Determining causes of variance in ground-level aircraft noise: Combining in-situ noise and weather measurements with spatial aircraft data

Aircraft are a source of noise pollution in areas surrounding airports. Buildings shield or amplify local sound levels, albeit that the level of shielding varies considerably. The sound pressure levels reaching ground receivers in the built environment depend on flight position relative to the receiver, atmospheric and weather effects, and the...

Towards a More Sustainable Urban Food System: Carbon Emissions Assessment of a Diet Transition with the FEWprint Platform

The production, processing, and transportation of food, in particular animal-based products, imposes great environmental burden on the planet. The current food supply system often constitutes a considerable part of the total carbon emissions of urban communities in industrialised cities. Urban food production (UFP) is a method that can...

Towards fossil free cities – Emission assessment of food and resources consumption with the FEWprint carbon accounting platform

Current urbanization rates concentrate the ever growing demand for food, energy and water (FEW) resources particularly in cities, making them one of the main drivers of greenhouse gas emissions. The FEW nexus integrative approach offers a potential framework for sustainable resource management in cities. However, existing nexus evaluation...

Sound predictions in an urban context

Recent studies show that environmental noise in urban environments continues to be a great health risk. This noise is especially further transmitted by the hard materials that are mostly used for façades. To predict these effects it is desirable to have a reliable prediction method. There are already several ways to predict sound levels in an...

Towards Fossil Free Cities—A Supermarket, Greenhouse & Dwelling Integrated Energy System as an Alternative to District Heating: Amsterdam Case Study

The municipality of Amsterdam has set stringent carbon emission reduction targets: 55% by 2030 and 95% by 2050 for the entire metropolitan area. One of the key strategies to achieve these goals entails a disconnection of all households from the natural gas supply by 2040 and connecting them to the existing city-wide heat grid. This paper aims to...

Pig Farming vs. Solar Farming: Exploring Novel Opportunities for the Energy Transition

Amsterdam aims to bring down its carbon footprint by 55% in 2030 and by 95% in 2050. For the built environment, plotted pathways towards carbon neutrality primarily revolve around the reduction of fossil based energy demand and the transition towards renewable energy production strategies. The consumption of food resources, and its significant...

Plant factories: Reducing energy demand at high internal heat loads through façade design

The increase in global food demand has led to the introduction of new food production systems. One key example is the plant factory. Plant factories face the same challenge as many high-tech building functions: high energy demands resulting from high internal heat loads. In this study we investigate how this energy demand can be reduced...

The role of sky view factor and urban street greenery in human thermal comfort and heat stress in a desert climate

The aim of this study was to understand the effect of urban street greenery type and arrangements on thermal comfort and heat stress in summer. Field measurements and computer simulations were carried out on East-West (E-W) and North-South (N-S) oriented streets in Isfahan, Iran. Through the field measurements in July 2014, 17 different streets...

Heat mitigation by greening the cities, a review study

In the past decades, many studies have proposed urban greening as a method to mitigate the rising temperatures in cities and urban heat islands. The cooling effect of urban green spaces can be divided into two components; cooling intensity and cooling extension. These two components are affected by different factors. This paper provides a review...

More than just a Green Facade: The sound absorption properties of a vertical garden with and without plants

Up to 44% of EU residents are exposed to noise levels that are detrimental to health. In this context, vertical gardens could play an important role in architectural acoustics, where the main absorber material is the substrate soil. Plants have a beneficial effect for higher frequencies when planted in a large density. In this paper a vertical...