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Sustainable Development Solutions Integrating Water, Energy and Land: From Urban to Global Scale

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "A: Sustainable Energy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 September 2024 | Viewed by 5529

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Keywan Riahi

grade E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
2. Institute of Thermal Engineering, Graz University of Technology, Infeldgasse 25b, 8010 Graz, Austria
Interests: climate change; energy economics; integrated assessment; technological change; sustainable development
Dr. Julian David Hunt

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Interests: analysis of energy systems; water–energy–land interfaces; climate change risks and energy security
Dr. Adriano Vinca

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Interests: water-energy-food nexus; sustainability; climate change

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The world is undergoing substantial change in terms of the aim of implementing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to face current and future demographic and climate global challenges. The appropriate management of water, energy, and land resources gives a robust foundation for the development of a broad number of SDGs.

The use of land has an impact on water use, with chain effects on regional climate, and electricity generation from renewable energy sources. Energy is required to better manage water resources and improve utilization of the land. Water can generate and store energy, and if well managed, it can require small land areas and evaporation. These and other cross-sectoral interactions are to be explored to improve policy assessment, with relevance that depends on the spatial and temporal scale of each specific analysis.

This Special Issue has the objective to review the most relevant challenges, methodologies, and solutions for water–energy–land-nexus-related issues.

We look forward to collaborating with authors to continue improving management of these resources.

Sincerely,

Prof. Dr. Keywan Riahi
Dr. Julian David Hunt
Dr. Adriano Vinca
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Water, energy, and land nexus
  • Water management
  • Drought alleviation
  • Flood control
  • Renewable energies
  • Hydropower
  • Energy storage
  • Irrigated agriculture
  • Land use
  • Climate change
  • Regional climate impacts
  • Environmental impacts
  • Social impacts
  • Sustainable development
  • New technologies

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

26 pages, 3253 KiB  
Article
Towards Reducing the Consumption of Drinking Water in Buildings as Part of the Circular Economy Model: Strengths–Weaknesses–Opportunities–Threats Analysis and Perspectives for Implementation
by Joanna Bąk and Tadeusz Żaba
Energies 2024, 17(6), 1444; https://doi.org/10.3390/en17061444 - 17 Mar 2024
Viewed by 514
Abstract
Progressive climate changes, drought resulting from them and the prospect of problems with access to water for people in cities mean that actions are being taken to minimize water use in buildings and to implement a circular economy in the water and wastewater [...] Read more.
Progressive climate changes, drought resulting from them and the prospect of problems with access to water for people in cities mean that actions are being taken to minimize water use in buildings and to implement a circular economy in the water and wastewater sector. Within the water circular economy model, there is also a stage of “water consumption”. Minimizing water use in buildings undoubtedly has a number of advantages. However, it should be borne in mind that it may also have weaknesses, and if implemented on a large scale, it may be associated with certain threats. For these reasons, the aim of this paper is to critically analyze the possible directions of water management in buildings in order to reduce water consumption and increase the efficiency of its use. As part of the introduction, the model “towards a water circular economy for households” is presented and the possibilities of minimizing water consumption in buildings are discussed. The prospects for reducing the consumption of tap water are discussed in terms of existing opportunities, but also threats, barriers and limitations. A SWOT analysis of the implementation of drinking-water consumption reduction in cities is presented. The challenges faced by engineers, constructors, policy makers and consumers, and the potentialities for the development of this stage of the water life cycle, are considered. The conclusions summarize the current state and perspectives of water management in buildings. Based on the conducted analysis, suggested directions of activities for cities of the future in the technical, technological as well as socio-economic fields are indicated. There should be broad-based education, and efforts should be made to change the approach to designing and developing new guidelines. The implementation of minimizing water consumption should be accompanied by the control of possible negative effects and actions to mitigate them. In the transformation towards clean and available energy, future success should be seen in minimizing the consumption of drinking water in buildings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development Solutions Integrating Water, Energy and Land: From Urban to Global Scale)
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18 pages, 11709 KiB  
Article
Sedimentary Basin Water and Energy Storage: A Low Environmental Impact Option for the Bananal Basin
by Julian David Hunt, Andreas Nascimento, Oldrich Joel Romero Guzman, Gilton Carlos de Andrade Furtado, Carla Schwengber ten Caten, Fernanda Munari Caputo Tomé, Walter Leal Filho, Bojan Đurin, Maurício Lopes and Yoshihide Wada
Energies 2022, 15(12), 4498; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15124498 - 20 Jun 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1592
Abstract
Groundwater storage is an important water management solution that is overlooked by several countries worldwide. This paper evaluates the potential for storing water in the Bananal sedimentary basin and proposes the construction of canals to reduce sediment obstructions in the river flow and [...] Read more.
Groundwater storage is an important water management solution that is overlooked by several countries worldwide. This paper evaluates the potential for storing water in the Bananal sedimentary basin and proposes the construction of canals to reduce sediment obstructions in the river flow and harmful flood events. This would allow for better control of the water level. The water stored in the sedimentary basin can be used as a climate change adaptation measure to ensure that the level of the flood plain is maintained high during a drought or low during an intense flood event. Additionally, the flood plain will function as a water reservoir, regulate the river flow downstream from the flood plain, and enhance hydropower generation. A significantly smaller reservoir area is expected to store water, as the water will be stored as groundwater in the sedimentary basin. Results show that the Bananal basin has the potential to store up to 49 km3 of water, which can add up to 11.7 TWh of energy storage to the Brazilian energy matrix for a CAPEX energy storage cost of 0.095 USD/kWh. This is an interesting solution for the Araguaia basin and several other basins worldwide. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development Solutions Integrating Water, Energy and Land: From Urban to Global Scale)
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14 pages, 2842 KiB  
Article
A Study of Dispersed, Thermally Activated Limestone from Ukraine for the Safe Liming of Water Using ANN Models
by Yuliia Trach, Roman Trach, Marek Kalenik, Eugeniusz Koda and Anna Podlasek
Energies 2021, 14(24), 8377; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14248377 - 12 Dec 2021
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2084
Abstract
Liming surface water is a fairly popular method of increasing the pH values and decreasing the concentration of phosphates and heavy metals. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommendations, the increase of water pH should not exceed 1.5. If surface water is [...] Read more.
Liming surface water is a fairly popular method of increasing the pH values and decreasing the concentration of phosphates and heavy metals. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommendations, the increase of water pH should not exceed 1.5. If surface water is the source of water supply, liming is a process that reduces water contamination. This should prevent the creation of an additional load for the water treatment plants in urban settlements. This article is an interdisciplinary research study aiming to (1) determine and compare the doses of new dispersed, thermally activated limestone and natural limestone, (2) find the relation between dose value and initial water parameters (pH, Eh and total mineralization), and (3) create an artificial neural network (ANN) model to predict changes in water pH values according to EPA recommendations. Recommended doses were obtained from experimental studies, and those of dispersed, thermally activated limestone were lower than the doses of natural limestone. Neural networks were used to predict the changes in water pH values when adding different doses of limestone with different initial water parameters using the ANN model. Four ANN models with different activation functions and loss function optimizers were tested. The best results were obtained for the network with the ReLU activation function for hidden layers of neurons and Adam’s loss function optimizer (MAPE = 14.1%; R2 = 0.847). Further comparison of the results of the loss function and the results of calculating the quality metric for the training and validation dataset has shown that the created ANN can be used to solve the set research issue. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development Solutions Integrating Water, Energy and Land: From Urban to Global Scale)
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Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

Title: The Integration of Biofloc Technology with photovoltaic solar system: Synergies to increase the sustainability of Tilapia production in Mexico
Authors: Erick Arturo Betanzo- Torres 1,†; Maria Eloísa Gurruchaga Rodríguez; Humberto Mata-Alejandro 2; Marco Vinicio Rodríguez-Demeneghi 2; Luis Carlos Sandoval- Herazo 1,†; Elizabeth Delfín-Portela1,3,†
Affiliation: Tecnológico Nacional de México and Universidad Veracruzana/México
Abstract: In Mexico, tilapia production volume ranks fourth, and is the predominant in the country with the largest number of farms in operation, but most of them operate high production costs in terms of feed and energy. Available data indicate that production decreased by 54% in 2021, which is associated with the health emergency caused by SARS-CoV-2, despite this, sales prices are very competitive, for this reason, it is pertinent to seek eco-technological alternatives to mitigate production costs in a sustainable manner. Biofloc Technology (BFT) allows treating water in situ with nitrifying and heterotrophic bacteria that agglutinated in Bioflocs are used as bacterial feed, based on the principle of nutrient recycling and minimum water replacement. On the other hand, in terms of energy, photovoltaic systems interconnected to the grid (On Grid PV) support the generation of energy on farms, reducing aeration and pumping costs, relevant aspects for developing BFT. However, their implementation and operation costs and the lack of knowledge of these ecotechnologies by aquaculturists limit their application. The objective of this work is to analyze the production of Tilapia with BFT integrated with an On Grid PV, through an economic and environmental analysis, with two ecotechnologies that increase the sustainability of aquaculture. Methodologically, it was approached as a case study in a Mexican rural aquaculture farm, located in the state of Veracruz for the design of the photovoltaic system, the previous diagnosis made possible to calculate, design and evaluate theoretically the photovoltaic system. Data on the operating costs of the farm operating with the Biofloc BFT were previously collected through the survey; likewise, non-participant observation was carried out, with a research stay for six months. The results reveal that the two ecotechnologies (BFT and SFVI) implemented are economically viable and environmentally acceptable. There are significant savings in water (84%), feed (31%) and, finally, energy (62%). All of these are vital aspects in the operation of an aquaculture farm, taking a step towards the sustainability of aquaculture production systems. The financial indicators obtained were the internal rate of return of 22.91%, the net present value of 1,732,231.38 Mexican pesos and the benefit-cost ratio of 1.49 pesos (MXN). It is concluded that both eco-technologies offer aquaculture the possibility of producing tilapia at a lower cost (MXN 26.32) to improve its problems, despite their possible high initial investment cost. The investment is recovered in the short term due to the savings obtained, so it is recommended that the investment be alternated, first with SFVI and then with TBF. Highlights: The integration of both ecotechnologies can increase the energy and environmental sustainability of the farms. Economic and environmental indicators indicate that both technologies can be used jointly in aquaculture systems. This synergy between the two technologies addresses the economic, environmental and social dimensions of aquaculture farms.

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