Environmental sustainability and optimal use of energy are two of the key elements in the program for development of smart cities. Very often overlooked is the role of the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data in improving environmental sustainability in the process of creating smart cities.
The integration of smart systems like smart homes and smart car parking, along with IoT devices such as sensors, actuators and smart phones), into the urban environment play a vital role in development of urban services. But the interconnection of a large number of IoT objects to collect data, leads to a huge question of how to actually process this “big data” in real-time to really create a Smart Digital City.
Recent work has focused on the creation of a smart city architecture based on big data analytics. One of the proposed schemes involves a city architecture composed of three modules:
- Data acquisition and aggregation module that collects diverse data related to city services;
- Data computation and processing, which “cleans up” the raw data and then processes the refined data and provides analyses of it;
- An application and decision module that generates decisions on how to best manage city resources and initiates events in real-time to change the current structure.
Models of the above sort all aim to enhance urban sustainability But better analysis is needed of the social, not just physical, sustainability of the urban environment for city residents. The focus here should be on health issues and questions addressing who the smart city is really for.
In addition to the above desiderata, a major area thus far not touched involves the question how smart city solutions might affect the autonomy of urban governance, the personal integrity of residents and the resilience of infrastructures like food, water, transportation and energy that serve the daily needs of the city’s inhabitants.
A final issue calling for more research efforts is to address how smart city developments can change the relationships between humans and the natural environment.