Planning Peripheral and Ultra-Peripheral Infrastructures

A special issue of Infrastructures (ISSN 2412-3811).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 16452

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Faculty of Applied Sciences, WSB University, 41-300 Dąbrowa Górnicza, Poland
Interests: cross-border cooperation (CBC); environmental impact assessment; international cooperation; landscape architecture; regional planning; spatial planning and territorial governance; strategic and common planning; sustainable tourism; urban and city planning
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Guest Editor
Department of Urban Planning and Architecture, Institute of Transportation—CIP, Belgrade, Serbia
Interests: geographic information systems (GIS); accessibility; connectivity; infrastructures planning; planning strategies; sustainable development

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Guest Editor
School of Business and Economics and CEEAplA, Universidade dos Açores, 9500-321 Ponta Delgada, Portugal
Interests: finance; real options; eco-tourism; rural-tourism; creative-tourism; tourism sustainability
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Guest Editor
School of Agricultural Engineering, University of Extremadura, 06007 Badajoz, Spain
Interests: IT infrastructure; planning; geographic information system; spatial analysis; transportation planning regional; planning spatial; statistics; accessibility and mobilities; research transportation; housing; transport; rails; sustainable development
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is a fact that the peripheral and ultra-peripheral regions as Borderlands or Islands present several territorial specificities. Nevertheless, these territories also present several obstacles, barriers, and opportunities. Among all those issues, appropriate infrastructure planning is necessary to answer the local populations' needs. Therefore, studies regarding transportation and infrastructure planning and sustainability assessment in those territories are fundamental to achieving sustained growth.

Contextually, the present Special Issue (SI) expects to cross and analyze the dynamics and challenges ongoing in those peripheral territories regarding transportation and infrastructure planning and sustainability and with the related issues that may impact it.

Consequently, the editors encourage the submission of studies associated with the topics of transportation and infrastructure planning in peripheral and ultra-peripheral regions, as well as with the associated governance strategies and methods, regional planning, among several other sub-topics that could relate to the main scope of this Special Issue and, consequently, produce a literature enhancement about this particular typology of territories.

Prof. Dr. Rui Alexandre Castanho
Prof. Dr. Ana Vulevic
Prof. Dr. Gualter Couto
Prof. Dr. José Manuel Naranjo Gómez
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • accessibility
  • connectivity
  • infrastructures planning
  • planning strategies
  • geographic information systems (GIS)
  • insular and peripheral regions
  • low-density territories
  • sustainable development
  • sustainable development
  • sustainability

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

36 pages, 3108 KiB  
Article
Peripheral: Resilient Hydrological Infrastructures
by Ulrik Ekman
Infrastructures 2023, 8(7), 111; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures8070111 - 13 Jul 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2305
Abstract
This article addresses the issue of developing designs of resilient hydrological infrastructures for cities facing sea level rise in the Anthropocene. It undertakes short case studies of differently scaled cities, three in the Global North and three in the Global South. The aim [...] Read more.
This article addresses the issue of developing designs of resilient hydrological infrastructures for cities facing sea level rise in the Anthropocene. It undertakes short case studies of differently scaled cities, three in the Global North and three in the Global South. The aim is to investigate the current water management situations in order to reveal potentials for increased urban and environmental resilience. Cities are approached as complex adaptive systems (CAS) negotiating uncertainty that concerns designing for resilience, understood as viable transitions for their interlinked social, ecological, and technological systems (SETS). The main finding is that, despite obvious differences, the six cases are surprisingly similar. Potentials for increased hydrological resilience reside in design approaches that work differently with what is currently deprivileged and considered ‘merely’ peripheral. Peripheral cities and the peripheries of coastal cities are found to be of key rather than minor adaptive infrastructural import. To reprivilege the peripheral here means to adopt more dynamically flexible, long-term, decentralized, and nonanthropocentric urban design approaches to water and infrastructures. Specifically, this article advocates thinking about water via at least four critical displacements. These displacements point toward alternatives concerning excessively static and land-based designs, short-term planning, overly anthropocentric conceptions of the city environment distinction, and undue centrism in planetary urbanization of the Global North and Global South. In conclusion, this article presents a brief outlook to other cases which suggest that greater resilience potentials are likely to be found in planning for the complexly ecotone city. This works mostly bottom-up from the local regimes for water sensitive infrastructures to regional network designs that can engage with larger climatic and ecological landscapes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Planning Peripheral and Ultra-Peripheral Infrastructures)
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16 pages, 7784 KiB  
Article
Multi-Criteria Methodology for the Location of Photovoltaic Solar Energy Production Facilities in Tenerife (Spain)
by Javier Gutiérrez, Javier Velázquez, María Luz Aguiló, Fernando Herráez, Carlos Jiménez, Luis Eduardo Canelo, Ana Hernando, Inmaculada Gómez and Víctor Rincón
Infrastructures 2022, 7(3), 28; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures7030028 - 23 Feb 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3047
Abstract
This paper presents a multi-criteria methodology for the detection of optimal locations for solar photovoltaic installations connected to the electrical grid. The proposed methodology has been applied to the island of Tenerife, as it is one of the territories in Spain with the [...] Read more.
This paper presents a multi-criteria methodology for the detection of optimal locations for solar photovoltaic installations connected to the electrical grid. The proposed methodology has been applied to the island of Tenerife, as it is one of the territories in Spain with the greatest solar potential. This methodology integrates an Aptitude Model (which covers variables such as connections to the electrical grid, accessibility, cloudiness, solar irradiation and slope) together with an Impact Model (which considers variables such as landscape vulnerability, land use and hydrology). Each one of the variables considered has been transformed into standardized decision criteria, which have been weighted by means of Saaty’s pair method, having also assigned them relative weights by means of expert consultation. The integration of both Models in a Hosting Capacity Model makes it possible to consider urban and environmental constraints in different possible scenarios. Finally, the Hosting Capacity Model generated is implemented through a Geographic Information System (GIS) on the island of Tenerife, so that it has been possible to detect the optimum locations for each municipality and region. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Planning Peripheral and Ultra-Peripheral Infrastructures)
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16 pages, 2834 KiB  
Article
Maritime Transportation Dynamics in the Azores Region: Analyzing the Period 1998–2019
by Pedro Pimentel, Ana Vulevic, Gualter Couto, Arian Behradfar, José Manuel Naranjo Gómez and Rui Alexandre Castanho
Infrastructures 2022, 7(2), 21; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures7020021 - 30 Jan 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3235
Abstract
The geography over which maritime transportation operates is unique, combining physical, strategic, and commercial imperatives. Physical issues are stable across time, but strategic, especially commercial, considerations continually shift with the ebb and flow of the globalization process. Contextually, the distance that isolates different [...] Read more.
The geography over which maritime transportation operates is unique, combining physical, strategic, and commercial imperatives. Physical issues are stable across time, but strategic, especially commercial, considerations continually shift with the ebb and flow of the globalization process. Contextually, the distance that isolates different locations in many cases plays a vital function in these interactions. Distance is the primary element that affects the values of interaction intensities. In fact, the issue is how the intensities were reduced with distance since this reduction is generally not linear. In this regard, this article intends to pursue the issues of the shape and parameters of the distance–decay functions based on the travel time value between islands. In this regard, almost all the Azores Islands were used as a case study. The study results show that the distance–decay functions established the unique dominance of Faial Island, Pico Island, and São Jorge Island, all in the Azores central group; in addition, there was an increase in the number of passengers in those. Moreover, the dominant position is the central islands, and their coexistence with others in the environment makes them more accessible than other islands, showing Terceira Island as a potential maritime passengers’ hub in the Azores. So, with this study, it becomes clear which are the main accessibility issues within the Azores archipelago as well as efficiency should be promoted through the design of policies in maritime passengers’ transportation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Planning Peripheral and Ultra-Peripheral Infrastructures)
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13 pages, 2293 KiB  
Article
Accessibility in European Peripheral Territories: Analyzing the Portuguese Mainland Connectivity Patterns from 1985 to 2020
by José Manuel Naranjo Gómez, Ana Vulevic, Gualter Couto and Rui Alexandre Castanho
Infrastructures 2021, 6(6), 92; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6060092 - 20 Jun 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2712
Abstract
The inner periphery European countries, as is the case of Portugal, are characterized by poor access to essential areas and services of general and social relations. Contextually, this paper aims to explore the linkages between inner peripheries, ultra-peripherality concepts, and the concept of [...] Read more.
The inner periphery European countries, as is the case of Portugal, are characterized by poor access to essential areas and services of general and social relations. Contextually, this paper aims to explore the linkages between inner peripheries, ultra-peripherality concepts, and the concept of accessibility from 1985 to 2020, in parallel with the analysis of some demographic trends in the same research period. Thus, the study deals with accessibility and the analysis of accessibility-related spatial distribution to represent the traditional core—periphery pattern, with the highest accessibility in the center of the mainland and west coastal area, and the lowest accessibility in remote regions. The results show that the distribution of the road infrastructure is not uniform in Portugal. Furthermore, the NUTS II regions of PT13 Lisboa e Vale do Tejo (the Lisbon region) and PT11 Norte (northern Portugal) have the greatest road per km2. The Lisbon region has the highest concentration of national roads globally, while the northern region has the highest concentration of municipal roads. These two regions are, by far, the most densely populated, encompassing about ¾ of the national population and GDP. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Planning Peripheral and Ultra-Peripheral Infrastructures)
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18 pages, 9567 KiB  
Article
Understanding Traffic Congestion via Network Analysis, Agent Modeling, and the Trajectory of Urban Expansion: A Coastal City Case
by Julio Amézquita-López, Jorge Valdés-Atencio and David Angulo-García
Infrastructures 2021, 6(6), 85; https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6060085 - 6 Jun 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3621
Abstract
The study of patterns of urban mobility is of utter importance for city growth projection and development planning. In this paper, we analyze the topological aspects of the street network of the coastal city of Cartagena de Indias employing graph theory and spatial [...] Read more.
The study of patterns of urban mobility is of utter importance for city growth projection and development planning. In this paper, we analyze the topological aspects of the street network of the coastal city of Cartagena de Indias employing graph theory and spatial syntax tools. We find that the resulting network can be understood on the basis of 400 years of the city’s history and its peripheral location that strongly influenced and shaped the growth of the city, and that the statistical properties of the network resemble those of self-organized cities. Moreover, we study the mobility through the network using a simple agent-based model that allows us to study the level of street congestion depending on the agents’ knowledge of the traffic while they travel through the network. We found that a purely shortest-path travel scheme is not an optimal strategy and that assigning small weights to traffic avoidance schemes increases the overall performance of the agents in terms of arrival success, occupancy of the streets, and traffic accumulation. Finally, we argue that localized congestion can be only partially ascribed to topological properties of the network and that it is important to consider the decision-making capability of the agents while moving through the network to explain the emergence of traffic congestion in the system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Planning Peripheral and Ultra-Peripheral Infrastructures)
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