Type-2 diabetes is a growing lifestyle disease mainly due to increasing physical inactivity but also associated with various other variables. In Saudi Arabia, around 58.5% of the population is deemed to be physically inactive. Against this background, this study attempts explore the spatial heterogeneity of Type-2 diabetes prevalence in Jeddah and to estimate various socio-economic and built environment variables contributing to the prevalence of this disease based on modelling by ordinary least squares (OLS), weighted regression (GWR) and multi-scale geographically weighted (MGWR). Our OLS results suggest that income, population density, commercial land use and Saudi population characteristics are statistically significant for Type-2 diabetes prevalence. However, by the GWR model, income, commercial land use and Saudi population characteristics were significantly positive while population density was significantly negative in this model for 70.6%, 9.1%, 26.6% and 58.7%, respectively, out of 109 districts investigated; by the MGWR model, the corresponding results were 100%, 22%, 100% and 100% of the districts. With the given data, the corrected Akaike information criterion (AICc), the adjusted R2, the log-likelihood and the residual sum of squares (RSS) indices demonstrated that the MGWR model outperformed the GWR and OLS models explaining 29% more variance than the OLS model, and 10.2% more than the GWR model. These results support the development of evidence-based policies for the spatial allocation of health associated resources for the control of Type-2 diabetes in Jeddah and other cities in the Arabian Gulf.

Sustainable building incentives are mandatory for the successful implementation of sustainable building development. The research aims to highlight the need for incentives for fulfilling Saudi Arabia’s vision 2030 of sustainable development in the building sector by reviewing the provided governmental incentives worldwide. It has been found that incentives categorization and its usefulness in the building sector must be addressed in the sustainable research area. The incentives are categorized into financial and non-financial which come under the external incentives provided by the government. For the effective promotion of sustainable buildings both incentives are significant. In addition to this, the research demonstrates the data analysis about the knowledge, awareness, and willingness of the respondents related to the provision of incentives for sustainable building development. The research findings also signify the role of government for successful understanding and pursuing of sustainable building initiatives as many governments around the world have successfully implemented sustainable building initiatives by providing incentives. Moreover, the research areas also assist in developing the sustainable building incentives comprehension to its readers.

— Globalization on one end has increased urbanization but on the other extreme was a major parameter of depletion of non-renewable resources. United Nation as a custodian of human rights has provided a long-term strategy of sustainability-Vision 2030 a long-term perspective that was initiated in 2015 having 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) constituting 169 global targets related to the SDGs with a focus to improve the social, economic and environmental concerns of a human being”. Sustainable building of cities and communities is its 11th SDG. This paper provides a sound basis to use building performance simulation (BPS) in buildings to reduce the level of energy consumption in Saudi Arabia (KSA). A Survey was conducted evaluating the knowledge of BPS around the construction community along with a case study that is done to analyze the impact of BPS on overall energy efficiency. The results reveal a mixed knowledge level of the audience where most people are unaware of BPS and the professionals also have a very diminutive knowledge of this. However, it was observed that BPS has wide applications in building design as 50% energy efficiency is achieved as compared with the traditional approach of designing. The study discloses the fact of boosting up a country’s economy by application of BPS as it lowers the energy consumption and carbon footprints. Moreover, a relationship of BPS with customer satisfaction and a framework for implementing sustainability in architectural projects are also suggested.