Currently, there is no method available that can systematically score the available ecosystem services in streets or street segments in suburban districts. In this study, different climate adaptation measures and their ecosystem services were categorized into green, blue, and grey categories and weight was given to each category based on their impact on the microclimate. This study took place in the Hillesluis district in the city of Rotterdam and the Paddepoel district in the city of Groningen. In Rotterdam, 21 streets, composed of 42 street segments, were assessed. In Groningen, 17 streets, composed of 45 street segments, were assessed. The available ecosystem services of each street segment were scored from 0–100. The scorecard method that was developed and tested during this study provided insight in the variation of available ecosystem services of streets and street segments. Individual street scores were very low in the city of Rotterdam and ranged between 3 and 50, with the average score for the street segments of 29. In Groningen, the scores were considerably higher with a range between 23 and 70, with an average score of 47 per street segment. The presence of larger green trees, front yards, and façade gardens in the green category are the most distinctive variable, while adaptation measures in the blue category were absent in both cities. The scorecard proved to be very useful in the adaptation labeling of street segments and entire streets. After assessing a neighborhood, the least adaptive streets can be identified relatively easy. Based on the score a label can be given between A+++ and G. The scorecard informs residents and decision makers about which streets are most adaptive and which streets have an adaptation potential. The method can easily be duplicated and used by local governments and community groups to have better insight in the level of climate adaptation of their street. Labels for entire streets can be used to create awareness and encourage residents to take action and expand the number of climate adaptation measures in their street.
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Communication of climate-responsive urban design guidelines is becoming increasingly relevant in the light of climate adaptation challenges in cities. Widespread uptake in practice of such guidelines can be promoted by visualizations of the principles on which they are based. The “Really cooling water bodies in cities” research project developed and tested the required knowledge on visual communication. Evidence-based design guidelines assisting designers with creating cooler urban water environments were developed and communicated with 3D animations. The animations were shaped according to three core theoretical criteria about visual representations: “visual clarity”, “trust” and “interest”. We assessed in how far these criteria were met in an inquiry with design professionals, the target group of the design guidelines. The article concludes with recommendations for developing visual design guidelines in climate-responsive urban design: to weigh the level of detail, components and balance between site-specificity/abstraction (“visual clarity”); to make microclimatic processes visible without distorting them (“trust”); and to keep timing short and visual attractiveness high (“interest”). It is argued that taking these aspects into account and setting a clear correspondence between theoretical concepts, representation objectives and options, can largely benefit visual design guidelines communicating climate-responsive urban design knowledge.
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Of all patients in a hospital environment, trauma patients may be particularly at risk for developing (device-related) pressure ulcers (PUs), because of their traumatic injuries, immobility, and exposure to immobilizing and medical devices. Studies on device-related PUs are scarce. With this study, the incidence and characteristics of PUs and the proportion of PUs that are related to devices in adult trauma patients with suspected spinal injury were described. From January–December 2013, 254 trauma patients were visited every 2 days for skin assessment. The overall incidence of PUs was 28⋅3% (n = 72/254 patients). The incidence of device-related PUs was 20⋅1% (n = 51), and 13% (n = 33) developed solely device-related PUs. We observed 145 PUs in total of which 60⋅7% were related to devices (88/145). Device-related PUs were detected 16 different locations on the front and back of the body. These results show that the incidence of PUs and the proportion of device-related PUs is very high in trauma patients
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Semi-closed greenhouses have been developed in which window ventilation is minimized due to active cooling, enabling enhanced CO2 concentrations at high irradiance. Cooled and dehumidified air is blown into the greenhouse from below or above the canopy. Cooling below the canopy may induce vertical temperature gradients along the length of the plants. Our first aim was to analyze the effect of the positioning of the inlet of cooled and dehumidified air on the magnitudes of vertical temperature and VPD gradients in the semi-closed greenhouses. The second aim was to investigate the effects of vertical temperature gradients on assimilate production, partitioning, and fruit growth. Tomato crops were grown year-round in four semiclosed greenhouses with cooled and dehumidified air blown into the greenhouses from below or above the crop. Cooling below the canopy induced vertical temperature and VPD gradients. The temperature at the top of the canopy was over 5°C higher than at the bottom, when outside solar radiation was high (solar radiation >250 J cm-2 h-1). Total dry matter production was not affected by the location of the cooling (4.64 and 4.80 kg m-2 with cooling from above and from below, respectively). Percentage dry matter partitioning to the fruits was 74% in both treatments. Average over the whole growing season the fresh fruit weight of the harvested fruits was not affected by the location of cooling (118 vs 112 g fruit-1). However, during summer period the average fresh fruit weight of the harvested fruits in the greenhouse with cooling from below was higher than in the greenhouse with cooling from above (124 vs 115 g fruit-1).
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Nowadays, Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) are developing as innovative multifunctional tools to maximize urban ecosystem services such as storm water preservation, reduction of runoff and flood protection, groundwater pollution prevention, biodiversity enhancement, and microclimate control. Gdańsk is one of the first Polish cities to widely introduce rain gardens (one example of an NBS) in different areas such as parks, city center, main crossroads, and car parks. They involve different technical innovations individually tailored to local architecture, including historic buildings and spaces. Gdańskie Wody, which is responsible for storm water management in the city, adopted a pioneering strategy and started the construction of the first rain garden in 2018. Currently, there are a dozen rain gardens in the city, and this organisation's policy stipulates the construction of NBSs in new housing estates without building rainwater drainage.Various types of rain gardens can be created depending on location characteristics such as geo-hydrology, as well as local conditions and needs. Furthermore, each of them might be equipped with specific technical solutions to improve the rain garden's function – for example, an oil separator or setter can be included to absorb the initial, most polluted runoff. During winter, the large amount of sodium chloride usually used to grit the roads may pose the greatest threat to biodiversity and plants. These installations have been included in a large rain garden in Gdańsk, located in the central reservation of the main streets in the city center.This work presents various technical considerations and their impact on ecosystem functions, and the urban circularity challenges provided by rain gardens operating in different technologies and surroundings. The precipitation quantity and the following infiltration rate were estimated by installing pressure transducers. Furthermore, mitigation of the urban heat island was analysed based on remote sensing images.
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As people age, physiological changes affect their thermal perception, sensitivity and regulation. The ability to respond effectively to temperature fluctuations is compromised with physiological ageing, upsetting the homeostatic balance of health in some. As a result, older people can become vulnerable at extremes of thermal conditions in their environment. With population ageing worldwide, it is an imperative that there is a better understanding of older people’s thermal needs and preferences so that their comfort and wellbeing in their living environment can be optimised and healthy ageing achieved. However, the complex changes affecting the physiological layers of the individual during the ageing process, although largely inevitable, cannot be considered linear. They can happen in different stages, speeds and intensities throughout the ageing process, resulting in an older population with a great level of heterogeneity and risk. Therefore, predicting older people’s thermal requirements in an accurate way requires an in-depth investigation of their individual intrinsic differences. This paper discusses an exploratory study that collected data from 71 participants, aged 65 or above, from 57 households in South Australia, over a period of 9 months in 2019. The paper includes a preliminary evaluation of the effects of individual intrinsic characteristics such as sex, body composition, frailty and other factors, on thermal comfort. It is expected that understanding older people’s thermal comfort from the lens of these diversity-causing parameters could lead to the development of individualised thermal comfort models that fully capture the heterogeneity observed and respond directly to older people’s needs in an effective way. (article starts at page 13)
MULTIFILE
More and more people worldwide live in urban areas, and these areas face many problems, of which a sustainable food provision is one. In this paper we aim to show that a transition towards more sustainable, regionally organized food systems strongly contributes to green, livable cities. The article describes a case study in the Dutch region of Arnhem–Nijmegen. Partners of a network on sustainable food in this region were interviewed on how they expect the food system to develop, and in design studies possible futures are explored. Both the interviews and the designs give support to the idea that indeed sustainable food systems can be developed to contribute to green livable cities. They show that the quality and meaning of existing green areas can be raised; new areas can be added to a public green system, and connections with green surroundings are enforced. They also show that inhabitants or consumers can be stimulated to become so called food citizens, highlighting that the relation of food systems and livable cities is a very close one.
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Thermal comfort -the state of mind, which expresses satisfaction with the thermal environment- is an important aspect of the building design process as modern man spends most of the day indoors. This paper reviews the developments in indoor thermal comfort research and practice since the second half of the 1990s, and groups these developments around two main themes; (i) thermal comfort models and standards, and (ii) advances in computerization. Within the first theme, the PMV-model (Predicted Mean Vote), created by Fanger in the late 1960s is discussed in the light of the emergence of models of adaptive thermal comfort. The adaptive models are based on adaptive opportunities of occupants and are related to options of personal control of the indoor climate and psychology and performance. Both models have been considered in the latest round of thermal comfort standard revisions. The second theme focuses on the ever increasing role played by computerization in thermal comfort research and practice, including sophisticated multi-segmental modeling and building performance simulation, transient thermal conditions and interactions, thermal manikins.
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This study explores if multiple alterations of the classrooms' indoor environmental conditions, which lead to environmental conditions meeting quality class A of Dutch guidelines, result in a positive effect on students' perceptions and performance. A field study, with a between-group experimental design, was conducted during the academic course in 2020–2021. First, the reverberation time (RT) was lowered in the intervention condition to 0.4 s (control condition 0.6 s). Next, the horizontal illuminance (HI) level was raised in the intervention condition to 750 lx (control condition 500 lx). Finally, the indoor air quality (IAQ) in both conditions was improved by increasing the ventilation rate, resulting in a reduction of carbon dioxide concentrations, as a proxy for IAQ, from ~1100 to <800 ppm. During seven campaigns, students' perceptions of indoor environmental quality, health, emotional status, cognitive performance, and quality of learning were measured at the end of each lecture using questionnaires. Furthermore, students' objective cognitive responses were measured with psychometric tests of neurobehavioural functions. Students' short-term academic performance was evaluated with a content-related test. From 201 students, 527 responses were collected. The results showed that the reduction of the RT positively influenced students' perceived cognitive performance. A reduced RT in combination with raised HI improved students' perceptions of the lighting environment, internal responses, and quality of learning. However, this experimental condition negatively influenced students' ability to solve problems, while students' content-related test scores were not influenced. This shows that although quality class A conditions for RT and HI improved students' perceptions, it did not influence their short-term academic performance. Furthermore, the benefits of reduced RT in combination with raised HI were not observed in improved IAQ conditions. Whether the sequential order of the experimental conditions is relevant in inducing these effects and/or whether improving two parameters is already beneficial, is unknown.
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