International Journal of Sustainable Society (10 papers in press)

Regular Issues

• Land Use/Cover Change and Urban Sustainability in a Medium-sized City  
  by Kayode Samuel, Remilekun Atobatele 
  Abstract: This study examined the trend in urban growth and vegetation loss and the implication of this on the sustainability of medium-size cities, using Osogbo, south-west Nigeria as a case. Using multi-temporal LandsatTM images that span 30 years (1986 to 2016), the study employed supervised classification to categorize the land cover into the built-up area, vegetation and water bodies. Findings revealed that the city grew axially along major transportation corridors in the early stage but experienced in-filling, densification and radial outward growth subsequently. The built-up areas increased at annual rate of 14.6%, more than the population growth rate of 2.6% while vegetation cover and water bodies recorded an annual change of -2.5% and -3.5% respectively. Rapid city growth and the resultant land use/cover conversion contribute to the depletion of wetlands and vegetation, thereby constituting a threat to sustainable urban development. Controlled urbanization is suggested as a panacea to the unsustainable urban expansion which threatens the citys ecological equilibrium.
  Keywords: Urbanization; Medium-size City; Sustainable Growth; Vegetation; Land use/cover change.
  
  
• Corporate Social Responsibility and Purchase Intentions: Perceptions and Expectations of Young Consumers in Ghana  
  by Emmanuel Neequaye, George Amoako, Mayqueen Attatsitsey 
  Abstract: Despite the growing practice of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) within the telecommunications industry of Ghana, it has received limited research attention. Thus, the primary purpose of this study is to examine perceptions and expectations of consumers regarding Airtel Ghana CSR initiatives, consider their impact on purchase intentions and identify any gap between consumers perceptions and their expectations of Airtel Ghana CSR initiatives. A cross-sectional survey was adopted for this study and the study is quantitative in nature. The results suggest philanthropic and legal CSR were the current main drivers of Airtel Ghana consumers purchase intentions. However, based on their expectations, Airtel Ghana consumers wished their purchase intentions were driven by economic and ethical CSR practices instead. The researchers discuss managerial and theoretical implications of the research results. Future research will adopt the three part model of CSR and findings compared to get a view of CSR from different perspectives.
  Keywords: CSR; Purchase Intentions; Expectations; Perceptions; Ghana.
  
  
• Assessing flow benefits of protected areas of central India: A case study from Maharashtra state of India  
  by Adrija Roy, Vicky Yadav, PRADEEP CHAUDHRY 
  Abstract: It is a common realization that protected areas (PAs) are playing a valuable role in maintaining biological diversity as well as providing immense economic benefits arising out of tourism and other direct uses. They are the cornerstone of most conservation strategies. They protect biodiversity, safe-guard ecosystem health, and provide an array of ecosystem services, such as fresh drinking water, places for recreation and relaxation, storehouses of genetic material, pollination, gas regulation, biological control and providing habitat and refugia for wildlife. In the present article, we have given an account of flow benefits, including employment opportunities to locals and other intangible or non-market benefits, emanating from five protected areas (national parks/tiger reserves and a sanctuary) of Maharashtra state from central India. These benefits have been analysed with the help of collected primary data and available secondary information. We understand that improved governance and appropriate investment in these areas would ultimately lead to maintaining ecological security, food security and finally sustainable development of society in long term basis.
  Keywords: National parks; Tiger reserves; stock and flow benefits; ecosystem services.
  
  

Special Issue on: ICTH2017-Barcelona Health as the Determining Factor to Sustainable Mobility

• Improving walkability in Catalonia through a participatory and empowerment model.  
  by Albert Junca, Judit Bort-Roig, Joan Carles Martori, Anna Puig-Ribera 
  Abstract: Background: Promoting walking and walkable communities is a priority to reduce the burden of physical inactivity-related ill health. Study Objective: A Participation-Action Project and empowerment model composed by three phases- was used to design and evaluate the impact of tailored strategies to improve paths walkability in three Catalan middle-size towns. Methods: In phases I and II focus groups with stakeholders and citizens identified local needs and weaknesses towards promoting walkability and explored perceptions on how to improve it. In phase III, strategies addressing local walkability were developed, implemented and evaluated. Results: Based on findings from focus groups, low-cost physical and communicative initiatives were implemented: clearing the paths; improving cleaning, the width and greenery of the paths; and doing communication campaigns through signaling the paths. A significant increase in path users (+5.95%) was observed after implementation. Conclusion: This is a valuable model for creating walkable communities tailored to specific contextual and cultural needs.
  Keywords: participatory model; social environment; built environment; active living community; paths; walkability.
  
  
• Associations Between Perceptions of Road Safety and Active Travel for School Children and Their Parents - a Health Needs Assessment  
  by Louise Lester, Rob Howard 
  Abstract: Introduction Active school travel has physical, mental, social and economic benefits. However, uptake is low in the UK. The aim was to understand how road safety perceptions influence school travel choices. Methods An epidemiological review was conducted alongside a literature review to understand evidence for effective interventions to increase active travel. A survey and qualitative focus groups gathered stakeholder views. Results Of 1,646 survey responses (49 schools), 47% reported actively travelling to school during winter, and 58% in summer. Pupils believed greater numbers of serious accidents occur from active school travel than police reports, particularly overestimating cycling accidents. Focus groups with 13 teachers, 48 students and 21 parents identified active travel barriers including distance, weather, attitudes, car speed, congestion, safety, and time. Recommendations Active school travel promotion should include safety perception messages. Planners and developers should consider active travel infrastructure, address structural barriers, and introduce traffic calming zones near school.
  Keywords: Public health; transport; travel; active travel; physical activity; road safety; school; risk; adolescent; injury.
  
  
• How to improve the interaction between cyclists and truck drivers  
  by Birgitta Thorslund, Katja Kircher 
  Abstract: The aim of this focus group study was to increase the understanding of user needs of truck drivers and cyclists with respect to future warning systems designed to decrease incidents and accidents between these groups.rnTo evaluate and describe the attitudes and behavior of bicyclists and truck drivers in urban areas, as well as their suggestions about future warning systems for these road user groups, two focus groups were carried out at VTI in Link
  Keywords: Interaction; cyclist; truck driver; traffic safety; focus group; warning system; detection.
  
  

Special Issue on: Smart house oriented community

• A New Perspective of Environmental Behaviour Study: A brief introduction of Wi-Fi Indoor Positioning System  
  by Yuming Lin, Weixin Huang 
  Abstract: Environment behaviour study is fundamental to architectural and urban design. The traditional methods have difficulty in obtaining quantitative data on a large scale, which indirectly hinders the intelligent process of building environment. The newly developed Wi-Fi indoor positioning system can provide a large number of effective data to environment behaviour study. This study gives a brief introduction to the Wi-Fi positioning system and analyses the abundant information contained in its data. On this basis, this study takes an innovation incubator as an example, trying to explore human interaction in the environment with the tool of social network analysis. Finally, this study provides a simple framework for implementing smart home with positioning data. The conclusions highlight the advantages and limitation of Wi-Fi positioning system, as well as the promising prospect in the smart home.
  Keywords: Wi-Fi indoor positioning system; environment behaviour study; social network analysis; smart home.
  
  
• Consistent Context Aware Behaviour in Smart Home Environment  
  by Rajarajeswari S, Neelanarayanan V 
  Abstract: The Home automation plays an important role in modern lifestyle because of its access in using at different places with high quality which will intern save time by decreasing human work automatically. Home automation controls the electronic devices remotely and automatically. This automatic behaviour is designed with the help of context aware behaviour Context awareness plays an important role in Smart home environment where data from various sensors and input from user or user action must be interpreted and corresponding commands to actuators must be generated. The realization of the smart home requires the seamless integration among humans, physical objects, and user interactions. Context-aware adaptation and decision support in home environments satisfies the user expectation in smart environment. This context aware automation and decision support process is done with the help of adaptive rules which is defined for the automatic behaviour of devices in the smart home environment. The consistent behaviour of the devices in the smart environment will capture the customer satisfaction. This work describes the process of checking the consistent behaviour of the context aware system in smart home environment using formal modelling and verification method. We have discussed a smart environment with its automated adaptive mechanism and checking the consistent behaviour of the adaptive mechanism. The result ensures the consistent behaviour of the context aware system in the smart environment.
  Keywords: Smart home; Home automation; Context Awareness; Consistency; Formal Modelling.
  
  

Special Issue on: Smart House Oriented Community

• Recent development of Smart City in Japan  
  by Zhejing Cao 
  Abstract: The energy shortage and urge for carbon emission decrease have precipitated Japan government to carry out Smart City project more on Smart Community level. In reference to global context of Smart City from both theoretical and practical perspectives, Japan presents certain characteristics with its own uniqueness. Smart City in Japan is more promoted by enterprise and government, while less discussed in academia. This paper aims to differentiate Japans Smart City from United States and Europe to define its scope through literature reviews and comparative analysis; to formulates a comprehensive analysis framework from Smart City policy, standards, to projects, based on evidences from governmental propagandas and enterprise initiatives; and to give a hint on future Smart City development in Japan within global context. It is found that although energy efficiency is underlined for Smart City in U.S., Europe, and Japan, Smart City in Japan is also deployed on community and household level for life quality and user respect, and converted as a prototype for overseas export. The national government is the leading agent for strategic development and subsidy management, while the local government usually organizes the consortium for enterprises and various stakeholders. There are three goals and five approaches for Japan Smart City strategies with ICT (information communication technology) as the hard core. Two waves of Smart City projects have been initiated by national government, while private sectors and local government have started many other projects as supplement. For the first-wave of Smart City projects either launched for economic sectors or deployed in different geographically-determined districts, it is typically focused on smart infrastructure, energy saving and management, smart transportation, and ICT application. Stakeholder engagement, alignment of Smart City projects to strategic urban agendas, social value more than just technology orientation, and data security should also be considered, when Smart City in Japan is in a future of evolving towards disaster resilience and tourism activation, seeking global expansion, and establishing the international standards.
  Keywords: Smart City; Smart Community; Japan; low-carbon society; energy management; smart infrastructure.
  
  
• Building Form Regulation Visualization in Japan: Automatic Building Volume Legality Verification via Procedural Modeling  
  by Hangyu Chen, Zhenjiang Shen 
  Abstract: Building Standard Law (BSL, 建築基準法) in Japan serves to establish minimum standards relating to the site, structure, facility, and function of buildings which protect the life, health, and property of citizens. The Building Form Regulation (BFR, 建築形態規制) in BSL controls the building volume according to the zone restrictions contained within a district plan. BFR deregulation (緩和規制) based on BSL permits certain stricter limits to be relaxed if the land conditions of the lot meet the relevant requirements. In Japan, one of the Building Permission (BP, 建築許可) procedures involves determining whether the architectural design, especially building volume, is legal or not according to BFR. This paper proposes a 3D BFR visualization which allows for efficient legality verification under BP. We utilize CityEngine, a procedural modeling code Computer Generated Architecture (CGA) in 3DGIS software. We establish shape parameters to transform BFR into a 3D shape reflective of certain land conditions which affect the 3D attributes in CityEngine. We then utilize the 3D BFR shape visualization to validate the building volume legality automatically in Python Script. We hope that the results presented here provide workable information regarding BFR and improve the efficiency of the BP procedure. In the long term, the proposed method may assist in visualizations for other urban planning regulation and data construction. Regulations may be combined with other important city data, so our results also may be meaningful for the future development of smart cities.
  Keywords: Deregulation; Shape Parameter; CGA; Python Script.