Aplicación de Tecnologías Semánticas a la Legalización de Actividades para un Desarrollo Urbano Sostenible

Abstract

Success in the implementation and start-up of economic activities in cities depends on the viability of construction projects and facilities and is key to the economic and social development of cities. On the other hand, reducing the carbon footprint in urban areas is a significant challenge. Energy demand and GHG emissions continue to increase, concentrating in urban centres, roductive, transport and commercial activities, so it is expected that in the middle of this century, two-thirds of the planet's population is oncentrated in cities. This concentration and increase in economic activities in the cities increase the legalization procedures that have to be processed in the municipalities to authorize and control these new economic activities, generating a negative impact on the carbon footprint. Currently, the legalization of most activities in Spanish city councils, is based on trust in the company, through a "Responsible Declaration", and subsequent supervision of their actions. This model seeks to streamline authorization procedures, facilitating the start-up of economic activities that are a source of wealth and job creation. However, this legalization scheme is proving inefficient and causing problems that affect all parties involved. As there is no prior control by the city council or legal support that allows it, it is verified that a high percentage of activities, after their start-up and subsequent control, are unviable as they were initially planned and built. This circumstance causes many activities to lose their authorization to operate as their declaration of responsibility for the start of activity is rendered ineffective due to deficiencies detected in the subsequent control, and they have to be legalized again and not in all cases it is possible, depending on the degree of infeasibility detected. As an example, a real case of estimation of the carbon footprint of scope 1+2+3 in a town hall is presented, analyzing the event of subsequent control of activities launched by responsible declaration and proposing a system of reduction of the carbon footprint without acting directly on the sources of GHG emissions, but focusing on improving organizational procedures by applying a knowledge-based system. The proposed approach to deal with the problems detected has as its central axis the development of an ontology to support the process of defining and verifying the implementation of economic activities. This approach provides a personalized ontological and semantic mechanism in the legalization process of projects, in order to determine the urban and environmental feasibility of activities, which is crucial for city councils in Spain, given that there are a large number of requirements that need to be classified to your verification. The approach is illustrated through the creation of a specific ontology for the Seville City Council, which could be applied, with minimal adaptations, to any of the more than 8000 existing municipalities in Spain, while at the same time being a novel system that could be integrated into the software management of Smart City in order to reduce the Carbon Footprint in cities. The proposed approach facilitates decision-making to start an economic activity, facilitating the decisions of technicians and investors in the implementation of activities, minimizing business failures due to erroneous designs or incompatible with the urban or environmental model of the city where it is carried out the investment. The ontology has been designed as a conceptual scheme of the domain of the implementation of economic activities in order to support the conducting technical consultations, prior to the implementation of activities. This research is aimed to determining the viability of establishing an activity in a predetermined place, considering the different urban and environmental restrictions with their priorities and rules. Among future developments, this tool could be integrated into professional associations as public law corporations, assuming delegated administration functions in the reception and verification of the viability of activities implementation projects, improving service provision. Likewise, the possible integration of the ontological proposal in the Smart City management software should be explored.