Sesil Koutra

• PhD
• Research and Teaching Associate at University of Mons

Energy poverty has become a notable concern within the European Union (EU), with adverse implications for the well-being and social inclusion of susceptible populations, particularly women. Despite an increasing focus on gender perspectives in the context of the energy transition in recent years, the assessment of the geographical distribution of e...

In the era of climate change and increasing vulnerabilities, the 'renewable' choice has become a commonly accepted strategy to promote resilient and sustainable solutions. The intensive activities of the industrialized era of the past century brought disused and derelict land amidst chances and ambiguous issues on their management. Although researc...

In a digitalized era and with the rapid growth of computational skills and advancements, artificial intelligence and Machine Learning uses in various applications are gaining a rising interest from scholars and practitioners. As a fast-growing field of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Artificial Intelligence deals with smart designs, data mining an...

Since 2020, Europe has introduced strategies and key policies to promote common efforts on a roadmap toward energy efficiency and decarbonization. From ‘low’ to ‘passive’ and from ‘zero’ to ‘positive’, the concepts have fascinated the scientific community around the globe and promise the deployment of planning responses to the challenges of decarbo...

Although impending urbanization is a well-acknowledged problem, there is a rising concern about how the urban forms will change and what can be the impacts on the global energy demand. As hubs of economic, social and cultural activities, cities are major energy consumers and GHG emissions. Energy consumption is a technical or a spatial problem? Fro...

Automated vehicles (AVs), which are expected to enter the market within the near future, represent the current frontiers in mobility and urban planning. AVs are assumed to bring substantial benefits to cities in many aspects. The present study attempts to investigate this broad assumption by conducting a literature review on the possible implicatio...

Along with the increase in modern industry, original facilities and cultures have disappeared progressively, leading to the disappearance of traditional values. However, from the perspective of the stewardship of industrial heritage, preservation is vital for Western Europe, where the Industrial Revolution emerged firstly, and it has leading techno...

Global warming is a worldwide concern, with buildings generating more than 40% of the annual global CO2 emissions. A commonly accepted system of global standards for zero-carbon buildings and communities has not yet been established. In this research, the development history, hotspots, and trends at the urban scale with theoretical and data support...

Smart city planning has become a popular concept in a time of increasing urbanization and its accompanying challenges, particularly in the face of climate change. Critiques say it is too generic to prove more useful beyond utilization as a buzzword in political discourse. Smart planning requires a cross-disciplinary and adaptable effort that combin...

An in-depth analysis of the spatial distribution characteristics and overall pattern of industrial heritage sites in China provides not only a comprehensive understanding of the current status of industrial heritage but also a reference for its protection and ongoing utilization. A total of 170 industrial heritage sites that were included in the Li...

In the realm of major continuous challenges cities are key leverage points in the quest for global sustainability due to their high consumptions and waste and contain hotspots of vulnerability. Their exposure to increasing environmental, economic, health, societal or other risks make them susceptible to continuous threats with uncertain impacts. In...

Buildings’ heating and cooling systems account for an important part of total energy consumption. The EU’s directives and engagements motivate building owners and relevant stakeholders in the energy and construction sectors towards net zero energy buildings by maximizing the use of renewable energy sources, ICT, and automation systems. However, the...

Hitherto, a plethora of theoretical and empirical studies have attempted to explore and unveil the evolution of (smart) governance mechanisms in the smart city era. Several different categories have emerged, such as but not limited to e-/open/participatory/smart/transition governance, nonetheless, no specific and comprehensive conceptualization of...

This paper presents a roadmap performed in 2010 as part of a European project for the modelling of carbon capture and storage technology, and various scenarios with different taxations and permit prices for the CO2 emissions considering the Greek national plans, then the gradual decommissioning of various lignite or other units of electricity power...

Transforming cities with the aim of achieving cleaner energy targets is a major bet worldwide, dealing with the immense stress of the rapid urbanisation, the depletion of natural resources, the climate change and its impacts during the post-industrialised period. Struggling with this problematic, in this work we develop a horizontal and cross-secto...

One of the key challenges of developing countries is to tackle the mitigation of the impacts of rapid and uncontrolled urbanization. Assessing this phenomenon is crucial to lessen the consequences for the environment and society. ‘Literature has been concentrated in planning strategies for the cities’ adaptation and engagements to the principles of...

Industrial heritage reflects the industrial civilization and industrial development process of the city in different periods, and its research and protection are conducive to the sustainable development of the city context. The Walloon Region in Belgium is one of the leading regions of industrial development in Western Europe, and Northeast China i...

One of the main drivers behind the urbanization process is attributed to economic fundamentals of urban growth, which boost migration from rural to urban context. This migration can be studied geographically, with increasing rates of population as the main component in developing countries, over Asia and Africa, specifically. Research has been focu...

Despite the rising interest in smart city initiatives worldwide, governmental theories along with the managerial perspectives of city planning are greatly lacking in the literature. It is definitely understandable that the adoption of configurational pathways toward the ‘smart’ ‘governance’ models is required as a key factor and smartness’ facilita...

Despite the rising interest in smart city initiatives worldwide, governmental theories along with the managerial perspectives of city planning are a great lack in the literature. It is definitely understandable that the adoption of configurational pathways towards the ‘smart’ ‘governance’ models is required as key factor and smartness’ facilitator...

Industrial heritage reflects the development track of human production activities and witnessed the rise and fall of industrial civilization. As one of the earliest countries in the world to start the Industrial Revolution, Belgium has a rich industrial history. Over the past years, a set of industrial heritage renewal projects have emerged in Belg...

En vue d'une densification urbaine durable, un outil ayant pour but d'évaluer et d'assister la conception d'îlots urbains compacts pourvus d'une densité de population cible a été créé et testé dans le cadre du projet CoMod. Le concept de compacité spatiale est appliqué ici, à l'échelle architecturale, sur le bâti, le non-bâti et les deux combinés....

Despite the increasing interest in ‘smart city’ initiatives worldwide, current literature still lacks the approaches and models that address challenges in organization and collaboration, which boost sustainability and ‘smartness’ in modern cities. This paper provides an overview of ‘smart city’ ecosystems as a mechanism to promote the expected outc...

Using the CiteSpace software and bibliometric methods, with the core collection of the Web of Science (WoS) database as the data source, the development of industrial heritage research in China and Western countries since the 2006 Wuxi Proposal was analyzed. The study found that the latest quantitative changes in China and Western countries’ indust...

Rapidly increasing global energy demand has raised concerns about the exhaustion of energy resources and the consequent heavy environmental impact. Improving energy efficiency in cities comprises an initial measure for addressing these phenomena. Within the current context of globalization, EU initiatives and policy targets have been proposed in or...

Through history, particular attention has been paid of the study of the relationship between the energy use and the city structure. Improving energy efficiency in modern agglomerations is the most promising means to mitigate climate change and its impacts. In this current context of globalisation, European Union proposes initiatives and policy targ...

Through history, particular attention has been paid of the study of the relationship between the energy use and the city structure. Improving energy efficiency in modern agglomerations is the most promising means to mitigate climate change and its impacts. In this current context of globalisation, European Union proposes initiatives and policy targ...

Districts have a significant role in achieving the principles of sustainability. Within the past decades, a great variety of assessment tools and methodologies has been developed in an effort to ‘translate’ the sustainability criteria into applied cases. There is an increasing interest in this contribution scaled up the assessment to larger territo...

The present work examines the supply of heating and electricity to the Spanish vil-lage of Uruena, using biomass and other local renewable sources as a result of the growing interest worldwide towards the development of sustainable and energy in-dependent small communities. Specifically, this case study considers the design of a district heating sy...

Zero energy conceptual framework is attracting increasing interest in European target policies aiming at more sustainable and liveable urban and built environments. Despite its compelling context in scientific literature and practical applications, the commonly used approach is principally adopted on the aspect of an individual building. Cases with...

This work intents to describe a new approach that would be able to combine the positive effects from the use of an E-Bike sharing system in a medium-large population urban city of Belgium demonstrated initially in case of the local University Campuses along with the use of the E-Bikes as environmental mobile sensing units.

Carpooling is a mobility concept that has the potential to effectively reduce the single occupancy trips with passenger cars, and thus energy consumption as well as traffic congestion, while coupled with electric vehicles (EVs) and intelligent transportation systems (ITS) can contribute to the smarter and more sustainable use of transportation netw...

The widespread deployment of electric vehicles (EVs), combined with the shift towards alternative modes of transportation, has the potential to alleviate the problems associated with the high use of private vehicles for commuting trips, mainly in urban areas. In this context, the present paper discusses a survey conducted at the University of Mons...

During the last two centuries, the urban percentage of the world's population, combined with the overall growth phenomenon, has deeply increased and it is projected to reach 60% by 2030. In this current context linked to environmental issues managing to plan sustainable cities appears a main policy target. The implementation of Net Zero Energy Buil...