The foundry industry in South Africa forms one of the greatest industries in the manufacturing sector. It produces waste foundry sand (WFS) that ends up in landfill sites. Around 80% of the WFS could be utilized as a substitute for sand in concrete. The utilization of WFS will benefit the industry, as raw materials (natural sand alternative) and energy are conserved, while costs of disposal are lowered. Soil pollution, as well as water and air resources, will be minimized and the foundries’ competitiveness will be improved. In this study, the physical and chemical properties of five WFSs (two clays and three chemically bonded molding sands) from Gauteng, South Africa were analyzed. The samples were investigated with a view to determine their conformity with applicable engineering criteria when used as a replacement, to various extents, of the fine aggregate. The main properties investigated included physical properties (particle gradation, moisture content, un-compacted bulk density, specific gravity, loss on ignition, clay content, and fineness modulus) and the chemical properties (X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy/energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDS), pH). The sands generally did not meet the standards pertaining to grading requirements. However, the chemical test results showed the composition of these sands to be comparable with results from other investigations and suitable for use as a natural sand replacement in concrete.

The urban environment is a product of many tangible and intangible factors for communities, involving activities, spaces, and users of different age groups. Stakeholder consultation has become an essential part of envisaging any urban space. In general practice, mostly adults’ opinions and suggestions are taken into account, and children are sidelined, even if the issues are related to children. Children are an integral part of the present urbanizing world and are some of its most sensitive and affected users. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes three P’s: provision, protection, and participation. The third, participation, is a crucial dimension of creating a healthier environment, but it has largely been neglected. The drawing technique is among the methods to gather information directly through the children’s participatory approach. It has been observed that children prefer to express themselves by drawing rather than answering questions and find it easy and enjoyable. This research incorporates drawing as a methodological tool for identifying children’s expectations and understanding their preferences about their ideal neighborhood park. A total of 80 children aged between 6 and 15 years from planned zones of Lucknow city were selected for the research. The results derived from the content and co-relation data analysis techniques highlight that children emphasized physical, perceptional, cognitive, emotional, and social parameters for developing a child-friendly environment in parks and open spaces.

The creation of cities has been one of the most phenomenal achievements of human endeavor. Adults are the major stakeholders for such achievements but the children are helpless and representationless. The current research paper aims at understanding the issues faced by the children in the rapidly urbanized world where the lack of child-friendly environments/open spaces for their outdoor activities is cause for concern. The research paper looked at various national and international norms, standards, and practices of parks and open spaces to identify various child-friendly environmental parameters. The research adopted the Delphi method as a tool for the validation of child-friendly environment parameters. It also used children’s drawings and essays to understand children’s perceptions about the child-friendly environment. It is observed that present government norms and policies do not adhere to those parameters. The research found that Lucknow city does not meet the defined quantitative norms and standards as laid out by the national norms and standards for open spaces and parks. The quality dimensions for planning a child-friendly environment are weakly addressed by cities and neighborhoods. The city neighborhoods lack the physical, cognitive, perceptional, emotional, and social dimensions of a child-friendly environment. There is a need to adopt suitable norms and standards with measurable parameters as part of various dimensions and implement these in creating a child-friendly environment in planned neighborhoods.

The significant expansion of the construction sector and corresponding depletion of natural sand resources have intensified the search for sustainable alternatives, with waste foundry sand (WFS) emerging as a promising candidate. This systematic review evaluates the environmental performance and engineering feasibility of using WFS as a substitute for natural sand in construction. A PRISMA-guided search identified 152 peer-reviewed studies published between 2001 and 2024, which were categorized into four thematic areas: material characterization, construction applications, environmental impacts, and regulatory frameworks. The findings indicate that substituting 10–30% of natural sand with WFS in concrete and asphalt can deliver compressive strength within ±5% of control mixes and reduce water absorption by 5–15% at optimal replacement levels. However, contamination risks remain a concern, as chromium and copper concentrations in raw WFS have been reported at up to 931 mg/kg and 3318 mg/kg, respectively. To address these risks and ensure responsible reuse, a six-stage framework is proposed in this study, comprising end-of-waste classification, contaminant assessment, material preprocessing, certification, and regulatory monitoring. A comprehensive decision tree is also presented to guide the feasibility assessment of WFS reuse based on contaminant levels and material performance.

The Good Urban Governance theme is closely viewed as associated with concepts like service delivery, citizen's satisfaction, access to basic quality services, managing and delivery of infrastructure services to citizens. Urban governance deals with complex issues demanding interventions at various levels for issues like urbanization and growth, management of local economy, increasing infrastructure and service delivery pressure on cities, etc. Under these complex circumstances, the municipalities or urban agencies find it extremely difficult / challenging to cope with efficient delivery and management of essential basic and infrastructure services to its citizens. Such issues have largely impacted municipalities in performing their services efficiently and are trapped under a vicious cycle of low service delivery performance, thereby leading to low revenue generation for achieving sustainable governance. However, municipalities have taken a number of initiatives by introducing the implementation of e-Governance programmes or application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for managing effective governance. Often, such initiatives are seen working at isolated levels without any integration with other applications. The traditional application of a Geographic Information System (GIS) focused on select areas at local level like mapping, utility management, urban planning, etc. The real potential of GIS has seldom been used in most of the decision making processes. The GIS applications are largely seen in selected departments within a municipal or urban management entities dealing with services to citizens. The potential of GIS as a decision making process or achieving sustainable good urban governance across cross-cutting areas at municipal level is still been largely untapped. The municipal applications of GIS across various countries showcases the potential of GIS in municipal management like in the areas of property management, traffic and transportation, urban planning, solid waste management, slum improvement, urban design and renewal, financial resource mobilization etc. The initiatives are largely introduced for implementing specific project needs to address limited issues. Often the areas of overall governance whether its strategic planning, integration, governance, management and delivery of services have not been fully achieved under such an isolated approach. This paper is setout to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of existing approaches of achieving good urban governance at municipal levels. Based on the selected isolated / integrated approach of existing applications of GIS at municipal level, the paper discusses key issues and success parameters for local governance. The key strengths of selected case studies from various parts of the world provide a basis for an approach of GIS for achieving a sustainable governance system. The paper concludes in the conceptualization of achieving a sustainable good urban governance system through an approach of GIS across cross-cutting municipal themes.