Sustainable Cities and Society

Sustainable Cities and Society (SCS) publishes a wide range of original high quality papers covering fundamental and applied research, critical reviews and case studies. It focuses on research and multi-disciplinary work aiming to reduce the environmental and societal impact of future cities and covers topics including design, modelling, analytical tools, testing/experimental work, optimization, environmental assessment, new codes, regulations, policy, economics, monitoring, post occupancy evaluation and legislation related to sustainable cities. In addition to fundamental and applied papers, review articles on important developments will be included. Special issues devoted to international conferences and major reports will be published too.

Key areas covered by SCS are:

· Energy (creating and securing sustainable energy supplies and improving the efficiency of power generation, transmission and use);

· Water(sustainable water management and water preservation/recycling);

· Air(management of air pollution, improvement of air quality and reduction of CO2 emissions from buildings and transport;) and

· The Earth(preservation of raw materials, new construction materials and energy efficient design).

Submissions welcome from engineers (mechanical, building services, civil, buildings, electrical, manufacturing and chemical), architects, planners, scientists (physicists and chemists), energy experts, social scientists, economists and policy makers. All submissions are subjected to peer review from leading experts in the field.

Topics covered by SCS include:

1. Monitoring and improving air quality in buildings and cities (e.g., healthy buildings and air quality management), use of alternative energy sources (e.g., solar energy, wind, bio mass/bio-gas, geothermal energy and hybrid sources), waste recyclingin cities (reduce waste and recycle materials) and development of new construction materials for building applications and transport (e.g., high performance insulation materials).

2. Distributed energy generation such as integration of micro-generation with building services and control of renewable energy devices, dynamic demand management: matching demand to supply of renewable resources, adaptation of buildings to climate change (thermal comfort, green retrofit-buildings and interdisciplinary research such as socio-technical and economics and post occupancy evaluation).

3. Low/zero carbon construction such holistic approaches to design, energy modelling and green retrofit, dynamic demand and local energy storage, occupant behaviour, smart metering/monitors and intelligent control.

4. Planning, regulations, legislation, certification, economics, policy, social and environmental impact related to sustainable and future cities.

5. Decarbonised society and low/zero carbon community buildings and sustainable development.

6. Design and decision tools for low impact buildings, green retrofit of buildings and modelling/optimization of the energy performance of new and existing buildings.

7. City transport (e.g., harness of thermal energy from vehicle engines and innovative transport methods using personal rapid transit cars)

8. Water harvesting and management (development of household appliances designed to minimise water use, water recycling and solar-powered desalination systems)