Water is of vital and critical importance to ecosystems and human societies. The effects of human activities on land and water are now large and extensive. These reflect physical changes to the environment. Global change such as urbanization, population growth, socioeconomic change, evolving energy needs, and climate change have put unprecedented pressure on water resources systems. It is argued that achieving water security throughout the world is the key to sustainable development. Studies on holistic view with persistently changing dimensions is in its infancy. This study focuses on narrative review work for giving a comprehensive insight on the concept of water security, its evolution with recent environmental changes (e.g., urbanization, socioeconomic, etc.) and various implications. Finally, it presents different sustainable solutions to achieve water security. Broadly, water security evolves from ensuring reliable access of enough safe water for every person (at an affordable price where market mechanisms are involved) to lead a healthy and productive life, including that of future generations. The constraints on water availability and water quality threaten secured access to water resources for different uses. Despite recent progress in developing new strategies, practices and technologies for water resource management, their dissemination and implementation has been limited. A comprehensive sustainable approach to address water security challenges requires connecting social, economic, and environmental systems at multiple scales. This paper captures the persistently changing dimensions and new paradigms of water security providing a holistic view including a wide range of sustainable solutions to address the water challenges.
Renewable energy has received noteworthy attention during the last few decades. This is partly due to the fact that fossil fuels are depleting and the need for energy is soaring because of the growing population of the world. This paper attempts to provide an idea of what is being done by researchers in remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS) field for exploring the renewable energy resources in order to get to a more sustainable future. Several studies related to renewable energy resources viz. geothermal energy, wind energy, hydropower, biomass, and solar energy, have been considered in this paper. The focus of this review paper is on exploring how remote sensing and GIS-based techniques have been beneficial in exploring optimal locations for renewable energy resources. Several case studies from different parts of the world which use such techniques in exploring renewable energy resource sites of different kinds have also been included in this paper. Though each of the remote sensing and GIS techniques used for exploration of renewable energy resources seems to efficiently sell itself in being the most effective among others, it is important to keep in mind that in actuality, a combination of different techniques is more efficient for the task. Throughout the paper, many issues relating to the use of remote sensing and GIS for renewable energy are examined from both current and future perspectives and potential solutions are suggested. The authors believe that the conclusions and recommendations drawn from the case studies and the literature reviewed in the present study will be valuable to renewable energy scientists and policymakers.
Spatial urban growth and its impact on land surface temperature (LST) is a high priority environmental issue for urban policy. Although the impact of horizontal spatial growth of cities on LST is well studied, the impact of the vertical spatial distribution of buildings on LST is under-investigated. This is particularly true for cities in sub-tropical developing countries. In this study, TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurement (TanDEM-XDEM), Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection (ASTER)-Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM), and ALOS World 3D-30m (AW3D30) based Digital Surface Model (DSM) data were used to investigate the vertical growth of the Dhaka Metropolitan Area (DMA) in Bangladesh. Thermal Infrared (TIR) data (10.6-11.2µm) of Landsat-8 were used to investigate the seasonal variations in LST. Thereafter, the impact of horizontal and vertical spatial growth on LST was studied. The result showed that: (a) TanDEM-X DSM derived building height had a higher accuracy as compared to other existing DSM that reveals mean building height of the Dhaka city is approximately 10 m, (b) built-up areas were estimated to cover approximately 94%, 88%, and 44% in Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC), and Fringe areas, respectively, of DMA using a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification method, (c) the built-up showed a strong relationship with LST (Kendall tau coefficient of 0.625 in summer and 0.483 in winter) in comparison to vertical growth (Kendall tau coefficient of 0.156 in the summer and 0.059 in the winter), and (d) the ‘low height-high density’ areas showed high LST in both seasons. This study suggests that vertical development is better than horizontal development for providing enough open spaces, green spaces, and preserving natural features. This study provides city planners with a better understating of sustainable urban planning and can promote the formulation of action plans for appropriate urban development policies.
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