[en] It is clear to find the relationship between the urban water cycle and the Sustainable Development Goal 6: “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”.

[en] To increase the adoption and reliability of low impact development (LID) practices for stormwater runoff management and other co-benefits, we must improve our understanding of how climate (i.e. patterns in incoming water and energy) affects LID hydrologic behavior and effectiveness. While others have explored the effects of precipitation patterns on LID performance, the role of energy availability and well-known ecological frameworks based on the aridity index (ratio of potential evapotranspiration (ET) to precipitation, PET:P) such as Budyko theory are almost entirely absent from the LID scientific literature. Furthermore, it has not been tested whether these natural system frameworks can predict the fate of water retained in the urban environment when human interventions decrease runoff. To systematically explore how climate affects LID hydrologic behavior, we forced a process-based hydrologic model of a baseline single-family parcel and a parcel with infiltration-based LID practices with meteorological records from 51 U.S. cities. Contrary to engineering design practice which assumes precipitation intensity is the primary driver of LID effectiveness (e.g. through use of design storms), statistical analysis of our model results shows that the effects of LID practices on long-term surface runoff, deep drainage, and ET are controlled by the relative balance and timing of water and energy availability (PET:P, 30 d correlation of PET and P) and measures of precipitation intermittency. These results offer a new way of predicting LID performance across climates and evaluating the effectiveness of infiltration-based, rather than retention-based, strategies to achieve regional hydrologic goals under current and future climate conditions. (letter)

[en] The artificial impervious surface (AIS) counts among the most important components of the urban surface, and understanding how temperature changes with the AIS fraction (AISF) is crucial for urban ecology and sustainability. Considering the high heterogeneity among existing local studies, this study systematically analyzed the relationship between land surface temperature (LST) and AISF in 682 global cities. The LST–AISF relation was quantified by the coefficient (δLST, ΔLST/ΔAISF) of a linear regression model, which measures the LST change by 1 unit (1%) increase in AISF. The LST was acquired from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) daily products during 2014–2016, while the AISF was calculated as the proportion of AIS in each MODIS pixel according to the high-resolution Global Artificial Imperious Area (GAIA) product in 2015. Major results can be summarized as follows: (a) LST shows an increasing trend along AISF gradients (positive δLST) in most cities, with annually average daytime and nighttime δLST of 0.0219 (0.0205, 0.0232) °C/% (values in parenthesis define the 95% confidence interval, hereinafter) and 0.0168 (0.0166, 0.0169) °C/%, respectively, for global cities. (b) Daytime δLST varies substantially among cities, with generally stronger values in tropical and temperate cities, but weaker or even negative values in arid cities; while at night, cities located in the cold climate zone tend to have larger δLST. (c) The LST–AISF relation is also season-dependent, characterized by a greater δLST in warm months, especially for cities located in temperate and cold climate zones. (d) Driver analyses indicate that changes in surface biophysical properties, including vegetation conditions and albedo, are main contributors to the spatiotemporal variation of daytime and nighttime δLST, respectively. These results help us to get a quantitative and systematic understanding of the climatic impacts of urbanization. (letter)

No abstract available

No abstract available

[en] Most of motorized trips in cities of middle and small size are made in public transport and mainly in private vehicle, this has caused a saturation in parking systems of the cities, causing important problems to society, one of the most important problems is high occupancy of public space by parking systems. Thus, is required the estimation of models that reproduce users’ behaviour when they are choosing for parking in cities, to carry out transport policies to improve transport efficiency and parking systems in the cities. The aim of this paper is the specification and estimation of models that simulate users’ behaviour when they are choosing among alternatives of parking that there are in the city: free on street parking, paid on street parking, paid on underground parking and Park and Ride (now there isn´t). For this purpose, is proposed a multinomial logit model that consider systematic and random variations in tastes. Data of users’ behaviour from the different alternatives of parking have been obtained with a stated preference surveys campaign which have been done in May 2015 in the principal parking zones of the city of Santander. In this paper, we provide a number of improvements to previously developed methodologies because of we consider much more realism to create the scenarios stated preference survey, obtaining better adjustments. (Author)

[en] Due to the residential decentralization and the increase and diversification of the production processes that have taken place since the beginning of the 80s in the metropolitan area of Madrid, it has been necessary to adapt the different specifications of the technical conditions to the existing reality in each one of the borough. This has motivated the realization and execution of different Master Plan both in the supply and sewer network.

[en] The relationship between active transportation and its role in health of population motivated the continuation of a pilot study evaluating the use of bicycles in a mountain town. The objective was to evaluate people over 30 years old, with different physical abilities, in a predefined route and check if the relief was impediment. The studied divided the riders into 2 groups: active and sedentary. It was performed a comparison of the physiological impact (heart rate, blood pressure) and a subjective perception (modified Borg's scale), ranking the degrees of difficulty during route stretches. The participants filled in a form before and after the course. Most sedentary participants, despite having greater difficulty and reaching higher heart rates on certain stretches, managed to make the trip. It suggests that the current technology of the bike allows people less physically conditioned to be able to use the bike in mountain cities. (Author)

[en] In this article, an Ordered Logit model is proposed considering systematic and random variations in tastes. The methodology followed for the creation of this model consisted, in first place, in obtaining data using a revelled preferences survey. In the survey, each user had to evaluate, following a qualitative scale, each one of the attributes of the analysed transport system. The variables evaluated in the survey had been grouped into six groups, and for each group, users had to order the attributes belonging to the group, using a ranking based method, from the most important to de least important, and, in the same way, with the groups itself. Once the database is formed, a generic model have been created, establishing this model as a comparative base for the rest. Next, two more models have been estimated one considering systematic users variations and the other one combining the systematic variations with weighted variables. Additionally, three new models have been calculated as an evolution of the previous ones using random variables as representation of systematic and random variations in user’s tastes. The results shows that as model’s complexity increase, an improvement in model fit is achieved. (Author)

[en] Small and medium sized companies (SMEs) assure economic growth in Europe. Generally many SMEs are struggling to survive in an ongoing global recession and often they are becoming reluctant to release or pay for staff training. In this paper we present shortly the learning methods in SMEs particularly the Problem Based Learning (PBL) as an efficient form for SMEs and entrepreneurship education. In the field of Urban Logistics it was developed four Clusters with potential of innovation and research in four European Regions: Tuscany - Italy, Valencia - Spain, Lisbon and Tagus - Portugal, Oltenia – Romania. Training and mentoring for SMEs, are essential to create competitiveness. Information and communication technologies (ICT) support the tutors by using an ICT platform which is in the development. (Author)