# Smart Cities and Sustainable Development to Relate to the SDG-Review

Helton Almeida dos Santos, Pedro Oliveira Costa Neto, Robson Elias Bueno, Emerson Da Silva Santana, Moacir De Junior Freitas

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Helton Almeida dos Santos, Pedro Oliveira Costa Neto, Robson Elias Bueno, Emerson Da Silva Santana, Moacir De Junior Freitas. Smart Cities and Sustainable Development to Relate to the SDG-Review. IFIP International Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems (APMS), Sep 2022, Gyeongju, South Korea. pp.553-562, 10.1007/978-3-031-16407-1_65. hal-05386130

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# Smart Cities and Sustainable Development
to Relate to the SDG—Review

Helton Almeida dos Santos<fnref n="1" />(✉) ID, Pedro Luiz de Oliveira Costa Neto<fnref n="1" />(✉) ID,
Robson Elias Bueno<fnref n="1" />(✉) ID, Emerson da Silva Santana<fnref n="2" />(✉) ID,
and Moacir de Junior Freitas<fnref n="2" />(✉) ID

**Abstract.** Urban planning that leverages improvements in sustainable development and the already proven potential of data and communication technologies are highly adaptable to optimize sustainable cities and improve their performance based on the groundbreaking foundation of smart cities' data-driven technologies [3]. Thus, it is important to review how academic papers reflect the trend of the environmental issue by focusing on a link between smart cities and sustainable development. The main objective of this research is to conduct a bibliometric analysis of articles using an algorithmic research database, as well as a thorough analysis to identify the list of published articles related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), so that it is possible to identify trends and guide future researches. It is also believed that the relationship between the most mentioned works to the SDGs can be clarified, providing the baseline study for any theme that bring insight to potential solutions using smart city and sustainable development technologies.

**Keywords:** Smart cities · SDG · Resilience · Sustainable development

## 1 Introduction

Information and communications technology (ICT) has contributed to the creation of cities with digital infrastructure, referred to as “Wired Cities,” “Cyber Cities,” “Digital Cities”, “Smart Cities,” or “Sentient Cities.” Although each term is used to describe the city’s relationship with ICT in a particular way, these urban cities are increasing impacting on the nature, structure, and performance of urban infrastructure, management, economic activity, and daily life [1].

Although solutions to urban problems are closely related to ICTs, there are aspects where the complementarity of technological initiatives has captured different efforts to achieve urban sustainability. If [2], twenty terms and concepts are analyzed, it is concluded that even though there is an overlap among them in their ideas, concepts, and

<footnote n="1">¹ Graduate Studies in Production Engineering, Universidade Paulista, Sao Paulo, Brazil
heltonalmeadasantos@gmail.com, pedroluiz@plocn.com,
robsonebueno@gmail.com</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² Graduate Studies in Technological Innovation, UNIFESP, São Paulo, Brazil
emersantan@gmail.com, bicimo@uol.com.br</footnote>
visions, as well as distinctive concepts and key differences in terms of planning practices and design strategies, highlights “smart city”, and “sustainable city” are evidenced as the most acknowledged in the literature. They also point out that they are often used interchangeably.

Urban planning using sustainable development improvements and the data and com-
munication technologies' proven potential is highly adaptable, leading to a phenomenon
known as "data-driven smart sustainable urbanism." This phenomenon is related to the
idea of combining and integrating the strengths of sustainable cities and smart cities,
using their strategies and solutions to optimize sustainable cities and improve their
performance based on cutting-edge data-driven technologies offered by smart cities [3].

Therefore, it is important to verify that the objective of this article is to produce
a publication that reflects the trend of the environmental topic and focuses on a link
between smart cities and sustainable development. The main objective of this research
is accomplished through a bibliometric analysis of a sample of articles from Scopus
research database, using the search string "smart city or cities" AND "sustainable devel-
opment", and through a detailed analysis of the content of some articles. These analyses
allow us to determination the relationship between published articles and the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) [16].

2 Literature Review

2.1 Smart City

The European Union defines Smart City as a place where traditional networks and services become more efficient using digital and telecommunications technologies for the benefit of its population and businesses [4]. According to the Cities in Motion Index, from the IESE Business School in Spain, the intelligence level of a city is indicated by ten dimensions, according to the flow of interaction, to respond to the social and economic needs of society such as: governance, public administration, urban planning, technology, the environment, international connections, social cohesion, human capital, and the economy [5].

The concepts about smart cities are broad, in which authors consider instrumen-
talization, interconnection, and intelligence as fundamental. Instrumentation makes it
possible to acquire data in practically real-time through physical and virtual sensors.
Interconnection is the integration of urban services with data communication platforms.
And intelligence is the processing that enables information optimization to improve
operational decisions. This set, controlled by Information Technology generates traffic
information, statistics on electricity consumption, and urban safety events, optimizing
the optimization of city's services. This product of intelligent interaction between the city
and citizens contributes to improving operational efficiency and positively influences the
quality of life [6].

Another concept of a Smart City is approached through three factors: technological, human, and institutional. This conceptualization is complex it integrates the infrastruc- ture of physical facilities and virtual technologies integrated with intelligence and digital networks providing services for the city’s needs (human well-being, government, policy, and regulatory needs) [7].
## 2.2 Sustainable Development

The Brundtland Commission Report [8] defines sustainable development as the development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Sustainable development has become a kind of keyword in development discourses but is almost always associated with different definitions, meanings, and interpretations [9].

The argument is that sustainable development is the central concept [10] within the global development policy and a way of interacting with the environment without generating risks of damage to resources for the future. It is a concept of development to improve living standards without harming nature and the environment, such as air and water pollution, deforestation, and even conditions that can cause climate change and the extinction of the species [11].

Sustainable development is related to human development goals to achieve social progress, environmental balance, and economic growth [12]. This integration will only be possible by integrating economic, environmental, and social concerns in decision-making processes [13].

Levy and Ellis [14] emphasize that sustainable development should not, as usual, be confused with sustainability, since sustainability is an objective to be pursued. In contrast, sustainable development is the way, or the process, of achieving the objective.

## 3 Methodology

The work is conceptual and to achieve the objective, which emphasizes quantitative research, the bibliometric method was adopted, which can be considered an essential field of information. This bibliometric is methodical because it organizes itself by developing a means of indicating the questions to be addressed, search strategies to identify the articles searched, and other documents [15]. Accessing specific data of the selected articles such as year, title, authors, keywords, and other data allows statistical procedures for better interpretation and mapping of information behavior [16].

The research was carried out in the Scopus database using the search string smart city OR smart cities AND sustainable development in the keywords, abstract, and the title of the articles. The search was limited by using filters available in the Scopus database such as articles and reviews, open access, already published, in specific areas of environmental sciences, engineering, energy, social sciences, and writing in English. The resulted sample was used to find the relation with the objectives of sustainable development of the United Nations (UN).

The Biblioshiny for Bibliometrix tool helped organize and facilitate data interpretation. The publication period was not defined to permit the identification of the beginning of the authors' use of the search strings and the possible trends in the resulted sample of articles. From the resulted sample of articles, we read the abstracts, for some of them the abstract and conclusions, and for others, the discussion/results to identify and relate to the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
In the first stage of the analysis, we decided to maintain the articles published before defining the 17 sustainability goals by the UN in 2015 they were kept because by the year 2000, was already defined the eight goals to reduce extreme poverty [17].

In the second stage of analysis, articles were removed in which there were no clear definitions of smart city(s) and sustainable development, for example, articles related to games or some articles to define technological indicators (sensors, specific applications, and others).

In the third stage of the analysis, we removed articles discussing the development of indicators for smart cities or sustainable cities, reviews of indicators, reviews or explanations of sustainable objectives, and economic our politicas indicators.

In the fourth stage, for all articles with a tendency toward more than one SDG, only one objective was considered, according to the article's primary focus. For example, if the article deals with a specific sensor that can improve health and well-being (SDG#3), but the objective of the article is to use the sensor in innovation and to be part of infrastructure improvement (SDG#9), then this last SDG was attributed in the number of articles related to the SDG#9.

In the fifth stage, only the ten most cited works of the remaining 231 were presented in Table 2 as a sampling of the result, showing the numbers, title and basic explanation of each SDG, the articles in citation format, and a brief description of the objectives of the articles. Figure 1 presents the methodology.

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. The methodology used in this article.</figcaption></figure>

# 4 Results

The application of filter described above indicated 284 journal articles between 2013 and 2022, which emphasis on the year of 2021, with the highest number of publications. The
use of the Biblioshiny for Bibliometrix tool allowed organizing the results by classifying the articles.

After the second step of the methodology, we reached 256 articles and applied the third step to classify the articles according to an SDG; 231 articles remained.

Table 1 presenting the summary of articles in which the main subject is closer to meeting an SDG, allowing a view of the focus of the authors and the most researched SDGs.

The results show many researchers with the main focus on UN objectives #9, with 89 articles, #11 with 57 articles, #10 with 27 articles and #7 with 23 articles. The SDGs #1, #2, #5, #12, #14, #16 and #17 have not been explored, showing that new research could explore the use of technology to help create resources to solve problems and achieve these goals.

<table><caption>**Table 1.** Articles according to the primary objective to meet the SDGs.</caption><thead><tr><td>SDG</td><td></td><td>Nº Articles</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>SDG #1</td><td>NO POVERTY</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #2</td><td>ZERO HUNGER</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #3</td><td>GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING</td><td>13</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #4</td><td>QUALITY EDUCATION</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #5</td><td>GENDER EQUALITY</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #6</td><td>CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #7</td><td>AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY</td><td>23</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #8</td><td>DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #9</td><td>INDUSTRY, INNOVATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE</td><td>89</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #10</td><td>REDUCED INEQUALITIES</td><td>27</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #11</td><td>SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES</td><td>58</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #12</td><td>RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #13</td><td>CLIMATE ACTION</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #14</td><td>LIFE BELOW WATER</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #15</td><td>LIFE ON LAND</td><td>5</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #16</td><td>PEACE, JUSTICE AND STRONG INSTITUTIONS</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>SDG #17</td><td>PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS</td><td>0</td></tr></tbody></table>

The ten most cited articles among the 231 resulting from the third stage are shown in Table 2.
<table><caption>**Table 2.** Ten most cited articles among the 231 articles</caption><thead><tr><td>Paper</td><td>Times cited</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Simon Elias Bibri, John Krogstie. Smart sustainable cities of the future: An extensive interdisciplinary literature review. Sustainable Cities and Society, Volume 31, Pages 183–212, 2017</td><td>528</td></tr><tr><td>Elvira Ismagilova Laurie Hughes, Yogesh K. Dwivedi, K. Ravi Raman. Smart cities: Advances in research—An information systems perspective. International Journal of Information Management. Volume 47, Pages 88–100, 2019</td><td>253</td></tr><tr><td>Maria Kaika, Don’t call me resilient again!’: the New Urban Agenda as immunology … or … what happens when communities refuse to be vaccinated with ‘smart cities’ and indicators. Environment and Urbanization, Vol 29, 2017</td><td>183</td></tr><tr><td>Miltiadis D. Lytras, Anna Visvizi. Who Uses Smart City Services and What to Make of It: Toward Interdisciplinary Smart Cities Research. Sustainability, Volume 10, 1998, 2018</td><td>175</td></tr><tr><td>Mohammad Shorfuzzamana, M. Shamim Hossain, Mohammed F. Alhamid. Towards the sustainable development of smart cities through mass video surveillance: A response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sustainable Cities and Society, Volume 64, 2021</td><td>145</td></tr><tr><td>M.A.Sayegh, J. Danielewicz, T.Nannou, M. Miniewicz, P. Jadwiszczak, K. Piekarska, H. Jouhara. Trends of European research and development in district heating technologies. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 68, Part 2, Pages 1183–1192, 2017</td><td>129</td></tr><tr><td>Sandro Nižetića, Petar Solićb, Diego López-de-Ipiña González-de-ArtazacLuigi Patronod. Internet of Things (IoT): Opportunities, issues and challenges towards a smart and sustainable future. Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 274, 2020</td><td>98</td></tr><tr><td>Yiheng Chen, Dawei Han, Water quality monitoring in smart city: A pilot project. Automation in Construction. Volume 89, Pages 307–316, 2018</td><td>91</td></tr><tr><td>Luigi Fusco Girard. Toward a Smart Sustainable Development of Port Cities/Areas: The Role of the “Historic Urban Landscape” Approach. Sustainability, Volume 5, 4329–4348, 2013</td><td>89</td></tr><tr><td>Ghaffarian Hoseini A., Dahlan N.D., Berardi U., Makaremi N. The essence of future smart houses: From embedding ICT to adapting to sustainability principles. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 24, Pages 593–607, 2013</td><td>87</td></tr></tbody></table>

Finally, these articles are analyzed in Table 3 are presented, citing the number, title and basic explanation of each SDG, the articles in citation format and a brief justification of the use of the article for the UN goal.
<table><caption>**Table 3.** SDGs in the articles and a brief justification on the use of the article for the UN goal</caption><thead><tr><th>SDG's</th><th>Articles</th><th>Relation to the SDG's</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>SDG#6 - Clean Water and Sanitation - Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all</td><td>Yiheng Chen, Dawei Han, Water quality monitoring in smart city: A pilot project. Automation in Construction. Volume 89, Pages 307–316, 2018</td><td>Presents a multi-parameter water monitoring system for the Floating Port of Bristol. The result demonstrates the feasibility of collecting water quality data in real-time online</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="5">SDG#9 - Industry, innovation, and infrastructure - Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation</td><td>Mohammad Shorfuzzamana, M. Shamim Hossain, Mohammed F. Alhamid. Towards the sustainable development of smart cities through mass video surveillance: A response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sustainable Cities and Society, Volume 64, 2021</td><td>Proposes using mass video surveillance innovation, and technology to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and implement social distancing monitoring. The authors use three deep learning-based real-time object detection models to detect people in videos captured with a monocular camera</td></tr><tr><td>Sandro Nižetića, Petar Solićb, Diego López-de-Ipiña González-de-ArtazacLuigi Patronod. Internet of Things (IoT): Opportunities, issues and challenges towards a smart and sustainable future. Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 274, 2020</td><td>Contributes to a better understanding of innovation and current technological progress in IoT application areas</td></tr><tr><td>Simon Elias Bibri, John Krogstie. Smart sustainable cities of the future: An extensive interdisciplinary literature review. Sustainable Cities and Society, Volume 31, Pages 183–212, 2017</td><td>Provides a comprehensive overview of the field of smart and sustainable cities in terms of state-of-the-art research and development, emerging scientific and technological trends, and future planning practices</td></tr><tr><td>Miltiadis D. Lytras, Anna Visvizi. Who Uses Smart City Services and What to Make of It: Toward Interdisciplinary Smart Cities Research. Sustainability, Volume 10, 1998, 2018</td><td>Research smart cities and underlines the importance of integrating smart cities and smart villages research with policymaking aimed at sustainability, inclusive growth, and development</td></tr></tbody></table>

(continued)
<table><caption>**Table 3.** (continued)</caption><thead><tr><th>SDG's</th><th>Articles</th><th>Relation to the SDG's</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td></td><td>GhaffarianHoseini A., Dahlan N.D., Berardi U., Makaremi N. The essence of future smart houses: From embedding ICT to adapting to sustainability principles. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 24, Pages 593–607, 2013</td><td>Develops a theoretical analysis of smart home case models. The results show that the most significant smart values embodied in smart homes encompass functional automation technologies</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">SDG#11 - Reduced inequalities - Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable</td><td>Maria Kaika. Don't call me resilient again!': the New Urban Agenda as immunology ... or ... what happens when communities refuse to be vaccinated with 'smart cities' and indicators. Environment and Urbanization, Vol 29, 2017</td><td>Argues that people and environments being and working together can offer much more efficient, direct, and effective ways to address access to housing, health, education, water, and clean air in urban settlements</td></tr><tr><td>Elvira Ismagilova Laurie Hughes, Yogesh K. Dwivedi, K. Ravi Raman. Smart cities: Advances in research—An information systems perspective. International Journal of Information Management. Volume 47, Pages 88–100, 2019</td><td>Analyzes and discusses aspects of smart cities such as smart mobility, smart living, smart environment, smart citizens, smart government, smart architecture, and related technologies and concepts. The discussion also focuses on aligning smart cities with the UN's sustainable development goals</td></tr><tr><td>Luigi Fusco Girard. Toward a Smart Sustainable Development of Port Cities/Areas: The Role of the “Historic Urban Landscape” Approach. Sustainability, Volume 5, 4329–4348, 2013</td><td>About a smart sustainable development discusses an integrated smart development model, supported by urban planning, that contributes to urban ecological resilience</td></tr></tbody></table>

(continued)
<table><caption>**Table 3.** (continued)</caption><thead><tr><td>SDG's</td><td>Articles</td><td>Relation to the SDG's</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>SDG#13 - Climate Action - Take urgent action to combat climate change, and its impacts</td><td>M.A.Sayegh, J. Danielewicz, T.Nannou, M. Miniewicz, P. Jadwiszczak, K. Piekarska, H. Jouhara. Trends of European research and development in district heating technologies. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 68, Part 2, Pages 1183–1192, 2017</td><td>Articles from a smart, sustainable development discusses an integrated smart development model supported by urban planning that contributes to urban ecological resilience</td></tr></tbody></table>

## 5 Conclusions

This article presented a theoretical basis for smart city and sustainable development concepts through a literature review based on an algorithm defined within the Scopus research base to identify works specifically targeted to meet sustainable goals (SDGs).

The results show directions and encouragement for further research on SDGs #1, #2, #5, #12, #14, #16, and #17 from technological solutions used in smart cities or sustainable development. Likewise, it encourages studies for intelligent solutions for center-periphery structures in which the population is penalized by local income inequality and income, structural, social, educational, and medical disparities [19]. It is hoped in this work to have presented a contribution to the researchers of our terminology focused on solutions for smart and human cities that privilege the studies of sustainable development objectives.

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