Green Growth, Resources and Resilience

many advanced nations such as Japan are now seeking relief from the demand shortage s they are experiencing in their saturated domestic markets by expanding into developing countries such as China and India.

Introduction and Purpose of This Guide Having the capacity to compare a range of infrastructure alternatives objectively is critical to a water or wastewater utility’s long-term sustainability and its ability to serve the needs of its community. This guide is designed to help water and wastewater utilities undertake these critical comparisons, in the context of meeting their existing regulatory requirements and improving the sustainability of utility operations. This document is designed to supplement the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Planning for Sustainability: A Handbook for Water and Wastewater Utilities (“the Handbook”), issued in February 2012. The Handbook identifies a number of steps utilities can take to incorporate sustainability considerations into their existing planning processes, organized around four core elements of planning commonly used by utilities: • PLANNING ELEMENT 1: Goal Setting – Establish sustainability goals that reflect utility and community priorities. • PLANNING ELEMENT 2: Objectives and Strategies – Establish objectives and strategies for each sustainability goal. • PLANNING ELEMENT 3: Alternatives Analysis – Analyze a range of alternatives based on consistent criteria. • PLANNING ELEMENT 4: Financial Strategy – Ensure that investments are sufficiently funded, operated, maintained, and replaced over time.

This Special Issue is entitled “Environmental Sustainability in Maritime Infrastructures”. Oceans and coastal areas are essential in our lives from several different points of view: social, economic, and health. Given the importance of these areas for human life, not only for the present but also for the future, it is necessary to plan future infrastructures, and maintain and adapt to the changes the existing ones. All of this taking into account the sustainability of our planet. A very significant percentage of the world's population lives permanently or enjoys their vacation periods in coastal zones, which makes them very sensitive areas, with a very high economic value and as a focus of adverse effects on public health and ecosystems.