City and Environment Interactions最新文献

Extreme phenomena have emerged strongly in urban areas in recent years and are directly linked to the current urban challenges, such as climate change and digital transformation, that future cities must face efficiently. Risk management in urban public spaces is the primary means by which decision makers and local stakeholders ensure urban resilience and enhance urban smartness. In this framework, the current research proposes risk management solutions for urban areas considering their complexity as systems. The implementation of STPA (System-Theoretic Process Analysis) method, as a relatively new hazard analysis technique for complex systems is presented. The applied method delivers a mechanism useful in understanding where gaps in current operational risk structures may exist. The findings in terms of loss scenarios can be used to generate a variety of safeguards to ensure secure operational control and in implementing targeted strategies through standard approaches of risk assessment. Results from a use case in Patras city, Greece, indicate that a systemic, hierarchically structured, and adaptive approach, can effectively assist local stakeholders in risk management of urban public spaces.

Improving environmental quality to promote outdoor activities, which also aims at providing social benefits, is an extensively researched field of study. In this study, a sustainable urban solution is evaluated as a prototype using the physiological equivalent temperature (PET) index. The literature demonstrated the local deficit of increasing social qualities through the development of a prototype that performs as a mitigation strategy to improve the urban thermal environment. To fill this gap, the aim of this experimental study is to create a neutral outdoor thermal comfort area that is suitable for social gatherings while minimizing local heat stress. We investigated six selected sites using ENVI-met 4.4 software, and we validated them with the observed data by two types of validation metrics. The sites were located near the Tigris River in Baghdad. The conditions at the sites were analyzed between 8:00 and 24:00. The simulation findings revealed the possibility of achieving thermal comfort during most of the working hours. A reduction in thermal stress by ∼18.4 °C was observed with a drop of 36.4% of PET results. The urban solution contributed to a decrease in the temperature by four degrees from the existing situation, which promotes a sustainable outdoor urban area. In hot climates, any outdoor activity between 12:00–16:00 is generally discouraged, whereas (8:00–10:00 & 18:00–00:00) hours are suitable for social interaction. However, multistoried buildings with sufficient orientation and shading could be ideal for achieving local sustainability, whereas the river's presence and its low albedo significantly raise the mean radiant temperature (MRT) by ∼7–8 °C, which proves its importance in heat reduction. The hybrid fabric altered the traditional courtyard's climatic characteristics, exacerbating its heat stress. The largest dip in PET in the courtyard area occurred at 17:00, with a drop of 13.6 °C, which was smaller than the rest of the areas. The additional sustainable prototype had a significant impact on influencing the microclimate and played a decisive role in determining thermal comfort. The prototype's high- albedo materials and dense, selective local trees have a direct effect on reducing the local air temperature and MRT. This, together with the physical characteristics of the surrounding area, helped to minimize PET outcomes and improve the local thermal environment. The findings of this study serve urban designers by verifying the success of the modelled design prototype spatially and environmentally.

Long-term exposure to ambient air pollution even at relatively low concentrations is associated with adverse health effects especially for children, the elderly and people with pre-existing chronic disease. Due to a variety of urban planning decisions, essential building premises attended by these vulnerable groups may be sited in locations exposed to higher levels of air pollution. Using high spatial resolution air pollution concentrations estimated by satellite-based Land Use Regression (LUR) models in Australia, we mapped and approximated the annual average concentrations of particulate matter (PM_2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) at schools, child care centres, aged care facilities and hospitals across Sydney. We found that 137 (3.1 %) and 287 (6.4 %) of the total number of essential buildings assessed were exposed to annual average PM_2.5 and NO₂ concentrations, respectively, where: the air pollutant concentrations were greater than the median concentration of other locations in the surrounding Local Government Area (LGA), and; air pollutant levels were greater than the 90th percentile concentrations for Sydney, and; air pollution at the essential building location was at least 1 µg/m³ for PM_2.5 or 2 ppb for NO₂ greater than the 25th percentile concentration of other locations in the LGA. Based on these criteria, we found that many essential building premises in Sydney were in high air pollution locations and there were other meaningfully lower air pollution locations within the surrounding area. Air quality is becoming an increasingly important issue for local jurisdictions to consider as more essential amenities are required to serve denser populations in busier places exposed to more air pollution. Our study showed that high resolution maps can be used as a health-based planning tool to encourage the siting of buildings at locations better protective of health.

Societies have always been occupied with securing food supply and ensure environmental and human health. Scientific knowledge and technical level have, together with habitat and management patterns, shaped sanitation arrangements and recycling of resources. Because it is the same urban problems that are addressed by societies in different historical contexts, a longitudinal study may allow for novel ways to conjure food security and sanitation management issues in the present century.

We trace the historical transition over two centuries away from a circular economy to a more linear one in two Swedish cities, the capital Stockholm and the industrial city Norrköping, and show that big but rather slow changes occurred more or less constantly in these two urban settings. The driving forces have changed from only improving local conditions of sanitation and food production over to global and regional driving forces in this century affecting what local communities can or could do. The ongoing globalization positions the subjects of environmental and human health, recycling and food security in a new global perspective, where climate change and global resource boundaries will play a central role. We cannot continue to rely on trade that causes rainforest destruction elsewhere or harmful chemical consumer products that lead to loss of biodiversity and human health risks.

We need to put urban sanitation and food issues into this wider perspective with available remedial measures such as dietary changes, food waste reduction, soil less food production and building of new circular infrastructure. All urban areas in the world, including Stockholm and Norrköping in Sweden, need to adopt new strategies that again engage residents as well as public sectors and industry, including agriculture.

Studies have identified attributes and categories of attributes that relate to walkability, but as those studies are correlational, they do not establish causality. We used a within subject repeated measure controlled trials experiment tested the effects of seven street attributes on intention to walk in neighborhood settings. A national sample of 49 adults and 37 parents or guardians saw and rated each of 25 simulated streets on three items for either their intention to walk (the adults) or their intention to let their child walk (parents). The analyses found intention to walk for both groups highest for streets with the wide sidewalk, with no parking or with trees. In addition, parents or guardians reported higher intention to let their children walk on streets with either no parked cars or more vegetation. Research needs to test how well these interventions work on real streets. Designers could benefit the result for improve the quality of neighborhoods.

Solid Waste Management (SWM) through planning and technical coordination is essential for the sustainable development of cities in terms of social, physical, territorial, and legal-political aspects. During the last 20 years, Chiclayo has been the most polluted city in northern Peru owing to its poor municipal solid waste (MSW) management. This study aims to determine the level of urban impact generated by SWM on the configuration of public spaces in the districts of José Leonardo Ortiz, La Victoria, and Chiclayo (homonymous district). Management actors were identified with a territorial diagnosis for methodological analysis to obtain efficiency indices. The scope of management in the last ten years was determined using the Fisher-Davies method and Leopold diagrams, and the results obtained were compared with the population's perception. The discussion of the results determined that SWM has a negative level of urban environmental impact on the configuration of public spaces. These have a very negative impact on the biotic and abiotic factors of the urban landscape as well as on sociocultural factors. This study provides evidence of the implications of city governance on territorial sustainability. This will allow for the development of thematic frameworks that address urban, environmental, socioeconomic, and technological policies in response to new territorial dynamics.

Urban areas generate high demand for urban areas to accommodate a broader range of functions associated with growth, given the rising rate of urbanization with more than two-thirds of the human population in 2050 projected to be city-dwellers. As a result, urban areas have been undergoing vigorous spatial, social, and ecological transitions. This generates a direct impact on nature, multiplicity, and the use of space. With the onset of drives focused on limiting the urbanization of space like “net zero land-take by 2050” by the European Union [11], it is evident that global authorities have realized the need to aid these spatial transitions. Such urban ecological transitions are primarily focused on territorial borders where sprawling infrastructure reservoirs and vital natural ecosystem services conflict. ‘Fallowscape’ has been seen as a tool to assist transition at peri-urban borders and form a link between brownfield and greenfield development. However, to justify the practice as a sustainable approach, there are various economic and social aspects to be accounted for, which influence the feasibility of fallow lands. Recent urban development projects (by the public as well as private sector) have seen a rise in the desirability of sustainable and ecologically sensitive approaches. Developers are keen on building dynamic environments that incorporate environmental transitions. However, with the perspective of profitability in mind, such projects often face challenges in authorization and execution. The research intends to introduce Fallowscapes as innovative practice for urban development projects, evaluating its position as a profit-driving tool by preparing an inventory of actors and ecologically sensitive parameters for urban development projects. The paper undertakes literature review of Fallowing as an ecologically sustainable practice, conducting empirical research by comparing case studies that implement Fallowscapes as an approach to market ecologically sensitive project visions.

The UK is set to impose a stricter ambient annual mean fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) standard than was first adopted fourteen years ago. This necessitates strengthened knowledge of the magnitude and sources that influence urban PM_2.5 in UK cities to ensure compliance and improve public health. Here, we use a regional-scale chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem), validated with national ground-based observations, to quantify the influence of specific sources within and transported to the mid-sized UK city Leicester. Of the sources targeted, we find that agricultural emissions of ammonia (NH₃) make the largest contribution (3.7 μg m⁻³ or 38 % of PM_2.5) to annual mean PM_2.5 in Leicester. Another important contributor is long-range transport of pollution from continental Europe accounting for 1.8 μg m⁻³ or 19 % of total annual mean PM_2.5. City sources are a much smaller portion (0.2 μg m⁻³; 2 %). We also apply GEOS-Chem to the much larger cities Birmingham and London to find that agricultural emissions of NH₃ have a greater influence than city sources for Birmingham (32 % agriculture, 19 % city) and London (25 % agriculture, 13 % city). The portion from continental Europe is 16 % for Birmingham and 28 % for London. Action plans aimed at national agricultural sources of NH₃ and strengthened supranational agreements would be most effective at alleviating PM_2.5 in most UK cities.

This study focused on rivers as an urban blue space and investigated how urban residents perceive the biodiversity of rivers around their homes to understand whether people’s evaluation of biodiversity changes depended on the extent of their nature experiences. Quantitative data measured by the environmental DNA method were used as an indicator of biodiversity, while urban residents' perceptions of the river and their experiences of nature were ascertained by conducting a social survey. A regression analysis of 312 responses of people living in the catchment areas around 20 rivers showed that for participants with more childhood nature experiences, their satisfaction with their neighborhood waterfront areas tended to increase as river biodiversity increased. However, for those who have had fewer childhood experiences with nature, an increase in biodiversity resulted in lower satisfaction with waterfront areas. These results indicate that modern urban residents with little experience with nature tend to prefer concrete paved rivers for their recreational value and walkability rather than rivers with high biodiversity.

The narrative of “Jakarta is sinking!” has grown louder following the seasonal flood events over the past few years. What makes the case interesting is that the actual shape of land subsidence is growing fastest at around 20 cm per year in the northwest area, which is dominated by housing and settlements rather than commercial buildings and industries. This study aims to provide an academic explanation of the land subsidence phenomenon from the perspective of historical institutionalism. Applying spatial analysis and documentary reviews, we discussed the relationship between policy directions and land subsidence forms over decades. This paper found that spatial policy which have been pushed the urbanization in north Jakarta has contributed a more significant impact on land subsidence. The inability of government policy to address groundwater utilization both from the settlements and industries with the provisioning of access to safe water, emerged as one of the most significant factors triggering land subsidence.