Smart Cities in the Mediterranean ― Coping With Sustainability Objectives in Small and Medium-sized Cities

This book sheds new light on the current and future challenges faced by cities, and presents approaches, options and solutions enabled by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the smart city context. By focusing on sustainability objectives within a rapidly changing social, economic, environmental and technological setting, it explores a variety of planning challenges faced by contemporary cities and the power of smart city developments in terms of providing innovative tools, approaches, methodologies and technologies to help cities cope with these challenges. Key issues addressed include smart city (e-) planning and (e-)participation; smart data management to facilitate decision-making processes in cities and insular communities on a variety of topics; smart and sustainable management aspects of climate change, water scarcity, mobility, energy, infrastructure, tourism, blue growth, risk assessment; etc.

The book presents current and potential pathways and applications for the evolution of smart cities and communities, taking into consideration the unique problems and opportunities emanating from their specific geographical location. The case study examples mainly concern small and medium-sized cities and communities as well as insular areas in the Mediterranean region, while also incorporating lessons learned from other parts of the world. Their focus is on the specific opportunities and threats emerging in these urban and insular environments, which are characterized by their role as globally known tourist destinations, their coastal or port character, and unique cultural resources, as well as the high rated vulnerability in very many sustainability respects (social, economic, biodiversity, urbanization, migration, poverty, etc.) to be found in the Mediterranean region at large 

Anastasia Stratigea is Associate Professor for Regional Planning and Policy at National Technical University of Athens, Greece. She is a member of international networks (NECTAR, COST A22, EFONET, Smart Cities and Communities – Mediterranean Cluster / Cluster Coordination and Management Committee, Smart Grid – Smart Cities / German Academy for Spatial Research and Planning - ARL, Gr-RAC - IYGU / IGU Initiative). She is author, co-editor, and co-author of 4 books, while she has published 18 book chapters and over 90 refereed journal and international conference publications. She is reviewer of a number of international journals and has participated in a number of EU and national projects both as member of a research team and a coordinator.

Elias Kyriakides is Associate Professor and co-founder of the KIOS Research Center for Intelligent Systems and Networks at the University of Cyprus. He is working in the areas of electric power systems and critical infrastructure systems with an emphasis on wide area monitoring and control, power system operations, and renewable energy sources. He has served as a coordinator for 15 national and European projects and as a partner in several others (total funding share over 3 million euro between 2006-2015). He has published two books (Springer, 2015 and Springer, 2016); six book chapters; over 130 refereed journal and international conference publications, and two patents. He has been elevated to a Senior Member in IEEE (2009) and to a Chartered Engineer in IET (2015). He has received several best paper awards and research awards. In May 2009, he was elected the Action Chair of the ESF-COST Action IC0806: Intelligent Monitoring, Security, and Control of Critical Infrastructure Systems (IntelliCIS). He has been invited to present a number of research talks and short courses at various utilities and universities internationally.

Chrysses Nicolaides, Systems and Design Analyst, is a Senior Consultant and founder of the Smart Cities and Communities – Mediterranean Cluster. ?e acts as external consultant in strategic planning and development projects for cities and communities. He has global experience working in senior positions for companies and multinational organizations and he is actively involved in designing and managing projects relating to the European strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. He initiated and organized annual international conferences relating to smart cities and communities.