Urban vehicle emissions are strongly influenced by transient driving conditions, while route-level emission factors may conceal locations where high-emission events repeatedly occur. This study proposes a spatial recurrence framework integrating repeated real-driving measurements, GPS trajectories, Vehicle-Specific Power (VSP), and instantaneous emissions to identify persistent emission hotspots. Twelve repeated tests conducted along the same urban route in Quito, Ecuador, provided 69,414 synchronized observations of vehicle operation and CO, CO2, and HC emissions. High-power conditions (VSP>5 kW/t) represented 16.67% of observations but accounted for 83.65% of CO, 55.89% of CO2, and 67.61% of HC emissions. Pollutant-specific hotspots were identified using emission intensity, high-load occurrence, and minimum-data criteria, and their recurrence was evaluated across the twelve runs. Using a 100 × 100 m reference grid, 2 CO, 14 CO2, and 19 HC cells exhibited recurrence levels of at least 75%. Grid-size sensitivity analysis (50–200 m) revealed a trade-off between spatial detail and repeated-route coverage, while CO2 hotspot counts remained stable across 100–200 m grids. An additional sensitivity analysis applying an empirically estimated 19 s temporal correction showed relatively high spatial agreement for CO2 and HC hotspots (Jaccard indices of 0.765 and 0.895, respectively), whereas neither of the two original CO hotspots retained its location. The proposed framework distinguishes isolated high-emission events from spatially persistent emission-prone locations while highlighting the pollutant-dependent influence of temporal alignment on hotspot identification.
Logistics infrastructure plays a strategic role in urban-regional connectivity, territorial development, supply chain integration, and the spatial organization of freight flows in emerging economies. However, the socioeconomic and territorial performance associated with logistics complexes is not automatic or homogeneous, since it depends on institutional capacity, linkages with local business networks, public investment, logistics services, and the development conditions of each territory. This study develops, applies, and examines a potentially transferable composite-index framework to assess the relative territorial and socioeconomic performance of nine logistics complexes in Colombia as part of broader urban and regional systems. The methodology compares a 2019 baseline with a 2024 follow-up observation, using independently compiled raw data from official and institutional sources. Economic, business, fiscal, social, labor, and distributive variables are transformed to a base of 100 and aggregated using an equal-weight benchmark specification, while PCA, Shannon entropy, Spearman correlation, Winsorization, and leave-one-indicator-out checks are used only as exploratory robustness and sensitivity exercises. Monetary variables are reported in nominal Colombian pesos and are therefore interpreted as changes in observed economic or fiscal scale, not as real welfare gains. The results show heterogeneous relative performance across the cases: the Bogotá Free Trade Zone and the Caribbean Logistics Complex record the highest values, while the Coffee Region shows no aggregate improvement after reviewing fiscal and health information. The main contribution of this study is to provide an adaptable decision-support tool for urban-regional planning, territorial performance assessment, infrastructure monitoring, and policy discussion in emerging economies, without claiming experimental causality.
Urban household biowaste is shaped by recurring food categories, among which citrus peels represent a structured and seasonally patterned input. As these peels may carry postharvest fungicide residues, their movement through decentralized waste-treatment pathways represents a chemically meaningful component of the urban metabolism. This study examined how three widely used citrus fungicides—imazalil, pyrimethanil, and thiabendazole—behave within a household-scale sealed microaerobic fermentation system typical of common urban practices. The system displayed clear composition-driven concentration patterns: imazalil and pyrimethanil concentrations increased or remained elevated, whereas thiabendazole remained relatively stable in the solid phase while decreasing in the liquid phase. Physicochemical conditions (pH value, dry matter content) followed typical microaerobic fermentation behaviour, and microbial communities reflected acidity-driven and substrate-driven development rather than fungicide-driven suppression. Fungal colonies remained detectable despite the presence of residues, indicating that substrate composition and fermentation conditions played a more prominent role in shaping microbial responses than fungicide-associated effects. These findings position postharvest fungicides not as active inhibitors in household fermentation, but as citrus-associated residues moving through decentralized waste-to-soil pathways. The results provide new insights into how citrus-associated fungicide residues move through decentralized urban waste-treatment pathways and shape chemical and microbial flows relevant to urban soil systems and the safe use of Bokashi-based fermentation residues.
Air pollution imposes measurable economic costs on housing markets, typically reflected in lower property values. While this negative capitalization is well documented, the interaction between environmental externalities and active municipal fiscal policy has received less empirical attention within the context of non-ad valorem systems, presenting a distinct area of study in urban economics. This study addresses this gap by examining the relationship between municipal taxation, air pollution, and housing prices in Haifa, Israel—a city operating under a distinctive, area-based property tax system (“Arnona”). Unlike ad valorem systems where tax liabilities adjust automatically to market shifts, the Arnona system requires administrative intervention to modify tax zones, providing a unique setting to observe deliberate policy responses. Using a dataset of 5108 housing transactions (2020–2025) and a two-stage least squares (2SLS) instrumental variable approach, we demonstrate that air pollution is a robust predictor of municipal tax rates. Our results reveal a “compensatory fiscal mechanism”: neighborhoods with higher industrial pollutants (SO2 and NOX) face significantly lower tax rates. Conversely, PM10 displays a positive association with tax rates, likely reflecting a centrality premium linked to urban density. We conclude that while municipal tax adjustments partially compensate residents for environmental burdens, they do not fully offset the market penalty associated with pollution exposure.
This research aims to analyze the physical, morphological, and climatological factors that determine the thermal environment along “Ben Bou Laïd” Avenue in the city of Sétif, Algeria, and within its urban canyons, as well as the capacity of this environment to accommodate activities and uses and to sustain occupancy over space and time. Attention to occupancy constituted the guiding thread of our methodology. A quantitative and qualitative approach was adopted in the case study. First, field observations were conducted during different hours of the day. Then, in situ measurements of thermal parameters, including ambient air temperature (Ta), relative humidity (RH), and wind speed (Va), were collected. Simultaneously, a survey of different users was conducted, followed by an exhaustive assessment of occupancy patterns and their spatial distribution during the same measurement periods. The results show the impact of morphological parameters and their effects separately and simultaneously on the creation of the microclimate, and that they significantly impact occupancy dynamics, in their density and distribution mode in space and time. Although shade is cited as a criterion for choosing spaces by only 14.17% of respondents, observation revealed that a shaded setting (under a gallery, under tree canopy, etc.) remains the most favored location during nearly all of the observed time slots, and it is indeed there that the longest stays are recorded. However, the occupancy patterns observed reveal that they cannot be attributed solely to thermal factors, as several other parameters should also be considered in future research.
