Maruf Mortula

Over recent years, the sustainability and resilience concept has increased its significance in the construction industry. Sustainability is associated with implementing best practices in the construction industry, while resilience is the adaptability and tolerance of systems in harsh conditions. The concepts are learned in the construction process. Moreover, building automation is growing rapidly, and buildings are becoming increasingly dependent on complex systems and technology and susceptible to unanticipated failure. Though sustainability and resilience concepts are interlinked, limited research quantifies their combination, resulting in a limited comprehension of how both concepts interact during application by developers in a smart building. Therefore, this study has established a financial model that employs Net Present Value (NPV) in studying the inference and clampdown of investment in both concepts. NPV was estimated using indirect and direct costs and benefits derived from the continuous integration of sustainability and resilience in a smart building. To quantify sustainability, its three components had to be quantified. Reduced energy expenditure and government environmental incentives were used to calculate the environmental component. Workers’ cost savings, fire insurance cost savings, and additional system maintenance costs were used to calculate the economic component. The social component of sustainability measured hard-to-quantify attributes like productivity, indoor environment quality, reputation, extra profit, services, and safety. To quantify them, a survey and RII method were used. The two concepts were then coupled by estimating the benefits and costs of installing and keeping resilience tools in design that are sustainable in the smart building and the impact study on the NPV outcome. Application of the design model was also carried out on four smart buildings that were selected in Dubai. The result indicated that coupling sustainable approaches and resilience yields higher NPV by at least 22%. Nevertheless, for NPV to be maintained positively and reduce the cost of failure, faulty detection tools should be assimilated while designing sustainable and smart buildings. The findings of this study will contribute to the benefit of other researchers, developers, investors, managers, engineers, and anyone who is involved in the design or construction process of intelligent buildings.

Leakages in the water distribution networks (WDNs) are real problems for utilities and other governmental agencies. Timely leak detection and location identification have been challenges. In this paper, an integrated approach to geospatial and infrared image processing was used for robust leak detection. The method combines drops in flow, pressure, and chlorine residuals to determine potential water leakage locations in the WDN using Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques. GIS layers were created from the hourly values of these three parameters for the city of Sharjah provided by the Sharjah Electricity, Water, and Gas Authority (SEWA). These layers are then analyzed for locations with dropped values of each of the parameters and are overlaid with each other. In the case where there were no overlaying locations between flow and pressure, further water quality analysis was avoided, assuming no potential leak. In the case where there are locations with drops in flow and pressure layers, these overlaying locations are then examined for drops in chlorine values. If overlaying locations are found, then these regions are considered potential leak locations. Once potential leak locations are identified, a specialized remote sensing technique can be used to pinpoint the leak location. This study also demonstrated the suitability of using an infrared camera for leak detection in a laboratory-based setup. This paper concludes that the following methodology can help water utility companies in the timely detection of leaks, saving money, time, and effort.