The class of CIVE230: Engineering and Sustainable Development have been at it again, learning remotely in Spring 2021. This is the second COVID-19 edition of the course!The course introduces sustainability on two levels: qualitative concepts and background information is covered; and quantitative models which emphasize core engineering methods are applied to sustainability problems. Quantitative methods are derived and applied to air quality, water quality, energy and solid waste. Attention is given to sustainable urban systems, as they apply to both developed and developing countries. Sustainability concepts covering the triple bottom line are also presented, and their applicability to sustainable cities are demonstrated. Students in the course were tasked with making a contribution to an e-book. They were creative and innovative in applying course concepts to cities of their choice and exploring sustainability challenges and innovations. Their sustainability project encouraged them to explore sustainable infrastructure, solutions and technologies in Canada and globally to generate an enriched learning experience and to tie ideas to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the Canadian Engineering Grand Challenges (CEGC).

Learning about sustainability requires systems-thinking and a curiosity to explore. When learning opportunities are created for students so that go beyond the course content by learning from the world around us and from each other, they get so much more out of the course. This e-book has been the project experience that allowed students to explore topics of their choice in cities of their choice!This e-book serves as a contribution by the class for the class, and for the wider UW and engineering community. Have a read through.

Our planet is currently being challenged by dramatic changes to earth and human systems under the influence of climate change and variability. These include changes of population and environmental dynamics that impacts human health. Thus, climate change is considered the biggest threat to human health in the 21st century. Health impacts can be direct typically related to extreme weather events; indirect with linkages to climate change induced environmental alterations and damage or in relation to displacement, conflict and social disruption. This presentation provides a series of examples of changes of environmental and social determinants of health with negative or positive health impacts. These include impacts on communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases and mental health of importance in particular in vulnerable urban and rural settings as well as among sensitive community groups exposed to variations in temperature and precipitation patterns.

Trees grow all around us. Sometimes they are in large forests and sometimes they are single trees along the road or in our schoolyards. In this storyline, students explore cultural connections with trees, learn about the characteristics of trees, and discover what trees need to grow through handson activities, art, and literacy integration.

Students will learn how trees grow and cycle matter, and trees’ roles in a changing climate. The urban heat island effect is examined and students learn about the many benefits trees offer cities. The storyline culminates with students examining the trees and canopy cover in their or a nearby city and proposing actions to increase the urban forest through a letter to city officials.

This is a solutions-oriented storyline that leads students through a series of investigations to quantify and qualify the ecosystem and social benefits of an urban forest. At the end of the storyline, students will be able to design, evaluate and refine a chosen solution for urban forest ecosystem benefits.

Urban forests provide many benefits to a community and can minimize the human impact on the environment. Students will explore the impacts an urban community has on the environment. Students will discover the role trees play in an urban community and how trees can affect the ecosystem, human wellbeing, and provide economic value. Students will explore Indigenous relationships with trees. During the course of this storyline, students will measure and monitor urban forest ecosystem benefits, perform a field investigation, and design a development to minimize negative environmental impacts

Explore the key governance challenges for smart sustainable city (SSC) initiatives and the approach required. Learn to organize co-creation and to use a roadmap that support planning, implementation, close monitoring and risks mitigation.

Urban planners, policy makers and managers have an important role in making cities and communities more sustainable and resilient by incentivizing and developing smart solutions. Medellín in Colombia is a good example of how effective governance and cooperation with citizens led to the remake of the city and transformed it to a safer environment with a thriving economy. But how can those initiatives be sustained and governed? How can we deal with the challenges along the way, like effective stakeholders’ engagement, conflicting interests, decision-making under deep uncertainty, interdependent problems, spatial justice, and the transformation towards a digital society? To sum it up: building smart sustainable cities initiatives requires a strong governance capacity and new approaches!

This course will:

- provide the principles for incentivising, planning, developing and managing sustainable smart city initiatives
- present an overview of the drivers and barriers for SSC development
- present sustainability challenges and tools for SSC development
- show practical recommendations to strengthen SSC governance capacity
- introduce a smart city governance roadmap
- explain the conditions for effective stakeholder engagement and ways to organize co-creation pathways
- clarify the regulatory and legal framework for SSC including privacy and cybersecurity issues
- describe the conditions to implement digital innovation that benefit citizens including data governance
- show the importance of close monitoring and assessing SSC projects including data reliability and algorithms
- equip you with knowledge and learnings from case studies from various projects that were carried out in Latin America, next to familiarizing you with common challenges that arise in the process. These cases range from urban transportation to participatory budgeting, safety and waste management applications, but always making the connection with the governance and sustainability aspects.

The course will be moderated in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

This MOOC is a spin-off of the EU-funded Cap4City project.

This course has been developed, and will be delivered by experts in the field of Smart Sustainable Cities from twelve different universities in Latin America and Europe. You will find more information on the instructors while you navigate the course.

This advanced lesson plan introduces vocabulary related to pollution, poverty and other issues found in urban settings. It provides plenty of thought-provoking questions to get your students talking and engaged with the material.If you want additional lesson plans and support, including teachers’ notes, be sure to register for a free Off2Class account.

Learning about sustainability requires systems-thinking and a curiosity to explore. In the COVID-19 edition of a sustainability course, there were many chances to create new learning opportunities not only from the course content, but also from the world around us, the media and news, and from each other.Students in the course CIVE230: Engineering and Sustainable Development were tasked with making a contribution to sustainability efforts. They have been hard at work throughout the term to share a sustainability idea that were compiled in an e-book “The Sustainability Contribution Project” which showcases their ideas that cover all course topics as they apply to cities around the world. This activity encouraged students to explore sustainable cities, infrastructure, solutions and technologies globally to generate an enriched learning experience and create an opportunity for peer-to-peer learning. Together, they co-created content.This e-book serves as a contribution by the class for the class, and for the wider engineering education community. I encourage you to have a look through. 

This course covers theories about the form that settlements should take and attempts a distinction between descriptive and normative theory by examining examples of various theories of city form over time. Case studies will highlight the origins of the modern city and theories about its emerging form, including the transformation of the nineteenth-century city and its organization. Through examples and historical context, current issues of city form in relation to city-making, social structure, and physical design will also be discussed and analyzed.

The lectures will discuss characteristics of urban water flows, hydraulics, hydrology and how to apply knowledge of these phenomena to the design and analysis of urban water systems. Integration of various scientific disciplines and technological and practical approaches is a central theme in this course.

Students will design an urban drainage system for a real case in the Netherlands or abroad using the Rational Method. They will use this design as input for a hydrodynamic computer model and perform model calculations for various conditions to check the performance of the designed system and improve where needed. They will prepare a written report of their data, design choices and results and present main results in a plenary session that concludes the lecture series.

This list presents a basic set of vocabulary words that deal with categories of travel and places, including travel and tourism, as well as nouns and verbs relevant to urban spaces, such as roads and airports.

The majority of words contained within the website are nouns, and some verbs are interspersed. The words and verbs are presented in both modern standard and colloquial Egypt, and feature Arabic text and transliteration.

Master course on design and planning of the urban water management system. It deals with fluxes and processes in water and soil. Furthermore, aspects of water management policy development are discussed.

This lesson has students investigate how albedo is contributing to temperature increasing in some places, like cities, are increasing at faster rates than elsewhere.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Access to clean drinking water is widely considered a fundamental human right But many people, especially those living in urban settings and market economies, face water insecurity, borne of political and economic inequality Water sharing – defined as the exchange of water among households – is so widespread that is could be regarded as a grassroots practice to ensure a human right to water Despite its clear importance, however, there’s been little research into the practice New research in WIREs Water aims to fill this void This global study highlights a number of factors that appear to shape who shares water with whom, and why Researchers found that water sharing offers insight into the everyday and, at times, invisible ties that bind people and households to one another Water sharing isn’t simply a fleeting charitable impulse – the practice depends on specific livelihood strategies, spiritual beliefs and cost/benefit calculations For example, many cultures have complex institution.."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Access to clean drinking water is widely considered a fundamental human right But many people, especially those living in urban settings and market economies, face water insecurity, borne of political and economic inequality Water sharing – defined as the exchange of water among households – is so widespread that is could be regarded as a grassroots practice to ensure a human right to water Despite its clear importance, however, there’s been little research into the practice New research in WIREs Water aims to fill this void This global study highlights a number of factors that appear to shape who shares water with whom, and why Researchers found that water sharing offers insight into the everyday and, at times, invisible ties that bind people and households to one another Water sharing isn’t simply a fleeting charitable impulse – the practice depends on specific livelihood strategies, spiritual beliefs and cost/benefit calculations For example, many cultures have complex institution.."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.