Local energy zones (LEZs) classification system for reducing carbon emissions in the cities

Abstract

Cities are a key factor in contributing to climate change as seventy-five percent of worldwide carbon emissions are attributed to urban activities. The transportation and building sector accounts for the majority of emissions since they are significant users of energy and its consumption. INDIA's efforts to reduce carbon emissions are primarily focused on the energy and power sectors, such as coal-fired power plant closures and investments in solar and renewable energy, etc., but no work has been done to mitigate carbon emissions in the built environment. Thus, the thesis aims “To examine the relationship between the urban built environment and carbon emissions” and how various zones, land use and the built environment factors affect the carbon emissions. As a result, the study focuses on proposing a classification system of Local Energy Zones (LEZs) which helps in assessing the carbon emissions from the building sector of a city. This can be used for Reducing Carbon emissions by testing the significance of the city’s-built space parameters and classifying them into typical spatial zones. Also, this would help in standardizing the worldwide exchange of urban carbon emissions and can be used as a toolkit for the Local development plans and planning regulations to deliver effective strategies for monitoring the urban carbon footprint. Therefore, it is important to map the city as per its built environment or morphological characteristics which will be done using the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) scheme which is also used as a basis to develop Local Energy Zones (LEZs) for the carbon emission analysis by adding a wide range of energy consumption parameters from the urban form, as well as parameters like socio-economic, demographic aspects, transport sector emissions, etc., are also used for spatially mapping the carbon emissions of the region. The city selected for this study is Bhopal city, the capital of Madhya Pradesh because of its pre-existing LCZs and the availability of data for analysis. The study proceeds with the selection of parameters for the analysis and then the mapping of the city base on these parameters as under Physical-ecological parameters the topography, NDVI, LST, built density, and existing land use of the city were mapped to give an understanding of the region. Similarly, under Demographic and socio-economic aspects the Population density, Land value, and slum location mapping were done. The city was then classified into 17 classes (10 Built-type and 7 natural landcover classes) as per the LCZ classification system and which gave the building height along with building density composition of the city spatially. This leads to the spatial mapping of energy consumption concentration zones of the city which will give the carbon emission zones by multiplying the emission factor of per unit electricity. The emissions from the transport sector are overlayed with the emissions from the building sector to give the resultant carbon emissions of the city. Since the emissions from the transport sector are dependent on the vehicle density and not on the built environment, the emissions from the energy sector are only

Local Energy Zones (LEZs) Classification system for Reducing Carbon emissions in the cities ii

taken further to form the LEZ map of the region which is derived by subtracting the 7 classes of natural landcover (of LCZ) from the carbon emission from the building sector. Later the LEZ map was used to identify neighborhood-level study areas or wards where the built density, population density, and the transport sector emissions were similar but the carbon emissions in the wards were different. As per this ward 12 (Ganesh Nagar sector B) and ward 49 (Arera colony E-6 & E-7) were selected and a comparative analysis was done in terms of their local urban form features such as building footprint density, figure-ground ratio, percentage of open spaces, green spaces, existing land use, building height analysis, FAR, setbacks, building typology, Land value, etc. The result from this comparative study would help in assessing the relationship between the local energy emission zones and the built form and so the characteristics of these energy zones were identified and quantified that could help in reducing the emissions. Thus, for the result of the study, a methodology was proposed to formulate the Local Energy Zone (LEZ) classification system for any city, under the steps, and the type of data required was mentioned to spatially map the carbon emissions of a city from the energy sector. This helps us to get more information about the environmental crises by giving us the composition of the carbon emissions of a city as per its built spaces, so the more information we have the more accurate solutions we can propose for the decision-making process and planning of the region. This classification system can be used for the local area planning and it can also be integrated with the development regulations for reducing carbon emissions in the built environment by testing the significance of the city’s-built space parameters on its carbon emissions and classifying them into typical spatial zones. Also, this study would help in standardizing the worldwide exchange of urban carbon emissions and can be used as a toolkit for the Local development plans to deliver effective strategies for monitoring the urban carbon footprint. Keywords: Carbon emissions, Local Climate zones, Urban Morphology, Built Environment Factors, Local Energy Zones, Development regulations.