Meeting sustainable development goals via robotics and autonomous systems.

Robotics and autonomous systems are reshaping the world, changing healthcare, food production and biodiversity management. While they will play a fundamental role in delivering the UN Sustainable Development Goals, associated opportunities and threats are yet to be considered systematically. We report on a horizon scan evaluating robotics and autonomous systems impact on all Sustainable Development Goals, involving 102 experts from around the world. Robotics and autonomous systems are likely to transform how the Sustainable Development Goals are achieved, through replacing and supporting human activities, fostering innovation, enhancing remote access and improving monitoring. Emerging threats relate to reinforcing inequalities, exacerbating environmental change, diverting resources from tried-and-tested solutions and reducing freedom and privacy through inadequate governance. Although predicting future impacts of robotics and autonomous systems on the Sustainable Development Goals is difficult, thoroughly examining technological developments early is essential to prevent unintended detrimental consequences. Additionally, robotics and autonomous systems should be considered explicitly when developing future iterations of the Sustainable Development Goals to avoid reversing progress or exacerbating inequalities.

Quantifying the performance of dual-use rainwater harvesting systems.

Rainwater harvesting systems in urban settings are increasingly relied upon to mitigate pluvial flooding on top of providing an additional water supply. Alternative designs have been proposed to support their dual use. Stormwater management performance is typically evaluated through long-term averages. However, long-term assessment is not aligned with the goal of attenuating the impacts of short duration high-intensity rainfall events. This paper contributes a framework for evaluating the dual-use performance of design alternatives. The framework incorporates a set of stormwater management metrics that provides a robust characterisation of performance during significant rainfall events. To the usual long-term volumetric retention metric, we add: 1) metrics that represent the total volume and duration above predevelopment (greenfield) runoff rates; and 2) robust peak outflow rate and retention efficiencies based on the long-term median of a representative sample of significant rainfall events. Our multi-criteria performance visualisations of alternative dual-use designs highlight the importance of carefully designing the forecast-based controlled release mechanisms built into active systems. This work has direct implications for design guidance standards, which we discuss.