Publications related to Environmental issues

The Effect of Rivers on Energy Balance at the Neighborhood Scale. A comparative analysis of four Rhodanian sites in France and Switzerland

Sergi Aguacil Moreno, Martine Laprise, Sara Sonia Formery Regazzoni, Emmanuel Rey

This research aims to compare the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of new neighbourhood projects near the Rhône River in France and Switzerland. The study considers the influence of the river on energy demand and resilience to climate change of 12 project-ba ...

Wrocław University of Science and Technology Publishing House2024

Quartiers rhodaniens en transition

Sara Sonia Formery Regazzoni

Over the course of history, the relationship between cities and their waters has shown different gradients of interweaving, marked by cycles of bonding and distancing. Following a period of complete neglect of urban watercourses, the versatile, multifacete ...

EPFL2024

Multiscale Spatiotemporal Characterization of Embodied Environmental Performance of Building Structures in Geneva from 1850 to 2018

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Catherine Elvire L. De Wolf, Serena Vanbutsele

Load-bearing systems in buildings, significant in material use and embodied greenhouse gas emissions (EGHGE), have lacked detailed analysis on their environmental and functional relationships over time and space. This study evaluates the environmental impa ...

2024

Mesh-based topology, shape and sizing optimization of ribbed plates

In this paper, we present a new parameterization and optimization procedure for minimizing the weight of ribbed plates. The primary goal is to reduce embodied CO2 in concrete floors as part of the effort to diminish the carbon footprint of the construction ...

Springer2024

Artificial intelligence of things for synergizing smarter eco-city brain, metabolism, and platform: Pioneering data-driven environmental governance

Jeffrey Huang, Simon Elias Bibri

Emerging smarter eco-cities, inherently intertwined with environmental governance, function as experimental sites for testing novel technological solutions and implementing environmental reforms aimed at addressing complex challenges. However, despite sign ...

Elsevier2024

Decarbonizing the fertilizers sector: an alternative pathway for urea and nitric acid production

François Maréchal, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Meire Ellen Gorete Ribeiro Domingos

In order to alleviate the environmental impact that nitrogen fertilizers production is responsible for, several efforts have been addressed to incentivize the partial or total decarbonization of the supply chains of ammonia and its derivatives. The decarbo ...

2024

At what spatial scale does natural selection operate? Using multiscale frameworks to calibrate the effects of environmental factors across landscape continuums

Annie Sandrine Guillaume

Patterns in nature arise from processes interacting across a continuum of spatial scales, where new relationships emerge at each level of investigation. These patterns are nested features encompassing fine-scale local patterns, such as topography and geolo ...

EPFL2024

Eco-Conscious Approach to Wireless Gas Monitoring With a Hybrid Printed Passive Sensor Tag

Sandro Carrara, Johanna Zikulnig, Jürgen Kosel

Addressing the environmental impact of electronic waste in biomedical sensing, an eco-conscious approach to the realization of a Chitosan-based Acetone sensor tag for wireless gas monitoring is presented. The fabrication involves inkjet printing of silver ...

Ieee-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc2024

Rising from rubble - Leveraging existing construction tools for upcycling concrete waste into slender walls

Katrin Beyer, Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Stefana Parascho, Qianqing Wang, Maxence Grangeot

In this paper, we present a new method for upcycling concrete rubble waste into slender walls through the lightweight digital augmentation of mainstream construction machines. By using such method, the environmental impact of concrete construction and demo ...

Springer2024

Territory Subject: Designing Human-Environment Interactions in Cities and Territories

Paola Viganò, Sylvie Tram Nguyen, Qinyi Zhang

A brief critique of the evolution of ecological perspectives surrounding the current environmental crises in the age of climate age and Anthropogenic impacts is highlighted across the inter-disciplinary fields of landscape, urbanism, and ecology. First, re ...

Springer Cham2023

Need for harmonized long-term multi-lake monitoring of African Great Lakes

Natacha Tofield-Pasche

To ensure the long-term sustainable use of African Great Lakes (AGL), and to better understand the func-tioning of these ecosystems, authorities, managers and scientists need regularly collected scientific data and information of key environmental indicato ...

Elsevier Sci Ltd2023

Atlas Narratives of Anthropogenic Transformations across the Vietnamese Mekong Delta's Urban-Rural Territories: Water Ecosystems as Subject for the Social Ecological Transition

Sylvie Tram Nguyen

Well beyond the impact of climate change, anthropogenic modifications of the Vietnam Mekong Delta's ecosystems have resulted in environmental degradation and subsequent loss in ecosystems. The environmental impacts include but are not limited to accelerate ...

EPFL2023

Integration of Life Cycle Impact Assessment in Energy System Modelling

François Maréchal, Jonas Schnidrig, Manuele Domenico Margni, Justine Brun

The Paris agreement is the first-ever universally accepted and legally binding agreement on global climate change. It is a bridge between today’s and climate-neutrality policies and strategies before the end of the century. However, government and private ...

2023

Integrated production of urea and nitric acid in the pulp industry: techno-economic and environmental analysis of black liquor gasification-based processes

François Maréchal, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Shivom Sharma, Meire Ellen Gorete Ribeiro Domingos

The pursuit of alternative energy sources for the nitrogen fertilizers sector has recently earned renewed interest due to increasing concerns regarding the world dependence on non-renewable energy resources and also motivated by the more stringent environm ...

2022

Building structures made of reused cut reinforced concrete slabs and walls: A case study

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Maléna Bastien Masse, Nicole Widmer

Reuse of reinforced concrete (RC) components reduces construction’s environmental impacts and waste. Rather than crushing the concrete of an obsolete structure, its components are saw cut and later reassembled in a new structure. The theoretical feasibilit ...

CRC Press2023

NOVEL TOD PLANNING APPROACHES

Flore Jeanne Marie Andrea Guichot

The handbook aims at raising awareness on the challenge of extending TOD to RUR, the social and environmental challenges, and offers planners, NGOs and interest groups hands-on methods and approaches to understand and analyse local land- scape values of st ...

2023

Data-driven optimization tool for the functional, economic, and environmental properties of blended cement concrete using supplementary cementitious materials

Hisham Tarek Mohamed Hafez

The need to produce more sustainable concrete is proving imminent given the rising environmental concerns facing the industry. Blended cement concrete, based on any of the prominent supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) such as fly ash, ground granul ...

ELSEVIER2023

From concrete waste to walls: An investigation of reclamation and digital technologies for new load-bearing structures

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Stefana Parascho, Maxence Grangeot

The research presented in this paper highlights current practices for the end-of-life of concrete and explores opportunities in using unaltered concrete rubbles from demolition for the digital construction of structural walls. Through research by iterative ...

2023

Multiscale pattern analysis of building replacements in Zurich from 2000 to 2019

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Jingxian Ye

Building replacement (BR) – i.e., the demolition of existing structures and subsequent construction of new buildings on the same site – is often understood as a necessary urban planning strategy despite significant environmental implications regarding soli ...

2023

Synthesis Report on the Environmental Impacts of Polar Research and Logistics in the Polar Regions

Jérôme Chappellaz

Polar sciences are crucial to understand the effects of climate change. 6 out of 9 eco-tipping points identified by the IPCC are situated in the polar regions. Potential rising sea levels, altered weather patterns and changes in sea-currents are all connec ...

2023