re-ISSUES—Renewable Energy-Linked Interoperable Smart and Sustainable Urban Environmental Systems

Abstract

Smart cities will be smart if they improve their citizens’ quality of life; to do so, it is essential to listen to citizens and collaborate with service and technological companies. For that, digitalization seems essential. Environmental management systems are complex and expensive. If their lifecycle costs are reduced, these systems would be more sustainable. This can be achieved through citizen collaboration (CS), the use of low-cost Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and collaboration with local renewable energy businesses. All this leads to a real interoperability challenge. Systems engineering offers a valid framework for managing information and knowledge for environmental systems. It offers a range of guides for processes that can improve the quality of the related information and the reusability of knowledge throughout the lifecycles of these systems. After quantifying the opportunity and the cost for a motivational case of atmospheric neighborhood odor impact and introducing trends and opportunities in energy management, the authors propose a model for renewable energy-linked interoperable smart and sustainable urban environmental systems (re-ISSUES). The model’s ontology is used to discover research trends and potential for improvements to the model itself, enabling semantic interoperability and knowledge reuse.