Journal of Urban Environmental Management

Abstract This research aims to identify the origin and hidden causes affecting the ‎occurrence of fires and accidents in the metropolis of Mashhad. The present ‎research is of a descriptive-analytical type that was conducted using the ‎exploratory factor analysis method. In this research, statistical data on ‎fires and accidents of the Mashhad Fire Department during the years 1395 to ‎‏1403 were used.‏
Data related to the causes and origin of fires were categorized into 25 ‎different components and data related to urban accidents were categorized into ‎‏21 components. The adequacy of the sample and the appropriateness of the ‏correlation matrix were confirmed in the fire section with KMO=0.888 and ‎Bartlett's test χ²(300)=2314.183, p<0.001, and in the urban accidents section ‎with KMO=0.816 and Bartlett's test χ²(210)=1000.476, p<0.001.
Exploratory ‎factor analysis identified five main factors for the fire category, which ‎together explain 70.75% of the variance. The main factors included heat from ‎electrical distribution network components and electrical problems with ‎electrical appliances (46.96%), carelessness and high-risk human behavior ‎‎(8.13%), ignition of flammable liquids and gases (5.97%), and high-risk daily ‎activities (5.07%).‎
In the urban accidents (rescue and rescue) category, five factors were ‎identified, accounting for a total of 74.14% of the variance. The main factors ‎included entrapment in confined spaces, elevators, and entrapment of body ‎parts (39.412%), structural hazards, building debris, and indirect falls ‎‎(14.658%), flooding incidents and water/wastewater infrastructure incidents ‎‎(8.838%), and urban gas incidents and respiratory poisoning (6.074%).‎

Abstract The increasing energy imbalance and widespread power outages have transformed energy supply management in urban spaces into a serious environmental and infrastructural challenge. This research aims to provide a comprehensive technical, economic, and environmental assessment of three key solutions for emergency power supply (including UPS, generator sets, and photovoltaic solar systems) across three different levels of urban household consumption (high, medium, and low). The methodology involved collecting data based on current domestic market prices and real technical information extracted from field sources. The study utilized the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) model and Net Present Value (NPV) analysis over a 15-year period, incorporating the effects of inflation and the discount rate, to quantitatively assess all lifecycle costs. Furthermore, the consequences of noise pollution and pollutant gas emissions from generators were considered in the analysis as critical variables affecting urban quality of life and environmental crisis management. The research findings indicated that although, in the high consumption scenario, gasoline generators (Generator Set) are considered the most economical short-term option due to their low initial investment, photovoltaic solar systems, despite their higher upfront cost, offer long-term economic savings in addition to the complete elimination of local pollutants and noise pollution in the urban environment. These findings underscore the necessity of urban policies to encourage and guide the use of clean technologies for energy sustainability in residential areas.

Abstract Medicinal plant gardens are special ecosystem structures of native and non-native plants. In these gardens, plant conservation and propagation are carried out as genetic reserves, plant science studies and public education of the people, and in addition to ecological value and sustainable development of communities, they are effective in reducing the effects of climate change and improving livability. In this research, part of the lands of Kerman Municipality have been selected to design a medicinal plant garden. The necessity of this research is the need to develop native and medicinal green structures appropriate to ecological conditions and improve biological quality. The purpose of this research is to design a garden for collection (gene bank), ease of access to plants, increase information and public tendency to consume medicinal plants, and create a scientific-research garden with artistic and tourism aspects in accordance with the principles of sustainable landscape design. The innovation of the research is to create an ecological oasis of biodiversity in a dry urban environment using unconventional water resources for sustainable urban planning. Also, the landscape factors of the site and their distribution were examined and by determining the landscape zones, planning and design strategies for each zone were determined and an attempt was made to present a combination of the science of medicinal plants and the art of landscape design by preparing a strategic plan for the medicinal plant garden and designing the site plan. The findings of this research include identifying, determining, and presenting a plan for planting native medicinal plant species, phytoremediation for cleaning and recycling water, and selecting, examining, and placing microspaces in the plan related to the type of medicinal plants.

Abstract In the present study, extraction of lithium from salts obtained from brine desalination in Gohar Zamin iron ore mine (Sirjan) was investigated using D2EHPA extractant solvent and kerosene diluent. This laboratory-scale study included 29 sets of experiments using a solvent extraction system. To perform the desired extraction experiments, equal volumes of the aqueous phase (10 ml) were contacted with the organic phase (D2EHPA + kerosene) at a specified concentration and then subjected to stirring in a magnetic stirrer for 30, 45, and 60 minutes at laboratory temperature (23 °C). In this investigation, was utilized form Box-Behnken (response surface design) to optimize and assessment of main variables influence of solvent extraction process such as pH, organic to aqueous phase ratio, stirring time, and D2EHPA percentage on lithium recovery. The linear interference model (2FI vs Linear) was applied as the response for lithium recovery. The accuracy and validity from this model were evaluated using variance analysis (ANOVA). According to the process results, optimal operating conditions for lithium recovery were 69.81% at condition of volume of D2EHPA extractant of 29.2%, pH of 5.6, organic to aqueous phase ratio 3:1, and 52.05 min stirring time. The results illustrated that the stirring time had a smaller effect than the two variables of extractant amount and ratio of O/A. The organic to aqueous phase ratio index O/A was more effective than other parameters on lithium recovery.

Abstract Urban resilience refers to the capacity of an urban system, over both temporal and spatial scales, to maintain or rapidly return to desired past functionalities in the face of disruptions or changes. Climate change essentially refers to the warming of the Earth's surface caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Urban ecological resilience refers to the capacity of ecological systems within cities to absorb disturbances and maintain necessary and intrinsic feedbacks, processes, and structures. Climate resilience is a subset of urban ecological resilience, denoting a city's potential to address problems arising from sudden weather phenomena and hazards influenced by climate change. Mitigating climate change focuses on five key factors: urban form, construction, artificial environment, urban infrastructure, transportation, and carbon production. Our research aims to contribute to current knowledge and deeper understanding and better identification of climate change and its effects on human life and urban climate quality, utilizing the features of urban green infrastructure, particularly in Tabriz city. We intend to report the effects of climate change and examine the components of resilience using previous studies by evaluating climatic elements. In this study, we employ the Park Cooling Effects method on Land Surface Temperature (LST) using urban green infrastructure. As an example, we sampled from the Bagh-e-Fajr in Tabriz, located in the city center. We have concluded that the presence of green spaces and urban green infrastructure plays a significant role in climate resilience and reducing land surface temperature.

Abstract Due to the increasing importance of providing security services and measures to prevent and deal with fire incidents and crisis management in cities, fire stations are very important. Undoubtedly, the timely service of fire stations, more than anything else, along with the need to establish them in suitable places in urban environments, requires having the necessary capabilities and equipment to respond to the needs of citizens. Greater Tehran, with a population of more than eight million people, is the largest city in the country, due to the parallel expansion, and also the increase in population, has increased the grounds of fire in the city. The current research is important because its audience is all managers, and fire chiefs and it can be used to investigate management systems and accident command. The research method in this research is the hierarchical analysis process, where the indicators are compared and scored one by one, and the priority between them is determined. Based on the analysis conducted in this research, the operational forces stationed in the fire stations and operational vehicles are not proportional to the capacity of the region, and the firefighting equipment of these stations will not be sufficient for the region during the fires after the earthquake, and this is one of the negative points of the study area that during the earthquake Fire control is almost impossible and we will face a serious crisis.

Abstract Evaluating the environmental and social effects of urban projects separately can never show the mutual effects of the environment and the social environment, in other words; At the same time that the environment affects the society, there is no escape from the effects of the society on itself, and vice versa. In this article; The social and environmental effects of the southernmost section of Imam Ali highway - the distance between Daulat Abad freeway and the Shahr Ray ring road and its uneven intersection with the Shahr Ray ring road - located in the 20th district of Tehran municipality, based on an integrated evaluation process with five stages of construction And the operation of the mentioned highway has been integrated. Also, environmental and social mutual effects using the innovative impact assessment matrix, based on the network analysis process in the form of Super Decision software and the Delphi method; And by presenting the social preference coefficient and the environmental preference coefficient, it has been estimated for all environmental and social parameters in both construction and operation phases of the mentioned project. Based on the comparison of the results obtained from the established matrix with the current matrices; by applying the above coefficients, it is possible to quantitatively estimate the mutual environmental and social effects of intervention measures and take a step towards achieving the goals of sustainable urban development.

Abstract The most important objective of this paper is to provide an appropriate model for selecting best waste-to-energy technology for both private and public sector managers and investors. Urban waste management combined with energy recovery can be the most suitable solution not only for preserving environment but also for producing and supplying energy to urban and rural communities. Determining the most appropriate waste-to-energy technology is a challenging and complex process, requiring consideration of a wide range of diverse criteria. For this purpose, this study tries to apply two of the most widely used Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods, TOPSIS and VIKOR. Anaerobic digestion (AD), incineration, and pyrolysis were chosen as the main options for waste-to-energy conversion technologies. These options were evaluated based on three main criteria: environmental, technical, and economic, each of which included various sub-criteria. The results of pairwise comparisons indicate that among main criteria, environmental criterion holds the highest score and importance, followed by the economic and technical criteria, respectively. To ensure reliability, the options were ranked using three different MCDM models methods: Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), VIKOR, and TOPSIS. The overall results of the decision-making models show that incineration is the best waste-to-energy technology, followed by anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis in respective order.

Abstract Occupational incidents in the oil industry have difficulties and problems in the various phases of construction and operation. In this research, we tried to investigate the effect of oil industry risk in phase construction in one of the largest oilfields in the country, Yadavaran field in Khuzestan province. For this purpose, the FMEA model has been used that is typically used to assess the risk of occupational accidents. According to surveys, interviews and statistics, 47 job incidents were identified during the construction phase of this oil field and the details were collected. According to the obtained results, the value of the risk priority value is obtained by an average of 212. Also, based on the type of events classified, several corrections’ suggestions were proposed, which is expected to decreased the RPN to 133.2 which shows a reduction of 37% of the risk priority number. Although changes have been made in the form of low-cost, continuous and periodic suggestions that showed the positive impact of the reform in this area.

Abstract Air pollution is recognized as one of the fundamental challenges in the field of environmental engineering. This study examines the impact of vehicle tires on air pollution and explores methods to reduce it. A significant portion of the energy generated by the vehicle engine is lost through tire rolling resistance. Consequently, reducing tire rolling resistance leads to decreased fuel consumption and, consequently, reduced air pollution. Modifying the formulation of tire tread compounds can be an effective approach to reducing tire rolling resistance. One proposed method for modifying the formulation is the addition of nanoparticles as fillers. In this research, the impact of adding varying amounts of nanosilica to the tire tread compound formulation, which is the main factor contributing to vehicular energy dissipation, has been investigated. The results indicate that the addition of nanosilica increases tire rolling resistance. Furthermore, the influence of tire thickness on its lifespan and rolling resistance has been examined, demonstrating an increase in rolling resistance over time. Additionally, necessary changes in the production process conditions and their impact on the mechanical properties and performance of the produced materials have also been investigated. Rheological analysis reveals that the addition of nanosilica leads to increased viscosity. Moreover, the examination of mechanical properties shows an increase in the modulus values of both 100% and 300% materials with the addition of nanosilica.

Abstract Rapid urbanization has increased construction and demolition waste (CDW), exacerbating issues around CDW collection, transportation, and disposal in cities lacking efficient management programs. This study applies life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental performance of current CDW management in Tehran and identify critical aspects for improvement. Using Impact 2002+, LCA was conducted for the base case (19.4% recycling), and two alternative scenarios combining landfilling, source separation, sorting, and varying percentages of CDW recycling. The life cycle inventory used primary data from field studies and secondary data from ecoinvent 3.7 and literature. Results demonstrate recycling benefits through avoided impacts from non-renewable energy, global warming, non-carcinogens, and respiratory inorganics and organics versus landfilling. Hence, findings can motivate improved CDW management based on environmental and technical factors, not just economic and political ones. Producers may be compelled to reduce waste sources, while recyclers and stakeholders are encouraged to continuously enhance C&D waste systems across Iran. Additionally, this study provides data to support other LCAs on CDW. Overall, applying LCA reveals critical ways to advance CDW management in Tehran toward a more sustainable system.