About this Research Topic
Cities worldwide are going through the largest wave of urbanization in history as about half of the world’s population now reside in major towns and cities. In recent times, this development has resulted into cities being responsible for over 70 per cent of global CO2 emissions, thereby contributing to climate change, water and energy stress, as well as ecosystem degradation. The United Nations in 2013 reported that by the end of 2050, city dwellers, especially in the third-world countries, will have doubled. While city governments must continuously deal with the rapid urbanization challenges, it also signaled significant construction industry opportunities. With cities containing the increasing majority of the population, focus should be directed at how to deliver a sustainable future through technology innovation in the entire built environment.
Urban spaces pose several challenges impacting the quality of life, necessitating a shift towards sustainable development and lifestyle for dwellers. First, owing to the overwhelming rise in migration to cities, recent observers emphasize quick and smart interventions to address the rapidly changing lifestyles and gentrified neighborhoods that set low, middle-income earners farther from their workplaces. Secondly, urban managers are under pressure to optimize land usage for infrastructure and buildings that maintain people’s culture and socialisation without adverse effects on the natural environment. Thus, there is a need to engage smart technologies for urban sustainability in energy management, digital construction, waste and environment management, smart healthcare, economic development, etc. While it is a huge challenge to transform cities through sustainable technological innovation, administrators sometimes fail to manage the digital divide challenges.
This issue will aim to highlight innovative and sustainable research and practice under the following themes:
• Green and sustainable urban development: wastewater, sustainable infrastructure, flooding, climate change adaptions
• Smart Cities: new urbanism, smart infrastructure and energy, Urban IoT Architecture
• Sponge Cities.
• The construction industry’s digital transformation, including IR4.0, green building, renewable energy, and building energy flexibility.
Authors should submit original research articles, including detailed, complete descriptions of their research efforts. Besides being technically correct, authors should ensure that articles project a scientific understanding of the topic.
Urban spaces pose several challenges impacting the quality of life, necessitating a shift towards sustainable development and lifestyle for dwellers. First, owing to the overwhelming rise in migration to cities, recent observers emphasize quick and smart interventions to address the rapidly changing lifestyles and gentrified neighborhoods that set low, middle-income earners farther from their workplaces. Secondly, urban managers are under pressure to optimize land usage for infrastructure and buildings that maintain people’s culture and socialisation without adverse effects on the natural environment. Thus, there is a need to engage smart technologies for urban sustainability in energy management, digital construction, waste and environment management, smart healthcare, economic development, etc. While it is a huge challenge to transform cities through sustainable technological innovation, administrators sometimes fail to manage the digital divide challenges.
This issue will aim to highlight innovative and sustainable research and practice under the following themes:
• Green and sustainable urban development: wastewater, sustainable infrastructure, flooding, climate change adaptions
• Smart Cities: new urbanism, smart infrastructure and energy, Urban IoT Architecture
• Sponge Cities.
• The construction industry’s digital transformation, including IR4.0, green building, renewable energy, and building energy flexibility.
Authors should submit original research articles, including detailed, complete descriptions of their research efforts. Besides being technically correct, authors should ensure that articles project a scientific understanding of the topic.
Keywords: Urban Sustainability, Green Building and Renewable Energy, Housing, Sponge Cities, Digital Construction, Waste and Environment Management, Smart Technology, Other Emerging Technologies in the Built Environment
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
