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Urban Science
Special Issues
Future of Water: Local, Regional and Global Best Practice
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Future of Water: Local, Regional and Global Best Practice

A special issue of Urban Science (ISSN 2413-8851).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2018) | Viewed by 14427

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Carla Pimental Rodrigues

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Guest Editor
Associação Nacional para a Qualidade nas Instalações Prediais (ANQIP), Aveiro, Portugal
Interests: water efficiency in buildings; water–energy nexus; sustainability
Prof. Armando Silva Afonso

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Guest Editor
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Interests: water efficiency in buildings; sustainable urban development; water–energy nexus; water supply and drainage for buildings
Dr. Kemi Adeyeye

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Guest Editor
Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering, University of Bath, Bath, UK
Interests: integrated design and planning; architectural technology; sustainability and resource efficiency (water); resilience in modern and heritage contexts; water resource efficiency; water, energy nexus
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to include high quality papers that contribute to our understanding on the increased necessity for efficiency in the use of water in the urban environment, particularly in the building water cycle that is becoming more imperative in Europe, where cities are facing a range of pressures resulting from population growth, climate change and deterioration of urban infrastructure systems. Some water efficiency measures can contribute not only to savings in drinking water consumption but also to energy efficiency and flood/drought control. This makes it imperative to reflect on current solutions, explore blue-sky ideas to support best practices in urban water management, based on greater efficiency in water use.

Theoretical and empirical studies on resilience through cooperation and innovation, water efficiency and water-energy nexus are also sought and encouraged.

Dr. Carla Pimental Rodrigues
Prof. Armando Silva Afonso
Dr. Kemi Adeyeye
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Urban Science is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • water efficiency
  • water policy
  • resilience through cooperation and innovation
  • water–energy nexus
  • sustainable urban development
  • water sensitive urban design

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 3003 KiB  
Article
Challenges of Researching Showering Routines: From the Individual to the Socio-Material
by Karen Simpson, Chad Staddon and Sarah Ward
Urban Sci. 2019, 3(1), 19; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci3010019 - 31 Jan 2019
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 5176
Abstract
In the UK, water supplies are under pressure from climate, population and lifestyle change. Showering is the largest component of domestic water consumption. Young adults are high water-users at a transitional life-stage, when practices are dynamic, and habits shaped. This paper presents the [...] Read more.
In the UK, water supplies are under pressure from climate, population and lifestyle change. Showering is the largest component of domestic water consumption. Young adults are high water-users at a transitional life-stage, when practices are dynamic, and habits shaped. This paper presents the methodology, early findings and reflections on challenges of working with different data types and scales, to explore real-world water-saving through a mixed-methods approach, focusing on showering patterns of first year university students in campus accommodation at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. Combining household meter, logged water-fixture micro-component, personal-use questionnaire, user diary and stakeholder focus group data with the Scottish Government Individual-Social-Material model, typical showering demand reduction interventions were evaluated and insights into alternative interventions were generated. Results indicate Estates’ routine equipment maintenance and database management affect data quality and consistency. Despite these issues a profile of daily student water use was derived (equivalent to 114 L per person per day) but with high variability between different households (from 83 to 151 L per person per day). Average shower durations (self-reported 10–12 min) were higher than reported UK norms, although frequency was similar to the UK daily shower norm. Average measured shower volumes (51 L in one house) were not excessive, indicating shower fixtures provided a contribution to water saving. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future of Water: Local, Regional and Global Best Practice)
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14 pages, 4115 KiB  
Article
Green Roof Design Techniques to Improve Water Use under Mediterranean Conditions
by Teresa A. Paço, Ricardo Cruz de Carvalho, Pedro Arsénio and Diana Martins
Urban Sci. 2019, 3(1), 14; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci3010014 - 25 Jan 2019
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 5173
Abstract
Green roof typology can vary depending on buildings structure, climate conditions, substrate, and plants used. In regions with hot and dry summers, such as the Mediterranean region, irrigation plays an essential role, as the highest temperatures occur during the driest period of the [...] Read more.
Green roof typology can vary depending on buildings structure, climate conditions, substrate, and plants used. In regions with hot and dry summers, such as the Mediterranean region, irrigation plays an essential role, as the highest temperatures occur during the driest period of the year. Irrigation might reduce the heat island effect and improve the cooling of buildings during this period, however, the added cost of maintenance operations and additional energy consumption could outrun the benefits provided by the project. Moreover, in situations where water is scarce or primarily channelled to other uses (e.g., domestic, agriculture or industry) during drought occurrence, it is advisable to implement green roof projects with the lowest use of water possible. The objective of the present work is to investigate solutions to optimize water use in green roofs under Mediterranean conditions, such as those of southern Europe. Two case studies are presented for Portugal, and potential techniques to reduce irrigation requirements in green roofs were tested. These addressed the use of native plant species, including the extreme type of a non-irrigated green roof (Biocrust roof) and techniques for plant installation. Plant drought tolerance was found to be an advantage in green roofs under these climatic conditions and, for the species studied, aesthetic value could be maintained when irrigation decreased. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future of Water: Local, Regional and Global Best Practice)
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10 pages, 1437 KiB  
Article
Characterization of Water and Energy Consumptions at the End Use Level in Rural and Urban Environments: Preliminary Results of the ENERWAT Project
by Cristina Matos, António Cunha, Francisco Pereira, Arminda Gonçalves, Elisabete Silva, Sandra Pereira, Isabel Bentes, Diana Faria and Ana Briga-Sá
Urban Sci. 2019, 3(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci3010008 - 9 Jan 2019
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3509
Abstract
The characterization of water and energy consumptions is essential in order to define strategies for their rational use. The way these resources are used in households is the path for efficient and rational management, interdependent from each other. It is believed that there [...] Read more.
The characterization of water and energy consumptions is essential in order to define strategies for their rational use. The way these resources are used in households is the path for efficient and rational management, interdependent from each other. It is believed that there are significant differences between the patterns of water and energy consumption in rural and urban areas, where influencing factors should also be identified. This article aims to provide some preliminary results of a research project named ENERWAT, with the main goal to characterize the relation between water and energy consumption at the end use level for urban and rural environments. One of the goals of the aforementioned project was the design, application, and results analysis of a survey, in order to find the main differences in the water and energy consumptions at the end use level and the factors that influence it in urban and rural households. A total of 245 households participated in the research during 2016 (110 urban dwellings and 135 rural), responding to questions on their family composition, dwellings characterization, water and energy consumption habits, and conservation behaviors of these resources. The project also includes the instrumentation and monitoring of dwellings in rural and urban environments to quantify the water consumption and related energy consumption. This stage is still in progress and includes in situ measurements of nine different households (four in rural and five in urban environments) during at least one year. In this article, some of the results obtained by the survey application and the in situ measurements are presented. Despite the large number of data and the associated complexity, it can be concluded that the joint analysis of the results allows identification of a connection between water and energy consumption, as well as a household’s consumption patterns. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future of Water: Local, Regional and Global Best Practice)
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