Sustainable urban infrastructure
N. Kumar; R. Tyagi
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global health crisis that had a deep impact on the world and our everyday lives. The deadly virus i.e. SARS-CoV-2 has rapidly spread around the world, posing enormous health, social, economic, and environmental challenges to the entire human ...
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BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global health crisis that had a deep impact on the world and our everyday lives. The deadly virus i.e. SARS-CoV-2 has rapidly spread around the world, posing enormous health, social, economic, and environmental challenges to the entire human population. Countries around the world have implemented complete or partial lockdown measures to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. Corona lockdown has profound social implications and it has sparked fears of impending economic trouble and recession. Methods: However, this lockdown has also shown some positive effects on the natural environment due to the reduction of pollutant loading from vehicle emission, industries, and other sources. Based on a review of recent research in the relevant area, this paper assesses the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on air and water quality as well as on environmental noise. FINDINGS: A substantial reduction in the level of noxious NO2, particulate matter, and carbon emissions have been observed during the lockdown period, the lockdown also led to an appreciable drop in BOD (biological oxygen demand) and a significant increase in DO (dissolved oxygen) of different river water globally. In addition to this, the anthropogenic noise level has fallen by about one-third due to the COVID-19 lockdown. CONCLUSION: This study reveals that there is a substantial possibility for healing the environment from the detrimental effects of anthropogenic activities through partial or temporary lockdown measures.==========================================================================================COPYRIGHTS©2021 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.==========================================================================================
Urban transportation systems and traffic management
F. Salehi; A.R. Karbassi; M. Khashaypoor
Abstract
Bus rapid transit is an innovative, high capacity, lower cost public transit solution in metropolitan cities. Idea is to dedicate lanes for quick and efficient transport of passengers to their destinations. In the present investigation the environmental impact assessment of bus rapid transit in ...
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Bus rapid transit is an innovative, high capacity, lower cost public transit solution in metropolitan cities. Idea is to dedicate lanes for quick and efficient transport of passengers to their destinations. In the present investigation the environmental impact assessment of bus rapid transit in Tehran metropolitan city is brought out. For this purpose bus rapid transit Lane No. 10 is investigated. The bus rapid transit Lane No.10 is about 10 km in distance that moves up and down between Azadi and Simon Bolivar Squares. About 77500 passengers using 50 buses are transited per day in lane No. 10. These 50 buses cover a distance of 9600 km/day. The results of present study showed that about 6.5 million liters of fuel is saved annually. It should be pointed out that environmental costs are also reduced for about US$ 1.7 million/yr. The overall score of environmental impact assessment stands at +10 that is indicative of Lane No. 10 compatibility with the environmental considerations.
