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Energy efficiency is essential in the efforts to achieve a 20 % reduction of primary power consumption by 2020. It is widely recognized that the potential of energy saving in buildings is large. Considering the tendencies of energy production and price, it is becoming urgent to reduce energy consumption in buildings. The choice of materials for a building with a high energy efficiency becomes much more important and strategies for reducing the use of primary energy for the production of materials and components becomes key. Renewable building materials should already be integrated into the early phases of building planning. The positive trend towards wooden construction is dictated by international guidelines, where a wooden building is an important starting point, not only for low-energy, but also low-emission building with exceptional health and safety aspects. In Europe, the most comprehensive and widely used is a concept of ultra-low energy house, more precisely, the passive house concept. Most Slovenian buildings combine contemporary styling with a degree of energy efficiency that comes close to passive house standards. It is widely recognised that the Slovenian construction industry is relatively advanced in the field of low energy buildings. In the light of the growing importance of energy-efficient building methods, it could be said that timber passive house would play an increasingly important role in the future.

The implementation of solar shelters over top of parking spaces has the potential to make the production of renewable energy a secondary function of parking lots without impeding their ability to function as parking locations. This has the capacity to reduce the amount of natural space converted to solar farms as solar energy becomes more common. In addition, if these shelters are outfitted as charging stations for electric vehicles, they could serve as a driver for a cultural shift towards a more sustainable vehicle fleet. Implementation of this technology has begun on a small scale in San Diego, California and this project assessed the feasibility of implementation in Kingston, Ontario. This study set out to determine how much energy could be produced by a solar shelter over one parking space and how many parking spaces would be required to produce 1% of Kingston’s total electricity consumption. An insolation model was written in C, which used past climate data and mathematical models to incorporate the effects of latitude, cloud cover and snow. This model was compared to the current production in San Diego to check for validity. Since the insolation model was deemed to be valid, the results were used in conjunction with typical solar panel efficiencies in Kingston to calculate the potential energy production per structure. This was then used to determine the number of structures that would be required to provide 1% of Kingston’s electricity. Through literature review, it was determined that although snow on the panels would have a drastic effect on power production, it would not remain on the panels long enough to cause a significant effect. It was found that a single parking space in Kingston would be capable of generating 5500±_800^1000 kWh/year using the single-axis tracking model that is currently being implemented in San Diego, although a dual-axis tracking model would be capable of generating 11% more energy. Using the current prototype, Kingston would require implementation across about 2750 parking spaces in order to provide 1% of its electricity and it has ample locations which would be suitable. However, due to the current $40,000 price tag per structure, the current buy-back period is about 55 years which makes the current technology not economically feasible without lowering the cost or increasing the efficiency.

Historic and future extreme precipitation and wind events over southern Baffin Island, more specifically Iqaluit, Kimmirut, Pangnirtung and Cape Dorset are examined. Two sets of modeled re-analysis data, the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM) forced with European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Regional Analysis 40 (ERA40) and the other the North American Regional Re-analysis (NARR) dataset were used to characterize the atmosphere during historic events. Two sets of CRCM data forced with Canadian Global Climate Model (CGCM) data, one from 1961-1990 and the other from 2041-2070, are compared to assess the changes in extreme events in the future. Extreme events were defined by daily precipitation and sustained wind thresholds. Based on the CRCM future projection, events were inferred to increase in intensity for all communities and increase in frequency for 3 of the 4 communities. A shift in the Arctic storm season was also inferred in the future projection.

‘Urban Metabolism’ (UM) is a well-established concept based on the parallels between the metabolisms’ of ecosystems and cities. These parallels consist of the intake, storage, and transformation of materials and energy, and the creation and output of wastes. These traits, which suggest cities possess a metabolism similar to ecosystems, also exist within water distribution systems (WDSs). Four common areas of UM assessments include: the evaluation of environmental sustainability indicators; greenhouse gas accounting; numerical models for the assessment of metabolic flows; and design and decision support tools. These applications show promising opportunities if applied to WDSs, and therefore a novel framework based on UM was developed specifically for the assessment of WDSs. This framework was tested on a water distribution network via three experiments. Experiment 1 utilized factorial design to systematically assess predominate network parameters (water demand, static lift, and pipe roughness). Experiments 2 and 3 studied the effects of two network management strategies (water conservation and pipe replacement scheduling) as well as the effects of static lift and pipe roughness in the presence of these strategies. The results were reported in terms of four metabolic flows: water, operational energy (O/E), embodied energy (E/E), and greenhouse gases (GHGs). Experiment 1 showed that individual increases in water demand, pipe roughness, or static lift, all led to decreases in network pressures and reductions in leakage volume. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated increases to leakage volumes and decreases in per capita GHG emissions in the presence of water conservation measures, and decreases in leakage volumes and increases in O/E transmission efficiency in the presence of pipe replacement programs. Experiments 2 and 3 also demonstrated a reduction in network pressures, and a resulting reduction in leakage volumes, due to additional static lift and pipe roughness. Recommendations for future work were made in four specific areas: (1) the expansion of pre-established metabolic flows, (2) the further study of the effects of pressure management under the scenarios studied, (3) the consideration of other urban systems which may benefit from the application of an UM-based assessment, and (4) the assessment of non-hypothetical WDSs using the developed framework.

The next step after smart cities is the creation of digital or smart nations. A digital nation requires a national transformation across diverse institutions including the urban and rural areas of a society. Besides diverse social innovation initiatives, sustainability is a key aspect, so that rather than greenfield projects, long-term solutions will involve brownfield, smart city projects. A digital transformation to a digital or smart nation requires a great deal of innovation in planning, process re-engineering and execution. Whereas research work and policy actions are traditionally focused on a city level, these efforts need to be widened to the national level. Existing city-scale theories and frameworks may be used and adapted to meet the larger-scale needs of the future smart nations. The new issues and research challenges which arise need to be addressed through interdisciplinary approaches. This special issue on the theme of digital nations attempts to address the need in the academic literature to provide a better understanding of digital nations.

Municipal water distribution system (WDS) expansion is often focused on increasing system capacity with designs that best meet hydraulic requirements at the least cost. Increasing public awareness regarding global warming and environmental degradation is making environmental impact an important factor in decision-making for municipalities. There is thus a growing need to consider environmental impacts alongside cost and hydraulic requirements in the expansion and design of WDSs. As a result, the multiplicity of environmental impacts to consider in WDS expansion can complicate the decisions faced by water utilities. For example, a water utility may wish to consider environmental policy issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, non-renewable resource use, and releases to land, water, and air in WDS expansion planning. This thesis outlines a multi-objective optimization approach for WDS design and expansion that balances the objectives of capital cost, annual pumping energy use, and environmental impact minimization, while meeting hydraulic constraints. An environmental impact index that aggregates multiple environmental measures was incorporated as an environmental impact objective function in the multi-objective non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II) optimization algorithm. The environmental impact index was developed to reflect stakeholder prioritization of specific environmental policy issues. The evaluation of the environmental impact index and its application to the WDS expansion problem was demonstrated with a water transmission system example. The environmental impact index and multi-objective non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II) optimization algorithm were applied to the “Anytown” network expansion problem. Preliminary results suggest that solutions obtained with the triple-objective capital cost/energy/EI index optimization minimize a number of environmental impact measures while producing results that are comparable in pumping energy use and, in some instances, slightly higher in capital cost when compared to solutions obtained with a double cost/energy optimization in which environmental impact was not considered.

Rapidly changing environments impact avian populations greatly. Indeed, variable weather affects the timing of crucial resource availability and behaviours of breeding birds. Migratory birds are particularly threatened by advancing springs and must adjust their migration timing to remain synchronized with spring phenology. Environmental factors such as weather variability are known to influence bird timing both during breeding and migratory periods but have rarely been investigated for their impact across migration routes. Once birds are at their breeding locations, how environmental factors influence local timing and movements has also been little examined. In this study, in a declining long-distance migrant, the purple martin (Progne subis), I first investigate how extrinsic (environmental), and intrinsic (morphological, migration destination) factors impact migration timing and rate. Second, I investigate the timing of parental roosting during active parental care, and how environmental and nest conditions influence this behaviour. I found that variation in destination and timing are the main influence on spring arrival date and migration rate, while to a lesser extent favourable weather promotes faster migration. The great influence of spring departure on migration rate and arrival suggests selective pressure on migration timing across routes to match with conditions at the breeding grounds. I also found that summer roosting is prominent in purple martins with colder evenings and increased parental investment increasing the odds of parents remaining at their colony at night. Overall, my findings indicate that the influence of environmental factors on movement behaviour may vary by season, with spring migration being mostly driven by intrinsic factors, while summer roosting may be most influenced by local temperature. Future research on the effects of environmental factors on migratory stopover duration and the seasonality of roosting would further our understanding of these timing behaviours and how they may interact with advancing climate change.

Renewable energy and local resources play increasingly important role in the contemporary energy system. However, many energy planning models fail to represent peculiarities and constraints related to the use of bioenergy and other local resources. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the impact of modelling methods used for the reflection of local energy and non-energy resources and constraints in energy planning models. For this, scientific literature concerning modelling methods has been analysed and special mathematical model has been created. This model allows for optimization of heat production in different generation sources. Global sensitivity and uncertainty analysis has revealed the most influential factors in both traditional specification of the model and extended one which includes reflection of local resources and constraints. The results of the research highlight the positive effects provided by the integration of local peculiarities into the traditional energy planning models.