Pub Date : 2024-08-07DOI: 10.1038/s44284-024-00102-z
Shuzhe Huang, Siqi Wang, Yuan Gan, Chao Wang, Daniel E. Horton, Chuxuan Li, Xiang Zhang, Dev Niyogi, Jun Xia, Nengcheng Chen
Urbanization exerts considerable impact on ecological, environmental and meteorological processes and systems. However, the effects of urbanization on local drought remain under-explored. Here we characterize the effects of urbanization on drought across the world’s cities using global weather station observations. We find that drought severity has increased at ~36% of global sites, while the extreme (less than a fifth) Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index has increased at ~43% of the city sites globally. We investigate the primary driving mechanisms behind drought exacerbation using physics-based weather research and forecasting model simulations. We find that urbanization induced warmer and drier urban environments, which has suppressed light rainfall and aggravated extreme local drought conditions. Furthermore, mid-twenty-first century CMIP6 projections indicate that nearly 57 and 70% of urban regions would consistently suffer exacerbated drought severity and extreme Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index due to urban expansion. Our findings highlight cities causing rainfall extremes and call for heightened attention to urban drought preparedness in the face of continued urbanization, population growth and climate change. This study assesses the impact of urbanization on drought, finding that city growth is associated with sharp increases in extreme drought. This is especially the case in tropical regions.
{"title":"Widespread global exacerbation of extreme drought induced by urbanization","authors":"Shuzhe Huang, Siqi Wang, Yuan Gan, Chao Wang, Daniel E. Horton, Chuxuan Li, Xiang Zhang, Dev Niyogi, Jun Xia, Nengcheng Chen","doi":"10.1038/s44284-024-00102-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-024-00102-z","url":null,"abstract":"Urbanization exerts considerable impact on ecological, environmental and meteorological processes and systems. However, the effects of urbanization on local drought remain under-explored. Here we characterize the effects of urbanization on drought across the world’s cities using global weather station observations. We find that drought severity has increased at ~36% of global sites, while the extreme (less than a fifth) Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index has increased at ~43% of the city sites globally. We investigate the primary driving mechanisms behind drought exacerbation using physics-based weather research and forecasting model simulations. We find that urbanization induced warmer and drier urban environments, which has suppressed light rainfall and aggravated extreme local drought conditions. Furthermore, mid-twenty-first century CMIP6 projections indicate that nearly 57 and 70% of urban regions would consistently suffer exacerbated drought severity and extreme Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index due to urban expansion. Our findings highlight cities causing rainfall extremes and call for heightened attention to urban drought preparedness in the face of continued urbanization, population growth and climate change. This study assesses the impact of urbanization on drought, finding that city growth is associated with sharp increases in extreme drought. This is especially the case in tropical regions.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"1 9","pages":"597-609"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142091140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-05DOI: 10.1038/s44284-024-00100-1
Steve Frolking, Richa Mahtta, Tom Milliman, Thomas Esch, Karen C. Seto
We present a new study examining the dynamics of global urban building growth rates over the past three decades. By combining datasets for 1,550+ cities from several space-borne sensors—data from three scatterometers and settlement-built fraction based on Landsat-derived data—we find profound shifts in how cities expanded from the 1990s to the 2010s. Cities had both increasing building fractional cover and increasing microwave backscatter (correlating with building volume), but over the three decades, growth rates in building fraction decreased in most regions and large cities, while growth rates in backscatter increased in essentially all regions and cities. The divergence in rates of increase of these metrics indicates a shift from lateral urban expansion to more vertical urban development. This transition has happened in different decades and to different extents across the world’s cities. Growth rate increases were largest in Asian cities. This shift toward vertical development has profound consequences for material and energy use, local climate and urban living. The changing built structure of cities reflects and affects social and environmental forces. Combining remotely sensed and other data, this study finds a global shift in the past three decades, with cities growing more vertically than horizontally.
{"title":"Global urban structural growth shows a profound shift from spreading out to building up","authors":"Steve Frolking, Richa Mahtta, Tom Milliman, Thomas Esch, Karen C. Seto","doi":"10.1038/s44284-024-00100-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-024-00100-1","url":null,"abstract":"We present a new study examining the dynamics of global urban building growth rates over the past three decades. By combining datasets for 1,550+ cities from several space-borne sensors—data from three scatterometers and settlement-built fraction based on Landsat-derived data—we find profound shifts in how cities expanded from the 1990s to the 2010s. Cities had both increasing building fractional cover and increasing microwave backscatter (correlating with building volume), but over the three decades, growth rates in building fraction decreased in most regions and large cities, while growth rates in backscatter increased in essentially all regions and cities. The divergence in rates of increase of these metrics indicates a shift from lateral urban expansion to more vertical urban development. This transition has happened in different decades and to different extents across the world’s cities. Growth rate increases were largest in Asian cities. This shift toward vertical development has profound consequences for material and energy use, local climate and urban living. The changing built structure of cities reflects and affects social and environmental forces. Combining remotely sensed and other data, this study finds a global shift in the past three decades, with cities growing more vertically than horizontally.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"1 9","pages":"555-566"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-024-00100-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142091192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Never too local for science advice","authors":"Rémi Quirion","doi":"10.1038/s44284-024-00097-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-024-00097-7","url":null,"abstract":"No government is too small to promote data-informed decisions and innovation. This is especially true for cities, argues Rémi Quirion.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"1 8","pages":"494-494"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141968530","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-31DOI: 10.1038/s44284-024-00111-y
Urban-focused research has come a long way using big data and urban science to identify general patterns and insights. At Nature Cities, to further obtain insights for research and practice, we also encourage the submission of qualitative research, including but not limited to case studies, ethnographies and theoretically focused work.
{"title":"Drawing local insights with a diversity of methods","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s44284-024-00111-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-024-00111-y","url":null,"abstract":"Urban-focused research has come a long way using big data and urban science to identify general patterns and insights. At Nature Cities, to further obtain insights for research and practice, we also encourage the submission of qualitative research, including but not limited to case studies, ethnographies and theoretically focused work.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"1 8","pages":"491-491"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-024-00111-y.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141968528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-31DOI: 10.1038/s44284-024-00095-9
Laura Rojas
Writer and educator Laura Rojas reflects on the deep identity tied to Puan, the symbolic heart of the University of Buenos Aires’s School of Philosophy and Literature. Amid political threats to public education, she highlights the community’s resilient tradition of mass mobilization.
{"title":"Revisiting Buenos Aires’s collective power","authors":"Laura Rojas","doi":"10.1038/s44284-024-00095-9","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-024-00095-9","url":null,"abstract":"Writer and educator Laura Rojas reflects on the deep identity tied to Puan, the symbolic heart of the University of Buenos Aires’s School of Philosophy and Literature. Amid political threats to public education, she highlights the community’s resilient tradition of mass mobilization.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"1 8","pages":"534-534"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141968536","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-31DOI: 10.1038/s44284-024-00096-8
Edgar Virgüez
Simply copying and pasting the decarbonization strategies from the Global North to the cities in the Global South isn’t enough. Edgar Virgüez suggests that we can do better by engaging more directly and inclusively, in science education and more broadly.
{"title":"Copy-and-paste fixes can’t decarbonize Global South cities","authors":"Edgar Virgüez","doi":"10.1038/s44284-024-00096-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-024-00096-8","url":null,"abstract":"Simply copying and pasting the decarbonization strategies from the Global North to the cities in the Global South isn’t enough. Edgar Virgüez suggests that we can do better by engaging more directly and inclusively, in science education and more broadly.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"1 8","pages":"492-493"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141968529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-31DOI: 10.1038/s44284-024-00104-x
Allison B. Laskey
{"title":"Seeing Durban as a Global South counter-city","authors":"Allison B. Laskey","doi":"10.1038/s44284-024-00104-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-024-00104-x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"1 8","pages":"495-495"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141968531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-31DOI: 10.1038/s44284-024-00098-6
Sebastián Villamizar Santamaría
Latin America is one of the most urbanized and unequal regions in the world, which is why its cities have inspired a long tradition of urban studies that keeps growing. This is a report on the recent Latin American Studies Association meeting held in Bogotá, Colombia, in June 2024.
{"title":"Scholars studying urban Latin America discuss the region’s future","authors":"Sebastián Villamizar Santamaría","doi":"10.1038/s44284-024-00098-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-024-00098-6","url":null,"abstract":"Latin America is one of the most urbanized and unequal regions in the world, which is why its cities have inspired a long tradition of urban studies that keeps growing. This is a report on the recent Latin American Studies Association meeting held in Bogotá, Colombia, in June 2024.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"1 8","pages":"497-498"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141968533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-29DOI: 10.1038/s44284-024-00093-x
Iacopo Testi, An Wang, Sanjana Paul, Simone Mora, Erica Walker, Marguerite Nyhan, Fábio Duarte, Paolo Santi, Carlo Ratti
Air pollution disproportionately affects socially disadvantaged populations. Our study bridges the existing gap in quantifying mobility-based exposure and its associated disparity issues. We combined the granular mobility of over 500,000 unique anonymized users daily and hyperlocal air pollution data in 100 × 100-m grid cells to quantify disparities in particulate matter exposure in a racially diverse and dense urban area of New York City. Our approach advances the study of exposure and its disparity from individualized exposure tracking to a population-representative scale. We observed apparently different spatial patterns between personal exposure and exposure disparities, noting that people from Hispanic-majority and low-income neighborhoods were those most severely and disproportionately exposed to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution. We reveal that race and ethnicity are much stronger indicators of exposure disparity than income. Our study further demonstrates that within-group variation contributes a major portion to exposure disparities, suggesting more granular mitigation plans are needed to target high-exposure individuals from socially disadvantaged groups in addition to generic air quality improvement. This study used mobility data and air pollution data from the Bronx, NY, to observe the links between social disadvantage and air pollution exposure. It found that, more than income, race and ethnicity have a greater influence on air pollution exposure, with Hispanic people having the highest risk.
{"title":"Big mobility data reveals hyperlocal air pollution exposure disparities in the Bronx, New York","authors":"Iacopo Testi, An Wang, Sanjana Paul, Simone Mora, Erica Walker, Marguerite Nyhan, Fábio Duarte, Paolo Santi, Carlo Ratti","doi":"10.1038/s44284-024-00093-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44284-024-00093-x","url":null,"abstract":"Air pollution disproportionately affects socially disadvantaged populations. Our study bridges the existing gap in quantifying mobility-based exposure and its associated disparity issues. We combined the granular mobility of over 500,000 unique anonymized users daily and hyperlocal air pollution data in 100 × 100-m grid cells to quantify disparities in particulate matter exposure in a racially diverse and dense urban area of New York City. Our approach advances the study of exposure and its disparity from individualized exposure tracking to a population-representative scale. We observed apparently different spatial patterns between personal exposure and exposure disparities, noting that people from Hispanic-majority and low-income neighborhoods were those most severely and disproportionately exposed to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution. We reveal that race and ethnicity are much stronger indicators of exposure disparity than income. Our study further demonstrates that within-group variation contributes a major portion to exposure disparities, suggesting more granular mitigation plans are needed to target high-exposure individuals from socially disadvantaged groups in addition to generic air quality improvement. This study used mobility data and air pollution data from the Bronx, NY, to observe the links between social disadvantage and air pollution exposure. It found that, more than income, race and ethnicity have a greater influence on air pollution exposure, with Hispanic people having the highest risk.","PeriodicalId":501700,"journal":{"name":"Nature Cities","volume":"1 8","pages":"512-521"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141968534","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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