The IoT and big data technologies have become essential to the functioning of both smart cities and sustainable cities, and thus, urban operational functioning and planning are becoming highly responsive to a form of data-driven urbanism. This offers the prospect of building models of smart sustainable cities functioning in real time from routinely sensed data. This in turn allows to monitor, understand, analyze, and plan such cities to improve their energy efficiency and environmental health in real time thanks to new urban intelligence functions as an advanced form of decision support. However, prior studies tend to deal largely with data-driven technologies and solutions in the realm of smart cities, mostly in relation to economic and social aspects, leaving important questions involving the underlying substantive and synergistic effects on environmental sustainability barely explored to date. These issues also apply to sustainable cities, especially eco-cities. Therefore, this paper investigates the potential and role of data-driven smart solutions in improving and advancing environmental sustainability in the context of smart cities as well as sustainable cities, under what can be labeled “environmentally data-driven smart sustainable cities.” To illuminate this emerging urban phenomenon, a descriptive/illustrative case study is adopted as a qualitative research methodology§ to examine and compare Stockholm and Barcelona as the ecologically and technologically leading cities in Europe respectively. The results show that smart grids, smart meters, smart buildings, smart environmental monitoring, and smart urban metabolism are the main data-driven smart solutions applied for improving and advancing environmental sustainability in both eco-cities and smart cities. There is a clear synergy between such solutions in terms of their interaction or cooperation to produce combined effects greater than the sum of their separate effects—with respect to the environment. This involves energy efficiency improvement, environmental pollution reduction, renewable energy adoption, and real-time feedback on energy flows, with high temporal and spatial resolutions. Stockholm takes the lead over Barcelona as regards the best practices for environmental sustainability given its long history of environmental work, strong environmental policy, progressive environmental performance, high environmental standards, and ambitious goals. It also has, like Barcelona, a high level of the implementation of applied data-driven technology solutions in the areas of energy and environment. However, the two cities differ in the nature of such implementation. We conclude that city governments do not have a unified agenda as a form of strategic planning, and data-driven decisions are unique to each city, so are environmental challenges. Big data are the answer, but each city sets its own questions based on what characterize it in terms of visions, policies, strategies, pathways, and priorities.

中文翻译：

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环境数据驱动的智慧可持续城市：应用创新解决方案以提高能效，减少污染和城市新陈代谢

物联网和大数据技术对于智慧城市和可持续城市的运行已变得至关重要，因此，城市运营功能和规划正在对数据驱动的城市主义形式做出高度响应。这为从常规感知的数据构建可实时运行的智能可持续城市模型提供了前景。凭借新的城市智能功能作为决策支持的高级形式，这反过来又可以监视，理解，分析和规划此类城市，以实时提高其能源效率和环境健康。但是，先前的研究往往主要涉及智慧城市领域的数据驱动技术和解决方案，主要涉及经济和社会方面，迄今为止，几乎没有探讨涉及环境可持续性的潜在实质性和协同效应的重要问题。这些问题也适用于可持续城市，尤其是生态城市。因此，本文研究了在智能城市以及可持续城市的背景下，数据驱动的智能解决方案在改善和推进环境可持续性方面的潜力和作用，这种方法被称为“环境数据驱动的智能可持续城市”。为了阐明这种新兴的城市现象，我们采用描述性/说明性案例研究作为定性研究方法，以考察和比较斯德哥尔摩和巴塞罗那分别为欧洲生态和技术领先的城市。结果表明，智能电网，智能电表，智能建筑，智能环境监控和智能城市代谢是主要的数据驱动型智能解决方案，可用于改善和推进生态城市和智能城市的环境可持续性。此类解决方案之间的相互作用或合作之间产生了明显的协同作用，以产生大于环境的单独效果之和的组合效果。这涉及提高能效，减少环境污染，采用可再生能源以及具有高时空分辨率的实时能量流反馈。斯德哥尔摩在环境可持续发展的最佳做法方面领先于巴塞罗那，这要归功于其长期的环境工作历史，强有力的环境政策，进步的环境绩效，高环境标准，和雄心勃勃的目标。像巴塞罗那一样，它在能源和环境领域也高度实施了应用数据驱动的技术解决方案。但是，这两个城市的执行性质不同。我们得出的结论是，城市政府没有统一的议程作为战略规划的一种形式，并且数据驱动的决策对于每个城市都是唯一的，因此环境挑战也是如此。大数据是答案，但每个城市都会根据愿景，政策，策略，途径和优先事项的特点来设置自己的问题。我们得出的结论是，城市政府没有统一的议程作为战略规划的一种形式，并且数据驱动的决策对于每个城市都是唯一的，因此环境挑战也是如此。大数据是答案，但每个城市都会根据愿景，政策，策略，途径和优先事项的特点来设置自己的问题。我们得出的结论是，城市政府没有统一的议程作为战略规划的一种形式，并且数据驱动的决策对于每个城市都是唯一的，因此环境挑战也是如此。大数据是答案，但每个城市都会根据愿景，政策，策略，途径和优先事项的特点来设置自己的问题。