Articles
Publication Date: 2025
Journal of Urban and Regional Analysis (20674082)17(2)pp. 177-193
The governance of smart cities is essential for addressing complex urban challenges, while advancing sustainability, and improving the quality of life for citizens. This study explores governance models for smart cities through a hybrid Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) – Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) framework, employing expert evaluations to prioritise and rank governance alternatives. The results showed Smart Urban Collaboration as the most effective governance framework, owing to its capacity to foster inclusivity and sustainability. The analysis also underlined the critical role of social inclusion in urban governance, emphasising the importance of involving diverse stakeholders in decision-making processes. Such participatory approaches are crucial for building citizens’ trust and collaboratively developing innovative solutions to urban challenges. Sustainability was identified as the next priority, highlighting the need for such urban governance frameworks to tackle environmental issues like climate change and resource scarcity. Smart cities can move towards sustainable development goals by strategically utilizing technology in stakeholders’ involvement. This work offers practical recommendations and insights for policymakers, urban planners, and academics aimed at creating urban environments that are resilient, inclusive, and sustainable. © 2025 Bucharest University Press. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2025
NPJ Ocean Sustainability (2731426X)4(1)
Blue Carbon Projects conserve and restore degraded BCEs to mitigate climate change1, 2, 3–4, primarily funded through carbon markets2,4, 5–6, thereby delivering climate finance6, 7–8. Our assessment of 81 BCPs globally (2.0 million ha) shows annual emission reductions of 20.4 MtCO₂e/yr, targeting 5.8 GtCO₂e by 2075—≈2% of estimated potential4,9. Between 2014 and 2025, 6.96 million BCCs were issued and 3.65 million retired, mostly transferred from LDCs and developing to developed nations below real value. © The Author(s) 2025.
Farahmand, S.,
Hilmi, N.,
Cinar, M.,
Safa, A.,
Lam, V.W.,
Djoundourian, S.,
Shahin, W.,
Ben lamine, E.,
Schickele, A.,
Guidetti, P. Publication Date: 2023
Ecological Economics (09218009)211
Climate-induced projected range shifts of exploited species would lead to a redistribution of stocks. Evaluating the combined ecological and socio-economic consequences of projected changes in Mediterranean fisheries due to climate change has remained largely unexplored. This study aims to identify the most affected stocks by climate change and more vulnerable countries in the region. Thus, we calculated the species specific sensitivity per country for 17 harvested species of significant importance. Then, we evaluated the vulnerability index for Mediterranean countries. Results show that temperate-cold species, i.e., Sprattus sprattus and Solea solea appear the most sensitive species. In contrast, temperate-warm species like the bogue showed the lowest sensitivity. Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya are the most vulnerable countries due to their comparatively high exposure to global warming and low adaptive capacity. At the same time, Slovenia, France, and Croatia have the lowest vulnerability because of their low exposure and sensitivity and remarkably high adaptive capacity. The southern Mediterranean countries would be the most vulnerable to climate-induced effects on marine fisheries. The region seriously needs adequate and adopted on-time adaptation and mitigation policies to lessen potential risks to harvested species and stocks and guarantee the contribution of fisheries to the economy and food security in the long-term. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.
Hilmi, N.,
Sutherland, M.,
Farahmand, S.,
Haraldsson, G.,
Van doorn, E.,
Ernst, E.,
Wisz, M.S.,
Claudel rusin, A.,
Elsler, L.G.,
Levin, L.A. Publication Date: 2023
Frontiers in Climate (26249553)5
The deep sea (below 200 m depth) is the largest carbon sink on Earth. It hosts abundant biodiversity that underpins the carbon cycle and provides provisioning, supporting, regulating and cultural ecosystem services. There is growing attention to climate-regulating ocean ecosystem services from the scientific, business and political sectors. In this essay we synthesize the unique biophysical, socioeconomic and governance characteristics of the deep sea to critically assess opportunities for deep-sea blue carbon to mitigate climate change. Deep-sea blue carbon consists of carbon fluxes and storage including carbon transferred from the atmosphere by the inorganic and organic carbon pumps to deep water, carbon sequestered in the skeletons and bodies of deep-sea organisms, carbon buried within sediments or captured in carbonate rock. However, mitigating climate change through deep-sea blue carbon enhancement suffers from lack of scientific knowledge and verification, technological limitations, potential environmental impacts, a lack of cooperation and collaboration, and underdeveloped governance. Together, these issues suggest that deep-sea climate change mitigation is limited. Thus, we suggest that a strong focus on blue carbon is too limited a framework for managing the deep sea to contribute to international goals, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Agreement and the post-2020 Biodiversity Goals. Instead, the deep sea can be viewed as a more holistic nature-based solution, including many ecosystem services and biodiversity in addition to climate. Environmental impact assessments (EIAs), area-based management, pollution reduction, moratoria, carbon accounting and fisheries management are tools in international treaties that could help realize benefits from deep-sea, nature-based solutions. Copyright © 2023 Hilmi, Sutherland, Farahmand, Haraldsson, van Doorn, Ernst, Wisz, Claudel Rusin, Elsler and Levin.
