Blockchain Technologies For Sustainable Development In Smart Cities

Blockchain technology has great potential to radically change our socio-economic systems by guaranteeing secure transactions between untrusted entities, reducing costs, and simplifying many processes. However, employing blockchain techniques in sustainable applications development for smart cities still has some technical challenges and limitations. Blockchain Technologies for Sustainable Development in Smart Cities investigates blockchain-enabled technology for smart city developments and big data applications. This book provides relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical research findings in the area. Covering topics such as digital finance, smart city technology, and data processing architecture, this book is an essential reference for electricians, policymakers, local governments, city committees, computer scientists, IT professionals, professors and students of higher education, researchers, and academicians.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2022 in the subject Computer Science - Commercial Information Technology, grade: 2,1, University of Duisburg-Essen, language: English, abstract: This thesis addresses the research question of what impact the use of blockchain technology has on improving sustainability in a smart city. For this purpose, first an insight into the emergence of blockchain technology, as well as its structure, characteristics and various consensus mechanisms is given. This is followed by insights into the different types of blockchain and the advantages and disadvantages of blockchain technology in order to create as comprehensive an understanding as possible. Due to the continuous progress of urbanization and the associated environmental pollution and destruction, it is becoming increasingly important to find innovative solutions to these problems. The United Nation's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) offer countries and cities a basis for improving their sustainability. SDG 11 addresses the development of sustainable smart cities and communities. Smart cities use innovative technologies that are interconnected with each other across all areas of a city to drive sustainable and resource-saving urban development and provide citizens with a high quality of life. These technologies use sensors and other devices to collect data from their immediate environment, which is then analyzed to identify problems in their early stages and make improvements. However, the large amount of sensitive and personal data also increases the risk of security vulnerabilities. One of these technologies that could help improve sustainability in smart cities and also reduce risks is blockchain technology.

This book highlights the applications of blockchain technologies to foster sustainable development in different fields. The concept of Sustainability has grown widespread in today’s context and there are many requirements to achieve Sustainability in any industrial sector including mapping, tracing the supply chain to ensure sustainable supply chain management. Reliable and transparent, efficient data is one of the key requirements for Sustainability in today’s advanced industrial context. Achievement of Sustainability objectives in this advanced era demands various technological advancements such as Blockchain technologies. The core competencies of blockchain technology namely transparency, data auditability, privacy, value transfer, and process efficiency and automation are very much essential for achieving the multifold objectives under sustainability.​

This book provides a comprehensive overview of various aspects of the development of smart cities from a secure, trusted, and reliable data transmission perspective. It presents theoretical concepts and empirical studies, as well as examples of smart city programs and their capacity to create value for citizens. The contributions offer a panorama of the most important aspects of smart city evolution and implementation within various frameworks, such as healthcare, education, and transportation. Comparing current advanced applications and best practices, the book subsequently explores how smart environments and programs could help improve the quality of life in urban spaces and promote cultural and economic development.

This book, Big Data for a Sustainable Smart City, is an overview of the role of big data in the sustainability of a smart city. The book looks at the future trends and challenges in the use of big data, with discussions on big data and its implementation contextually elaborated, touching on several subdomains of smart city, such as smart infrastructure, smart healthcare, and smart grid. As distributed ledger technology and blockchain have increasingly become part and parcel of big data, with potential role as alternative currency and authenticity instrument, the book also included discussions on distributed ledger technology. Highlights on social technology fusion as mooted by the concept of Society 5.0 is discussed as a continuation of technocentric IR 4.0 growth. The book concludes with hope and concern that society will be facing in tandem with its adoption.

Green Blockchain Technology for Sustainable Smart Cities presents a detailed exploration of the adaptation and implementation of green blockchain technology for sustainable and eco-friendly smart city applications. This book covers all aspects of the topic and explores smart cities ecosystem applications of blockchain technology. Novel architectural and business blockchain use case solutions in smart city implementations are at the core of this book, which will be beneficial for all researchers, engineers, graduate students, smart city practitioners, and city administrators who are engaged in green blockchain and smart cities-related technologies. Covers a wide variety of topics Offers readers multiple perspectives from a variety of disciplines Written by an internationally diverse group of experts in their respective fields Includes a section on use cases as well as current challenges and future directions

With the rapid penetration of technology in varied application domains, the existing cities are getting connected more seamlessly. Cities becomes smart by inducing ICT in the classical city infrastructure for its management. According to McKenzie Report, about 68% of the world population will migrate towards urban settlements in near future. This migration is largely because of the improved Quality of Life (QoL) and livelihood in urban settlements. In the light of urbanization, climate change, democratic flaws, and rising urban welfare expenditures, smart cities have emerged as an important approach for society’s future development. Smart cities have achieved enhanced QoL by giving smart information to people regarding healthcare, transportation, smart parking, smart traffic structure, smart home, smart agronomy, community security etc. Typically, in smart cities data is sensed by the sensor devices and provided to end users for further use. The sensitive data is transferred with the help of internet creating higher chances for the adversaries to breach the data. Considering the privacy and security as the area of prime focus, this book covers the most prominent security vulnerabilities associated with varied application areas like healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, education and agriculture etc. Furthermore, the massive amount of data being generated through ubiquitous sensors placed across the smart cities needs to be handled in an effective, efficient, secured and privacy preserved manner. Since a typical smart city ecosystem is data driven, it is imperative to manage this data in an optimal manner. Enabling technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Blockchain Technology, Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Computer vision, Big Data Analytics, Next Generation Networks and Software Defined Networks (SDN) provide exemplary benefits if they are integrated in the classical city ecosystem in an effective manner. The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is expanding across many domains in the smart city, such as infrastructure, transportation, environmental protection, power and energy, privacy and security, governance, data management, healthcare, and more. AI has the potential to improve human health, prosperity, and happiness by reducing our reliance on manual labor and accelerating our progress in the sciences and technologies. NLP is an extensive domain of AI and is used in collaboration with machine learning and deep learning algorithms for clinical informatics and data processing. In modern smart cities, blockchain provides a complete framework that controls the city operations and ensures that they are managed as effectively as possible. Besides having an impact on our daily lives, it also facilitates many areas of city management.

Digital Nations and Smart Cities are rapidly evolving, and the resultingdigitalization is leading to several benefits while also exposing the citizens to unforeseen risks. Technologies like Blockchain are enabling risk management for secured automation. The book takes a close look at various paradigms of Smart cities' & Digital Nations' Governance while relating to the application of these principles in real life through the case study of Singapore, which is one of the world's top 3 densest, but also, is one of the most sustainable cities. This book will be a useful resource for professionals, consultants, government servants, and students who wish to come to grip with the emerging technologies and to understand their applications in governance and play an active role in community-building activities. The book explores the emergence, evolution, and adoption of advanced digital technologies like IoT, Analytics and Blockchain for improved governance, sustainable development, and better quality of life and happiness for citizens across the world.