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Research Impact

May 2026 Research Publications

Sustainability and Water Management of Public Gardens in the Defining and assessing the structural flexibility of transportation

Emirate of Abu Dhabi networks

Author(s): Author(s):

El Amrousi, M. (Department of Architecture, Abu Dhabi University), Elhakeem, M. (Department of Civil Engineering, Khakdaman, M. (Department of Marketing, Operations and Information Systems, College of Business, Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi University), Paleologos, E.K. (Engineering Management Program, Abu Dhabi University), Abdel Sattar, A.M. University)
(Department of Irrigation and Hydraulics, Cairo University)
Index Terms:
Index Terms:
Complex adaptive systems theory; Graph theory; Simulation; Structural flexibility; Transportation flexibility; Transportation
Abu Dhabi; Desert Landscaping; Park Water Management; UN SDG 11; Water Scarcity network flexibility

Abstract: Abstract:

Preservation of water resources and sustainable design of public parks are crucial aspects of a living city’s urban International supply chains increasingly require flexibility in transportation services supplied by logistics service
identity, especially in hot arid regions. In Abu Dhabi, landscape design is changing from classical style gardens to desert providers (LSPs) to deal with uncertainty and disruption. Despite the literature on transportation flexibility, current
landscaping, which integrates more organically with existing monuments and is sustainable in terms of the scarcity of studies primarily emphasize operational service attributes or isolated node- and arc-level capacities, with limited
water. Sustainable landscaping design merges two aspects of UN’s eleventh Sustainable Development Goal, to promote attention to the role of the transportation network structure in enabling system-level flexibility. Consequently, the
sustainable urbanization and to protect cultural and natural heritage. An important component, which becomes even concept of transportation network flexibility and its relationship to network topology is poorly understood. This
more critical for Gulf cities, is that due to the heat, people’s activities are restricted to indoor spaces and hence public research fills these gaps by conceptualizing transportation network flexibility as an attribute of the network structure
spaces promote inclusivity and participation of a city’s population. The research approach emphasizes cross-disciplinary at the network level, defined as the existence of at least one feasible origin–destination itinerary under joint volume
integration of design theory and water management principles, investigating the evolving role of vegetation in the and time capacity constraints. Drawing on graph theory and complex adaptive systems theory, the study formally
enhancement of public parks in Abu Dhabi. Water budget calculations were conducted, indicating water savings of distinguishes between arc-, node-, mix-, and network-level flexibility and finds that only network-level flexibility can
over 57% for a redesigned desert park of equivalent areal size compared to one with a traditional European garden. consistently handle shipper change requests. A simulation-based transportation network flexibility index, grounded
This is especially critical for the Gulf region, where water is a limiting resource, and even desalinated water is utilized to in residual network theory, is developed to test seven canonical transportation network topologies under stochastic
maintain public parks. The authors confirm that this work is original and has not been published elsewhere. The paper capacity degradation. The results show that network structure systematically influences flexibility outcomes: scale-
should be of interest to readers in the areas of landscape architecture, landscape planners, and urban planners. free networks have much greater network-level flexibility than other network topologies, irrespective of common

network metrics such as density, connectivity, or centralization. By decoupling structural flexibility from operational
Read the paper performance, the study establishes the unit of analysis for transportation flexibility. It provides LSPs with a principled
foundation for designing, evaluating, and ranking flexible transportation services without resorting to expensive, fully
flexible network designs.

Read the paper

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