sites are extremely vulnerable to the impacts of weather-related events, which may lead to irreparable damages to cultural heritage. Here an assessment of the debris-flow hazard for the UNESCO site of Roman Villa del Casale (Italy) is carried out, through a combination of historical analyses, field surveys, geomorphological and...

Securing food under adverse climate and socioeconomic scenarios in Jiangsu Province, China: Critical role of human adaptation under change

Food security is important for human well-being worldwide. However, changing climate, population growth and shrinking land resources are threatening food security in many regions of the world. Jiangsu Province, China, is one such region. It is a major food-producing region of the country but is witnessing rapid population growth and...

The evolution and future perspectives of energy intensity in the global building sector 1971–2060

Energy efficiency plays an essential role in energy conservation and emissions mitigation efforts in the building sector. This is especially important considering that the global building stock is expected to rapidly expand in the years to come. In this study, a global-scale modeling framework is developed to analyze the evolution of building...

Daily flow simulation in Thailand Part II: Unraveling effects of reservoir operation

Study region: Upper region of the Greater Chao Phraya River (GCPR) basin in Thailand. Study focus: The upper GCPR basin is highly regulated by multipurpose reservoirs, which obviously have altered the natural streamflow. Understanding quantitative effects of such alteration is crucial for effective water resource management. Therefore, this...

Trench Siltation near the ETM of a Well-mixed Estuary

To exploit its socio-economic functions, engineering measures are regularly applied in estuaries. Estuaries are, however, known to be very complex systems. Stemming from this complexity is the generation of a so-called estuarine turbidity maximum (ETM), which poses great siltation problems to the engineering measures. An engineering measure,...

What are the determinants of the willingness to share rides in pooled on-demand services?

Simulation studies suggest that pooled on-demand services (also referred to as Demand Responsive Transport, ridesharing, shared ride-hailing or shared ridesourcing services) have the potential to bring large benefits to urban areas while inducing limited time losses for their users. However, in reality, the large majority of users request...

An exploration to the impact of on-demand ride sharing services on urban tram systems

Traditional urban public transit may be on the verge of disruption with the global rise of new mobility services, such as on-demand ride-sharing, car-sharing and MaaS. Tram assets were found to be most vulnerable for disruption as the tram lacks the speed advantage of the metro and de bus has limited dedicated assets. Tram assets could run the...

Business model stress testing: A practical approach to test the robustness of a business model

Business models and business model innovation are increasingly gaining attention in practice as well as in academic literature. However, the robustness of business models (BM) is seldom tested vis-à-vis the fast and unpredictable changes in digital technologies, regulation and markets. The evaluation of the robustness of a BM raises several...