Scientia Iranica
Volume:23 Issue: 4, 2016

Going back and taking a quick glance at the history of developed countries prove that prosperity of any society is tightly intertwined with resiliency and sustainability of its preliminary infrastructures. Surely, in modern societies, electricity is among the most important infrastructures whose resiliency and sustainability is a key driving force toward development of the society. This is verified by the fact that, since the industrial revolution, per capita electricity consumption has taken as a key index showing the level of economic development and standard of living in a country. This paper focuses on the concept of resiliency and sustainability of electric power systems. The paper, initially, introduces the concept and evaluation procedure of power systems resiliency. Then, it strives to introduce the most challenging issues faced by resilient and sustainable power grids. The challenging issues are electricity load growth, energy crisis, environmental emissions and climate changes, unexpected events, aging infrastructures, and cyber challenges. Then, the most effective solutions proposed by power industry scientists and engineers are discussed. The solutions are asset management, renewable energy resources, demand response, controlled islanding and micro grids, and automation, self-healing , and monitoring systems. Finally, a typical sustainable and resilient power system is described.

Thoughtfully-chosen, properly-designed new construction can significantly improve both the resilience to natural and man-induced disasters and the long-term sustainability of modern urban environments in the 21st century. In particular, precast/prestressed concrete construction has the ability to provide low-damage buildings at similar costs to traditional construction while also providing a more sustainable construction form, in terms of higher energy efficiency and lower embodied energy. In this paper, low-damage sustainable precast concrete seismic systems are described. Prestressing leads to less material required and hence less embodied energy; piece erection leads to cleaner, quieter construction sites; and insulation and architectural finish can be integrated directly into the precast unit, increasing energy efficiency and consolidating construction operations. With respect to resilience, earthquake damage is avoided by taking advantage of the inherent jointed nature of precast concrete construction, thereby promoting opening of gaps between precast units rather than cracking of the concrete itself, and using unbonded post-tensioning concepts to restore the structure to its original position. The potential use of precast concrete in developing countries where no precast industry exists is considered in the context of global sustainability. The performance of precast concrete in recent earthquakes is presented as an example of a resilient construction.

Iran is facing with a serious water crisis, which must be addressed if Iran is to move forward in becoming a developed nation. Iran’s water shortage problem has been caused by multiple factors including limited surface and groundwater availability. The current water shortage in Iran is an issue that can only be resolved by considering the entire water portfolio. One alternative solution to the water shortage problem in Iran is to adapt an integrated sustainable water management system though efficient utilization of the existing water supplies including the adoption of an effective water reclamation and water reuse program. Reclaimed water could be used to augment existing water supply sources for both non-potable and potable purposes. This introductory paper is part of a series of articles documenting the use of reclaimed water for potable reuse. Topics covered in this introductory paper include: (1) an introduction to the water situation in Iran, (2) identification of the types of potable reuse, (3) presentation of successful potable reuse projects including lessons learned, (4) brief summary of key implementation components of a successful potable reuse program, and (5) special challenges and barriers on implementation of potable reuse in Iran, and (6) the benefits expected from potable reuse program in Iran. Additional information on technical aspects including operations and monitoring, and more detail information on the implementation of water reuse program will be presented in the future articles.

Tehran is the capital of Iran and is one of the largest cities in the world. With its history of earthquakes, high population density, and a population of over 8.5 million, it must be prepared to cope with disaster. This article introduces a new method for estimating the reliability of a roadway network that considers the physical characteristics of the road and link capacity degradation. The proposed method was applied to a real road network and the connectivity reliability of the city was calculated. The proposed technique for computing connectivity reliability is sensitive to the characteristics of the road and adjacent buildings. The results indicate that northern Tehran, with a low population density and newer buildings and highway network, shows higher reliability for origin and destination trips than other regions. This region has a higher probability of connectedness to other regions after a disaster. The weakest area of the network lies in the southern and central regions with older buildings and no highway network. These regions show low connectivity reliability and high population density. These results provide useful insights into the vulnerability of the Tehran network in response to a major earthquake.

The climate change and human development in lake catchments placed these habitats in drying conditions such as Aral Sea in Asia, Lake Chad in Africa, Lake Mead in USA, Lake Urmia, etc. These ecosystems play an important role in social, ecological and economic activities.In case of Lake Urmia, recognized as an international wetland in 1973, located in Iran that is the second largest hyper saline lake in the world is at the same state. Lake Urmia biologically and ecologically is one of the most interesting places in the world. This lake is a habitat for various species. The lake''s surface has shrunken from 6000 km2 to 900 km2 in 2013. The statistics indicates that the population has increased by 13% during this period which shows that in addition to natural causes such as climate change and global warming, human related issues like population growth and urban development have the most important role on the lake''s status.This paper presents an innovative method for estimating the wetland HSE statues, to make preventive measures and bring an acceptable coexistence of both, Lakes with all its ecological and environmental features, and the urban areas as sustainable and resilient cities.

In this paper, intelligent traffic surveillance system as an important part of a smart resilient city is reviewed. The smart traffic control system is very important in improving the life style by decreasing the traffic saturation and air pollution. Still, multi-camera vision is more helpful in implementing different automatic traffic surveillance systems. Apart from their superior features, existing multi-camera surveillance systems suffer from computational complexity and degraded accuracy. The main reason for these shortcomings arises from image processing errors. These errors depend on the image content and thus are not predictable. To overcome this shortage, three-dimensional (3D) optical techniques for improved fusing the multi-camera images and thus extracting 3D vehicle locations is proposed in this paper. In fact the proposed multi-camera visionary system is a combination of image processing based and geometrical optics based methods. The result of 3D image reconstruction through the proposed technique shows its dominance in providing the 3D image information.

A framework to calculate a quantitative measure of seismic resilience using the Endurance Time (ET) method is introduced. ET method is a response-history based analysis procedure where structures are subjected to gradually intensifying dynamic excitations and their performance is assessed based on their response at different excitation levels, reducing the required computational effort. First, a prototype hospital building is optimally designed through three distinct design philosophies: Prescriptive design code, Performance based design criteria and Value based seismic design method. In value based design method the design sections of structural elements are assumed as optimization parameters and a design with minimum total cost during its life span is being sought. For each candidate design the damages due to probable earthquakes is estimated by the ET method and the expected cost of damages is calculated using Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA). Next, the resilience of each design in continuous range of hazard intensities are compared introducing “Resilience Curve”. Although the optimization objectives in design process are not based on resiliency measures, the value based design showed the best resiliency in the case of seismic hazards. This methodology and potential benefits when considering the need for moving towards more resilient cities is discussed.

Geotechnical engineering is a fundamental subject in civil and environmental engineering that engineers are required to refer to when any type of retro tting, design or construction of projects and developments are encountered in a city or in a rural area. Indeed in many projects like geotechnical structures, such as earth dams, geotechnical engineering is the main subject. In this paper, the role of geotechnical engineering in sustainable and resilient cities is elaborated mainly through a series of questions and answers. Also, some related geotechnical engineering research, that is in hands in Civil Engineering Department of Sharif University, is discussed in this paper. A unique geotechnical engineering project that is designed and supervised in the city of Tehran by the author is also introduced herein to indicate how an accurate design and construction of a geotechnical structure can result in a sustainable and resilient condition. However, due to the variety of the subjects involved under the title of the paper, some of the subjects are touched briefly.

Resilience thinking has been recently proposed as a different way of understanding the world and a new approach to managing urban environments. This research aims to evaluate the environmental quality of Tehran– Iran using some resilience criteria. Based on the comparative analysis of the current related theories we have extracted and classified some of the resilience criteria into four dimensions; Pattern and Process of social-economic in urban landscape, Responses of human society in urban landscape, Pattern of Biophysical Structure in urban landscape and Urban Ecosystem dynamic and Function. We have focused on the last two ones. The results show that the composition and configuration of urban green spaces and consequently its ecosystem quality does not fulfill the requirements of a resilient urban landscape. On the other hand, assessment of Tehran air quality shows that the number of unhealthy days has been increased over the last decade. Also, Tehranhas heavily relied on outer water basins. Besides, the proportion ofimpervious surfaces within a period of 22 years (1988-2010) has increased by more than two timesThese results support the resilience criterion as a more realistic approach to demonstrating both the urban environments situation and the directions of future urban plans.

This paper is an endeavor to picture excessive population threats to the resiliency of a large metropolitan area. By employing an existing evolutionary model of traffic flow on a small expository network, we show how chaotic situations occur at certain demand and supply parameter values, and try to address the questions: How may one determine city population capacity for its transportation network, what happens if the city passes this limit, or how may one return the city to a stable situation when it runs into unstable or chaotic situations. Under certain assumptions, the paper designs a simulation experiment to revisit the phenomenon discovered by Greenshields in 1934, but for a transportation network in a large city. A flow simulation shows that very small changes in the demand and supply of the network result in large variations in the throughput of the network, such that the time series of the latter values to an external observer are chaotic (with positive Lyapunov exponent). The limit to the resiliency of the city from the standpoint of its transportation network capacity is, then, estimated by a value for the city’s population. It is then argued how to take the network out of this situation.

Routinely, behavior of floor diaphragms is assumed completely rigid in their plane, which leads to erroneous results in analysis and design of some particular buildings. In this study, 4-story RC buildings, with end shear walls and plan aspect ratio of 3, are considered in order to investigate the influence of diaphragm openings on their seismic response. It is concluded that although in-plane floor flexibility has enormous effects on pre-yielding part of pushover curve, it has no influence on post-yielding part of that. Furthermore, the opening beside shear walls has crucial impact on response of building. Hence, it would be better off avoiding opening near the shear walls; if not, the in-plane flexibility of diaphragm has not to be overlooked even if the plan aspect ratio of building is 3.

Resilience thinking, its approaches, vocabulary, and metaphors are rapidly becoming part of the terms of urban planning, and evidence of resilience thinking can be found at all levels of decision-making, ranging from transnational to local levels. This paper tries to assess the urban resilience in Region 8 of Tehran city, Iran, without considering any special disaster. Speci c attention in the paper is paid to analyzing indicators in assessment of urban resilience to nd suitable ones in the case study. After analyzing questionnaires, the rank of urban resiliency was 2.6, which shows Region 8 of Tehran is in a low position in case of urban resiliency.

Small islands around the world face various hazards such as sea-water level rise, hurricanes, human activities over pressure, environmental degradation, and pollution. Resiliency is a critical feature that has to be maintained in these sensitive and vulnerable areas. This paper focuses on the importance of Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) in increasing the level of resiliency in small islands. Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) has been recommended for practice by United Nations 1992 Rio Conference resolution to conserve the valuable natural resources of the coastal areas around the globe and improve their deteriorating environmental conditions. Integrated coastal management plan in small islands should resolve their problems in such a way that sustainable development is guaranteed. Kish is a beautiful small island in the Persian Gulf region, which serves the country as a free trade zone. This article describes its characteristics and problems and also the e orts that have been made for integrated coastal management initiatives in the island to identify the basic problems and provide plans for strengthening the island to manage its current and future problems via acquiring an acceptable level of resiliency.