A survey of Tap Water Quality in Kuala Lumpur

The work presents the results of an extensive survey of tap water quality in Kuala Lumpur.

Controls on the contemporary distribution of lake thecamoebians (testate amoebae) in the Greater Toronto Area and their potential as water quality indicators.

Thecamoebians were examined from 71 surface sediment samples collected from 21 lakes and ponds in the Greater Toronto Area to (1) elucidate the controls on faunal distribution in modern lake environments; and (2) to consider the utility of thecamoebians in quantitative studies of water quality change. This area was chosen because it includes a high density of kettle and other lakes which are threatened by urban development and where water quality has deteriorated locally as a result of contaminant inputs, particularly nutrients. Fifty-eight samples yielded statistically significant thecamoebian populations. The most diverse faunas (highest Shannon Diversity Index values) were recorded in lakes beyond the limits of urban development, although the faunas of all lakes showed signs of sub-optimal conditions. The assemblages were divided into five clusters using Q-mode cluster analysis, supported by Detrended Correspondence Analysis. Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) was used to examine species-environment relationships and to explain the observed clusterings. Twenty-four measured environmental variables were considered, including water property attributes (e.g., pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen), substrate characteristics, sediment-based phosphorus (Olsen P) and 11 environmentally available metals. The thecamoebian assemblages showed a strong association with phosphorus, reflecting the eutrophic status of many of the lakes, and locally to elevated conductivity measurements, which appear to reflect road salt inputs associated with winter de-icing operations. Substrate characteristics, total organic carbon and metal contaminants (particularly Cu and Mg) also influenced the faunas of some samples. A series of partial CCAs show that of the measured variables, sedimentary phosphorus has the largest influence on assemblage distribution, explaining 6.98% (P < 0.002) of the total variance. A transfer function was developed for sedimentary phosphorus (Olsen P) using 58 samples from 15 of the studied lakes. The best performing model was based on weighted averaging with inverse deshrinking (WA Inv, r jack 2= 0.33, RMSEP = 102.65 ppm). This model was applied to a small modern thecamoebian dataset from a eutrophic lake in northern Ontario to predict phosphorus and performed satisfactorily. This preliminary study confirms that thecamoebians have considerable potential as quantitative water quality indicators in urbanising regions, particularly in areas influenced by nutrient inputs and road salts.

Critical Success Factors for Transfer-Operate-Transfer Urban Water Supply Projects in China

Over the years, build-operate-transfer (BOT) has continuously attracted research interests. Many studies on BOT have been carried out. Variations of BOT such as build-own-operate-transfer and build-own-operate have also been reported in some relevant publications. However, few investigations thus far have been conducted for transfer-operate-transfer (TOT). Therefore, there is a knowledge gap in this particular field. TOT is a new model that is suitable for existing infrastructure and public utility projects formerly funded by the governments and currently operated by state-owned enterprises. It refers to the transfer of a running public project to a foreign business or domestic private entity. Based on four case studies carried out in the Chinese water supply industry, this paper examines why there is an increasing need for TOT projects and identifies the distinctive features of TOT practice in China. This is followed by an introduction of a framework of critical success factors (CSFs) for TOT projects. The most important factors include project profitability, asset quality, fair risk allocation, competitive tendering, internal coordination within government, employment of professional advisors, corporate governance, and government supervision. The identification of CSFs provides a useful guidance to project parties planning to participate in TOT practice.

The Housing Triangulation: A discourse on Quality, Affordability and Lifestyles in India

Since 1991 with the advent of globalization and economic liberalisation, basic conceptual and discursive changes are taking place in housing sector in India. The new changes suggest how housing affordability, quality and lifestyles reality is shifting for various segments of the population. Such shift not only reflects structural patterns but also stimulates an ongoing transition process. The paper highlights a twin impetus that continue to shape the ongoing transition: expanding middle class and their wealth - a category with distinctive lifestyles, desires and habits and corresponding ‘market defining’ of affordable housing standards - to articulate function of housing as a conceptualization of social reality in modern India. The paper highlights the contradictions and paradoxes, and the manner in which the concept of affordability, quality and lifestyles are embedded in both discourse and practice in India. The housing ‘dream’ currently being packaged and fed through to the middle class population has an upper middle class bias and is set to alienate those at the lower end of the middle-and low-income population. In the context of growing agreement and inevitability of market provision of ‘affordable housing’, the unbridled ‘market-defining’ of housing quality and lifestyles must be checked.

Energy sustainability indicators for urban environments

Sustainable development comprises of three dimensions. The three dimensions are the environment, the social and the economic. There have been many indicators used to measure the three dimensions of sustainability. For example air pollution, consumption of natural resources, quality of open space, noise, equity and opportunities and economic benefits from transport and land use. Urban areas constitute the most crucial factor in the sustainability. Urban systems affect and are affected by natural systems beyond their physical boundaries and in general the interdependence between the urban system and the regional and global environment is not reflected in urban decision making. The use of energy in the urban system constitutes the major element in the construction and function of urban areas. Energy impacts across the boundaries of the three dimensions of sustainability. The objective of this research is to apply energy-use-indicators to the urban system as a measure of sustainability. This methodology is applied to a case study in the United Kingdom.

The application of the ecological footprint in two Irish urban areas: Limerick and Belfast

The ecological footprint is now a widely accepted indicator of sustainable
development. Footprinting translates resource consumption into the land area
required to sustain it, and allows for an average per capita footprint for a region
or nation to be compared with the global average. This paper reports on a project
in which footprints were calculated for two Irish cities, namely Belfast in
Northern Ireland and Limerick in the Republic of Ireland for the year 2001. As
is frequently the case at sub-national scale, data quality and availability were
often problematic, and in general data gaps were filled by means of population
proxies or national averages. A range of methods was applied to convert
resource flows to land areas. Both footprints suggest that the lifestyles of citizens
of the cities use several times more land than their global share, as has been
found for other cities.

Testate amoebae (thecamoebians) as water quality indicators in lakes: development of a modern distributional dataset from the Greater Toronto Area

Thecamoebians were examined from 123 surface sediment samples collected from 45 lakes in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and the surrounding region to i) elucidate the controls on faunal distribution in modern lake environments; and ii) to consider the utility of thecamoebians in quantitative studies of water quality change. This area was chosen because it includes a high density of lakes that are threatened by urban development and where water quality has deteriorated locally as a result of contaminant inputs, particularly nutrients. Canonical Correspondence analysis (CCA) and a series of partial CCAs were used to examine species-environment relationships. Twenty-four environmental variables were considered, including water properties (e.g. pH, DO, conductivity), substrate characteristics, nutrient loading, and environmentally available metals. The thecamoebian assemblages showed a strong association with Olsen's Phosphorus, reflecting the eutrophic status of many of the lakes, and locally to elevated conductivity measurements, which appear to reflect road salt inputs associated with winter de-icing operations. A transfer function was developed for Olsen P using this training set based on weighted averaging with inverse deshrinking (WA Inv). The model was applied to infer past changes in Phosphorus enrichment in core samples from several lakes, including eutrophic Haynes Lake within the GTA. Thecamoebian-inferred changes in sedimentary Phosphorus from a 210Pb dated core from Haynes Lake are related to i) widespread introduction of chemical fertilizers to agricultural land in the post WWII era; ii) a steep decline in Phosphorous with a change in agricultural practices in the late 1970s; and iii) the construction of a golf course in close proximity to the lake in the early 1990s. This preliminary study confirms that thecamoebians have considerable potential as indicators of eutrophication in lakes and can provide an estimate of baseline conditions.

Compromising Spatial Quality: Modernity in the Era of National State Building in Cairo

The paper examines the imposition of western ideals of urbanism within colonial Cairo between1882-1952. It looks at the ideologies of capitalism, state control, and utopian idealism, which were vital tools to create modern built environments in the city. The argument is that principles of Western urbanism were at work and deeply influenced the institutional and professional practices of the Egyptian planners, who were mostly educated in Europe; however the outcomes revealed a major shift towards more inflexible solutions described as more open to compromise with the existing conditions. The paper analyses the case of a re-planning scheme drafted in the 1920s by the first Egyptian director of the Ministry of Town Planning under the British occupation. The scheme represented the superimposition of a western-style neighbourhood model on a historically rooted traditional quarter in Cairo. The paper largely relies on original archival materials, maps, documents and accounts to support the historical narrative of urban planning in Cairo. It reports that westernization approaches for planning Cairo were introduced to offer a new imagery representation, which remained central to the development of planning practices in postcolonial Egypt through different practical applications.