ABSTRACT
Cities respond to climate concerns mainly through climate action plans (CAPs). The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) was the first report from the international climate body that gave worldwide attention to urban climate change. Yet, a global situation of the content and structure of urban CAPs adopted or published after AR5 is not well represented in the literature. This literature void presents a difficulty in holistically understanding the strengths and weaknesses of existing urban CAPs, hence painting a clearer picture for future urban climate planning. Here, we performed detailed qualitative content analyses on CAPs from 278 cities worldwide. This study sought to achieve two specific objectives;(1) to critically analyse the content and structure of urban CAPs adopted or published from 2015 to 2022, and (2) to examine the extent to which sampled urban CAPs align with selected climate action best practices. There have been variations in the adoption or publication of urban CAPs from 2015 to 2022 across city types and world regions. Our analysis showed a rise in the number of CAPs adopted or published during the global COVID-19 lockdown period as compared to the post and pre-COVID-19 lockdown period. We also observed a transition from developing mainly mitigation-focused CAPs pre-COP21 to both mitigation and adaptation CAPs. About 96% of the sampled urban CAPs are focusing on the transport sector to achieve climate objectives. More than half (55%) of cities with climate change mitigation-related urban CAPs (147 urban CAPs of 267 urban CAPs) do not have deep decarbonization pledges, with less than a quarter of the pledges likely to be achieved by 2030. We found that about 81% of 120 cities with deep decarbonization pledges are more likely to report baseline emission inventory in their urban CAPs. A lack of inclusiveness, transparency and verification, evidence-based climate planning, comprehensiveness, and integration were the most common areas of non-alignment with best practices. The explicit consideration of synergies, trade-offs, or conflicts is significantly low. The evidence is a catalyst for understanding the dynamics in existing urban CAPs to shape future urban climate action planning. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.
ABSTRACT
Smart cities are expected to address global challenges and increase the quality of life. However, due to the overemphasis on physical and technological aspects, social rights and democratic values have often been neglected in smart city projects. In this paper, we introduce the concept of 'societal smart city' and discuss how and why it should be prioritized in the post-pandemic era. We argue that a societal smart city is a city that integrates social rights and democratic values with technological innovations. Six major dimensions of a societal smart city are: social sustainability, citizen-centeredness, e-democracy, social justice, participatory governance, and cultural resilience. We encourage urban planners and policymakers to pay attention to these dimensions and caution against physical and technological determinism.
ABSTRACT
Background. COVID-19 disease is the cause of daily morbidity and mortality worldwide due to its high transmissibility and pathogenicity. To date, intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) injection has been used as one of the various treatments for this disease. This study aimed to determine the effect of IVIg injection on the treatment of patients with Coronavirus-induced cytokine storm. Methods. A total of 174 patients with COVID-19 were included in this study based on their clinical characteristics and laboratory findings and were divided into two groups of IVIg recipients and non-recipients according to the treatment they received. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 22.0. A p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results. IVIg was used to treat merely 20 patients and Kaletra and hemoperfusion drugs were used more among IVIg recipient patients (P=0.003 and P=0.001, respectively). COVID-19-positive PCR tests were significantly more frequent among IVIg recipients (P=0.026). The polymorphonuclear neutrophil (PMN) count (P=0.007) and sodium level (P=0.007) were significantly higher in the IVIg recipient group on the first admission day. Moreover, INR levels in the IVIg recipient group were significantly lower on the seventh admission day (P=0.020). The median of total intensive care unit (ICU) duration of hospitalization among IVIg recipients was significantly higher (P=0.001). Conclusion. It seems that the use of IVIg in COVID-19 patients should be further investigated. Practical Implications. IVIg injection could decrease mortality and slightly increase the survival rate among COVID-19 patients. © 2022 The Authors.
ABSTRACT
The chapter sheds light on the genealogy and the key definitions of the smart city concept. It reviews the underlying principles of smart cities and highlights their main contributions to dealing with climate change. The chapter points out that the concept has undergone many changes during the past 2 decades, promoting from a technology-oriented to a human-oriented approach. The COVID-19 pandemic is evaluated as a pivotal event in the concept's development, paving the way for broader acceptance of smart city initiatives within cities. The emphasis on achieving sustainable development and quality of life through ICT is considered a common theme among definitions for smart cities. The chapter outlines eight fundamental smart city principles: livability, sustainability, efficiency, security, resilience, productivity, inclusion, and transparency. Finally, the contributions of smart cities to climate change management are addressed in the six action areas of citizens, government, economy, mobility, and living. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
One of the economic challenges facing developing countries is the cost of tackling air pollution and improving its quality. In this study, we propose a comparative analysis of the tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) column spatial configuration over Tehran between pandemic conditions and normal conditions, based on the European Space Agency (ESA) Copernicus Sentinel-5P products. Comparison of the time series of nitrogen dioxide obtained from Sentinel-5P data showed that NO2 levels in 2020 were between 4 x 10(-5) and 6 x 10(-5) mol/m(2), while in 2019 the amount of nitrogen dioxide many times exceeded 6 x 10(-5) mol/m(2). Based on the data obtained from Sentinel-5P, the northern, north-eastern, and central regions of Tehran were registered as the most polluted areas in terms of nitrogen dioxide. The results showed that due to the change of normal conditions in 2019 to quarantine conditions due to coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) in 2020, the density of tropospheric NO2 columns decreased, which is due to the temporary restriction of industrial activities, traffic, and population density. The correlation analysis between ground dataand data from Sentinel-5P provided encouraging values with a Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.58 (2019) and 0.61 (2020), and the amount of nitrogen dioxide in 2020 decreased by 6% compared to 2019.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted daily lives and operations in many parts of the world. Being home to more than half of the world’s population, cities were particularly hit hard by the pandemic. Different socioeconomic, institutional, and technological measures and policies have been adopted by cities in their efforts to control the pandemic. This chapter is focused on those measures and policies enabled by smart technologies and solutions. COVID-19 was the first global pandemic that occurred after digital revolution. It was, therefore, no surprise that smart technologies and solutions have been deployed at a large scale to deal with it. It is argued that this has even accelerated adoption of such technologies and solutions. By focusing on the planning, absorption, recovery, and adaptation capacities, this chapter discusses how smart solutions and technologies have contributed to resilience against the pandemic. In terms of planning, it is discussed that planning and existence of smart city infrastructure have enhanced different resilience characteristics such as connectivity, innovation, and resourcefulness that have helped some cities be less affected by the pandemic. These characteristics and availability and deployment of smart infrastructure have also enabled cities to absorb the initial shocks through, among other things, better tracing and tracking. Smart solutions and technologies have also enhanced resilience characteristics such as connectivity, creativity, agility, flexibility, and inclusion, thereby helping cities to resume their functionalities in a more timely manner. This, for instance, has been achieved through teleworking, telemedicine, automatic operations, etc. Lastly, contributions to adaptation had fostered connectivity, learning capacity, and flexibility. It is expected that the use of technology will lead to positive behavioral changes that may last even after the pandemic. Despite all these positive contributions, there are concerns about privacy and digital divide that need to be duly considered and addressed for more effective uptake and implementation of smart city solutions and technologies. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Cities around the world have traditionally dealt with a wide array of natural and human-made risks and hazards. Annually, this results in significant human and economic losses in urban areas. As climate change is expected to further increase the frequency and intensity of adverse events, and other adverse events such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic may also hit cities again in the future, cities around the world increasingly recognize the importance of building on urban resilience to minimize vulnerabilities and enhance resistance, absorption, recovery and adaptation capacities. The rapid advances in smart city solutions enabled by information and communication technologies have also provided cities with more tools and opportunities to deal with adverse events. There is a vast body of literature on both smart city and urban resilience. However, the concept of smart city resilience has received limited attention in the literature. To fill this gap, in this chapter, we first provide overviews of the underlying principles of the smart city and urban resilience concepts. Next, we explain how adopting integrated approaches that simultaneously consider both smartness and resilience can help cities take more effective and efficient efforts toward dealing with adverse events, enhancing quality of life and ensuring transition toward sustainable development. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Cities are now home to over 4.3 billion people, more than 56% of world population, and further growth in urbanization trends is projected for the coming decades. According to United Nations, 68% of world population is projected to live in urban areas by 2050. Traditionally, people have migrated to cities in search for better livelihood opportunities, better access to services and amenities, and enhanced quality of life. These aspirations may not always be fully realized due to various factors such as ineffective urban development and management policies and practices. As a result, externalities and problems such as social inequality, crime, environmental pollution, and traffic jam are common in many urban areas, especially those in developing countries. Climate change and the recent COVID-19 pandemic have reignited the debates over cities and their future. On the one hand, there are many concerns over the vulnerability of cities to the impacts of climate change and other stressors and extreme events such as pandemics. On the other hand, it is argued that effective urban management policies and practices can provide solutions for addressing the increasing challenges that cities are facing and contribute to mitigating global climate change. Reliance on conventional approaches and strategies may, however, not be sufficient if cities want to be part of the solution to climate change and other challenges. Therefore, there has been increasing emphasis on adopting innovative and disruptive solutions that are transformative and can accelerate transition toward creating cities that are more resilient and sustainable. This has led to growing interest and investment in smart solutions and technologies enabled by advances in information and communication technologies. Based on an overview of the existing literature, in this chapter, I first discuss some of the major challenges that cities are now facing. Results show that major challenges are related to ecological degradation, unregulated urban expansion, climate change adaptation and mitigation, resource management, fragmented urban management, air pollution, housing, and transportation. Next, I briefly discuss potential contributions of smart city solutions and technologies to overcoming these challenges. Finally, I provide a summary of this edited volume and its contributions to advancing knowledge on smart and resilient cities. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
The concept of smart cities peaked in 2015, bringing an increased influx of 'smart' devices in the form of the Internet of Things (IoT) and sensors in cities. As a result, interest in smart urban governance has become more prevalent in administrative, organisational, and political circles. This is sustained by both local and global demands for an increased contribution to the goals of sustainability through urban governance processes in response to climate change urgencies. Cities generate up to 70% of global emissions, and in light of societal pressures for more inclusivity and democratic processes, the need for sound urban governance is merited. Further knowledge on the theme of smart urban governance is required to better understand the trends and knowledge structures and better assist policy design. Therefore, this study was undertaken to understand and map the evolution of the concept of smart urban governance through a bibliometric analysis and science mapping techniques using VOSviewer. In total, 1897 articles were retrieved from the Web of Science database over 5 decades, from 1968 to 2021, and divided into three subperiods, namely 1978 to 2015, 2016 to 2019, and 2020 to early 2022. Results indicate that the overall emerging themes across the three periods highlight the need for citizen participation in urban policies, especially in relation to smart cities, and for sustained innovation for e-participation, e-governance, and policy frameworks. The results of this study can aid both researchers exploring the concept of urban governance and policy makers rendering more inclusive urban policies, especially those hosting technological and digital domains.
ABSTRACT
Apart from many social and economic problems worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has also led to sudden halt in face-to-face climate-related meetings. Moreover, it has also negatively influenced the works related to the preparations for the sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and organizing the 26th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), namely COP26 to be held in Glasgow, which was postponed to November 2021. This article presents a global study undertaken among UNFCCC contact points and other climate experts, to ascertain the impacts of the pandemic on the implementation of SDG13 and UNFCCC processes. The methodological approach entails an bibliometric analysis, online survey, and authors’ expert judgment. Results of the bibliometric analysis show that the most common terms associated with this theme are COVID-19, climate change, CO2, energy, “pandemic-related,” and “adaptation-related.” In addition, the survey revealed some difficulties associated with online participation in the processes from many developing countries. The study concluded that there is negative impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the UNFCCC process, more minor government priorities regarding climate action, loss of traction of the process, and a challenge to achieve the Paris Agreement, with less significant support from the respondents from less developed countries. The findings suggest that urgent action is needed, to make up for the lost time, and place climate issues more prominently on the global agenda. Copyright © 2022 Filho, Hickmann, Nagy, Pinho, Sharifi, Minhas, Islam, Djalanti, García Vinuesa and Abubakar.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 is an emerging pandemic that caused a very widespread infection with more than 1000000 cases in Iran within a year. The main cause of mortality among patients with COVID-19 is pulmonary failure. In Iranian Traditional Medicine, essences have been used for curing pulmonary diseases. Pinen-Hydronoplacton-Ribonucleic acid (PHR) is an inhaler spray made of seven different plants, which all are used by humans and have desirable pharmacological features for treating pulmonary symptoms of COVID-19 patients. This study was conducted to assess the safety and effectiveness of PHR160 spray in improving pulmonary symptoms of COVID-19 patients. This was a single-centre, non-blinded randomized clinical trial with two parallel groups in two different wards of Baqiyatallah hospital, Tehran, Iran. Participants were 63 male patients diagnosed with COVID-19 pneumonia, divided into 2 groups of 32 in the intervention group and 31 in the control group. The intervention group received 5 days of PHR160 spray, 10 puffs each day, 300 micrograms in each puff in addition to the routine treatment. Oxygen saturation was measured by a pulse oximeter, every six hours and recorded daily. This study showed that administration of PhR 160 in patients of COVID-19 was safe, and it significantly increased the arterial oxygen saturation percentage in COVID-19 patients. In addition, it decreased hospitalization duration, dyspnea score, and cough score significantly in the patients. The statistical modelling test, with adjusting the age and respiratory rate for baseline and 4 days of the intervention, shows that the oxygen saturation percentage mean was significantly more in the intervention group by 5.14 units (p<0.001). © 2022, National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Background: Recent studies have shown that insufficient vitamin D supply is correlated with increase in COVID-19 cases and its mortality. Potentially, it may play an important role in controlling virus proliferation. Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the association between serum vitamin D levels and clinical findings, and mortality rate in patients with COVID-19. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 200 COVID-19 patients referred or admitted to Loghman-e-Hakim Hospital of Tehran, Iran, from February to June 2020. After patient selection, demographic information of all patients was recorded. Eventually, the relationship between basic demographic and clinical findings with vitamin D levels in all patients was evaluated. Results: The mean Vit-D levels in intubated and non-intubated patients were 22.95 +/- 22.23 ng/mL and 21.64 +/- 29.2 0 ng/mL, respectively(P = 0.018). In most of the outpatients (46.7%), Vit-D levels were between 21 - 30 ng/mL, and 47.6% of admitted patients had Vit-D <= 20 ng/mL. The mean Vit-D level in survived patients was significantly higher than patients who died (28.2 +/- 21.18 ng/mL vs. 19.91 +/- 14.18 ng/mL, respectively;P = 0.021). While 34.2% (55 cases) of survived patients had Vit-D level >= 31 ng/mL, about 70% of death cases had Vit-D <= 20 ng/mL (P < 0.001). Conclusions: According to our results, vitamin D supplementation could be beneficial in COVID-19 patients. However, further comprehensive clinical trials are needed to confirm these findings.
ABSTRACT
The increasing impacts of climate change, coupled with the Greta Thunberg effect, the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, and varied environmental policy documents, are pointing to the need for urgent and cohesive climate action and mitigation frameworks. One potent solution, gaining global acceptance, is that of the Green New Deal (GND), positioned as a radical rethinking of political and economic structures in view of pushing sustainability at the forefront of national, regional, and global issues. With the model rapidly gaining ground in various geographies, and in different forms in view of contextualization needs, there is a need to better understand its evolution, knowledge structures, and trends. This paper thus sets forth to provide an understanding of the evolution and implementation of GND through a biblio-metric analysis and science mapping techniques using VOSviewer and CiteSpace to identify the thematic focus of 1174 articles indexed in the Web of Science since 1995. To understand the thematic evolution of the field over time, we divided the study period into three sub-periods, namely 1995– 2014, 2015–2019, and 2020–2021. These sub-periods were determined considering important milestones related to GNDs. Term co-occurrence analyses were then conducted to understand thematic focus and associated trends. Also, co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling were other methods applied to identify major sources, authors, publications, and countries that have made more contributions to the development of research on GNDs. The findings of this paper can help both researchers and policy makers understand the evolution and trends of GNDs to better formulate GNDs strategies and policies in accordance with varying needs and geographies. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
ABSTRACT
The recent and projected upward trends in the frequency and intensity of climate-induced events in cities have enhanced the focus on adaptation. In addition to enhancing the capacity of cities to prepare for and absorb risks, adaptation measures provide multiple co-benefits. However, health co-benefits are among the least explored. These are now seen as increasingly important with the renewed focus on public health since the COVID-19 pandemic. This study reviews literature focused on the health co-benefits of urban climate change adaptation measures. Health co-benefits of seven different categories of adaptation measures are discussed. Results showed that existing evidence is mainly related to some categories such as critical infrastructure, nature-based solutions, and urban planning and design measures. Other adaptation categories like early warning systems;policy, management & governance, including local adaptation policies;and measures and strategies related to ‘knowledge, perceptions & behavior’ that mainly involve people's understanding and individual responses to climate change, are relatively underexplored. Moreover, it was discussed that some adaptation measures may result in health trade-offs and these needs to be further studied. Overall, through identifying health co-benefits, results of this review can make a strong case for further promotion of climate change adaptation in cities. © 2021
ABSTRACT
Introduction: The rapid worldwide spread, in addition to the morbidity and mortality associated with the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), have raised concern throughout the world. Identifying the characteristics of patients who died of COVID-19 is essential to implement preventive measures. Objective: We aimed at investigating these characteristics among the Iranian population in Tabriz. Methods: In this case series, we analyzed clinical characteristics, laboratory parameters, and imaging findings of 111 patients with a reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis who died during hospitalization. The studied patients had been admitted to the hospital between February 2020 and May 2020. Results: The median age of patients was 73 years (IQR, 62-82 years) and approximately 70% of them were male. The median oxygen saturation on admission was 88% (IQR, 80-92%) and dyspnea, cough, and fever were the most common presenting symptoms. Among comorbidities, diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases were more frequently observed among patients who had a fatal outcome. While ground-glass opacity was the most commonly reported finding on chest computed tomography, 5% of the patients had no abnormal finding on imaging. Chloroquine was the most frequently used medication for treatment. Conclusion: Our results showed that the majority of COVID-19 deaths occurred in male elderly with decreased levels of oxygen saturation and elevated levels of lactate dehydrogenase and erythrocyte sedimentation rate on admission.