Landscape and Urban Planning最新文献

Eleven primary schools in Barcelona were adapted to cope with the effects of climate change under the framework of a European program. Green (vegetation), blue (fountains), and gray (shade structures) interventions were implemented in the schoolyards in 2020. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of these schoolyard transformations on students’ health and its social determinants. A mixed-methods evaluation was conducted: (1) a quantitative pre-post quasi-experimental study using self-reported questionnaires administered to all sixth-grade students from 21 schools (11 from an intervention group and 10 from a comparison group); and (2) a qualitative evaluation through photovoice-based sessions with 11- to 12-year-old students and interviews with teachers from the intervention group. We measured changes in perceptions of the schoolyard environment, play and social behavior, and students’ health and well-being. Data were analyzed using a difference-in-differences approach for quantitative data and a thematic content analysis for qualitative data. After the intervention, both students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the schoolyard environment improved. They reported a decrease in heat sensation and an enhancement in schoolyard attractiveness and naturalization. Additionally, qualitative results suggest that the interventions promoted play opportunities and social inclusion, while reducing conflict behavior. Post-intervention, students also reported increased feelings of relaxation, safety, and physical comfort in the schoolyard. Our findings suggest the effects of the interventions may differ by gender. We identified potential areas for improvement in terms of cooling capacity, safety, water saving, and students’ autonomy. This study supports the need to extend climate adaptations to other schools.

The impact of factors such as the built environment, road vehicles, and air quality on urban vitality attracts increasing interest in urban planning and design research. However, tacit assumptions of linear relationships between these factors have been embedded in most studies, leading to biased estimations of their effects on urban vitality. This study addresses the gap by using machine learning models and SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) to investigate the non-linear and threshold effects of the built environment, road vehicles and air pollution on urban vitality, using Manhattan as a study case. Urban vitality was represented by pedestrian presence in 29,540 street-view images. Results showed that Extreme Gradient Boosting outperformed Ordinary Least Squares, Random Forest, and Gradient Boosting Decision Trees in urban vitality estimation. It reveals that while the built environment variables explained a significant portion (77.5 %) of the variance in urban vitality, road vehicles (such as bicycles, buses, cars and motorbikes) and ozone concentrations accounted for 15.18 % and 1.46 %, respectively. The built environment and road vehicle factors exhibit positive nonlinear relationships with urban vitality. Meanwhile, ozone concentration demonstrated a negative threshold effect on urban vitality with a threshold at 27.5 ppb. This study advances our understanding of the threshold effect mechanism of the factors on urban vitality, offering insights into fostering sustainable urban environment.

Exposure to green spaces is known to enhance residents’ physical and mental well-being, making accurate assessment of individual green exposure crucial. Traditional research often relies on fixed residential-based assessments, neglecting individual daily mobility, which can lead to estimation biases known as neighborhood effect biases, including the neighborhood effect averaging problem (NEAP) and neighborhood effect polarization problem (NEPP), due to varying sampling periods, seasonal changes, and sample selection biases. This study innovatively examines the spatiotemporal dynamics of residents’ green exposure and neighborhood effect heterogeneity using large-scale (330,160 residents), multi-temporal (across four seasons in one year) mobile signal data (over 1.38 billion signal points). Overall, NEAP is dominant among the population. We found that “time restrictions” are key to neighborhood effect biases: on weekends or during spring and autumn (pleasant weather), NEAP is more likely to exhibit due to flexible travel, compensating for less greenery at home by visiting greener areas. Conversely, the probability of NEPP increases on weekdays due to strict commuting schedules or during summer and winter due to extreme weather conditions. Furthermore, socioeconomic factors such as income and gender differentially modulate access to green spaces, demonstrating complex spatiotemporal heterogeneity. These insights address the controversy over neighborhood effects of green exposure in previous studies and provide a new perspective for accurate environmental exposure assessments and their health outcomes.

Land use changes can drive distinct spatial and temporal shifts in community structure. In urban areas, the historical trajectory of land use changes can create a time lag between landscape modification and their impact on species, potentially leading to an extinction debt. The detection of an extinction debt may be crucial for mitigating taxonomic and functional diversity losses in the future. Here, we investigated the effect of historical changes in landscape composition on bird assemblages in a city from central-west Brazil (Campo Grande). We evaluated whether taxonomic (species richness) and functional diversity (functional divergence) of bird assemblages are explained by present-day and/or past landscape composition. We used a dataset of birds sampled in 61 local landscapes, each of them with 16 ha, during the months of February to March in 2016. We quantified the proportions of native forest and urban infrastructure for three different years (1985, 2000 and 2016). Then, we selected 30 local landscapes that have experienced an increase in urbanization throughout the years. Bird species richness was explained by the percentage of urban infrastructure in the past (year 2000), suggesting the presence of a taxonomic extinction debt in Campo Grande. On the other hand, we didn’t find evidence of an extinction debt for bird functional diversity, as the null model was as plausible as the other selected models. The protection and restoration of native vegetation may improve the quality of urban areas and prevent the payment of this extinction debt.

For some, golf courses are green oases of nature, while others see only toxic scars on the landscape. This review develops a less dichotomous approach by synthesizing all research on avian use of golf courses. Comparisons with other habitats reveal that golf courses have higher species richness due to attraction of species adapted to human-dominated landscapes, including non-natives. However, species of conservation concern usually disappear altogether from golf courses. Golf courses that support some bird species of conservation concern are those that preserve large tracts of native vegetation. The amount of intact vegetation surrounding a golf course is an important determinant of avian diversity within the course due to dispersal to and from surrounding patches. Most of what is known about reproductive success of golf course birds comes from just one species, eastern bluebird (Sialia sialis), which generally reproduces as well on golf courses as in similar habitats. But this species is not representative of most songbirds because it is pre-adapted for sparsely forested landscapes with high ecological disturbance. Overall, there are no documented examples of golf courses playing a meaningful role in conservation of rare birds. However, widespread avian mortality from pesticides, once a major impact of golf courses, has not been conclusively demonstrated in the 21st century. In conclusion, golf courses are greenspace with a relatively high number and variety of birds and successful reproduction of bluebirds, but their role in reaching conservation goals or serving as valuable breeding habitat for species of concern has not been realized.

Ecological connectivity is increasingly acknowledged as crucial for biodiversity conservation. Iverson et al. suggest that increasing stewardship to ensure permeability is a better approach than protecting linkages between protected areas. We argue that the optimal approach depends on the landscape context, conservation goals, and species involved and suggest that linkage plans can prioritize specific places for protection and improved management. However, when using connectivity models as predictive tools, model validation is vital. We commend Iverson et al. for assessing whether modeled linkages were important predictors of species presence. We disagree, though, with the authors’ conclusion that their findings challenge the theory and practice of modeling linkages and explain that the reason may be the misalignment of the validation assumptions with model objectives. We offer our perspective on best practices for conducting validation studies and note factors to consider with respect to data used for model validation and model expectations.

With the expansion of global population and rapid development of urbanization and lighting technologies, artificial light at night (ALAN) has caused increasing negative impacts on the dark sky observation, which has aroused wide concern on the protection of dark sky in the world. Dark skies have great natural, cultural, aesthetic, and economic values, and construction of dark sky places is an effective strategy to protect dark skies. In this study, a distribution map of dark sky quality is constructed with multi-dimensional values of dark sky, and multiple potential types of dark sky places are identified in mainland China. First, light pollution index, atmospheric transparency index, and clearness index were superposed to create a map for the distribution of dark sky quality. Then, the construction potential of dark sky places was estimated based on the attractiveness and accessibility. Finally, dark sky quality and construction potential of dark sky places were spatially correlated to identify different types of dark sky places. The results demonstrated that high-quality dark skies are mainly distributed in vast stretches of the western regions, which are characterized by large areas and scales and account for about 40.06 % of land area in mainland China. Spatially, we identified a total of 136 potential dark sky sanctuaries and 67 dark sky reserves/parks, as well as 379,335.8 km² regions that are suitable for the construction of dark sky communities or urban night sky places. These findings may lay a foundation for the site selection of different types of dark sky places in countries like China.

Many methods have been applied to quantify urban ecosystem services (UESs) in the past two decades. Timely reviews of UES assessment methods are necessary for tracking the methodological progress and identifying research gaps. In this study, we systematically analyzed 862 to reveal the overall trend of quantitative studies of UESs, the types of ecological structures and UESs assessed in those studies, and the main equations and parameters used. We found a rising trend of quantitative studies of UESs, accelerating after 2015. Large-size and publicly-owned ecological structures and regulating services were assessed the most frequently. We identified 1,130 equations and 1,190 parameters. Simple methods and equations were used more regularly than complex ones. Values for around 30% of parameters were taken from published papers, while the sources or the values were not specified for about 40% and 20% of all parameters, respectively. The remaining 10% were derived from field measurements and other sources. Based on our findings, we recommend building an open database of quantitative methods, testing the suitability of existing methods for urban environments, developing new methods specifically designed for urban areas, and increasing the transparency of reported methods.

As urbanisation increases, wildlife is more likely to be exposed to humans. Although human disturbance is the main cause of biodiversity loss, some wildlife thrives in anthropogenic environments. Such species show increased behavioural tolerance to humans, which plays an important role in human-wildlife coexistence. However, whether wildlife modulates tolerance differently between regions and cities is inadequately understood. Understanding how animals behaviourally modulate their tolerance to humans at the larger geographical scale can provide useful information to predict behavioural adaptations to urbanisation and adequate management actions for conservation. We examined alert distance (AD), flight initiation distance (FID), and vertical escape distance (VED) in Eurasian red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) in four countries (Finland, Germany, Japan, and the UK). Linear mixed models with Tukey’s multicomparisons showed that all tolerance measures varied between countries. We subsequently analysed the relationship between site-scale environmental variables (vegetation conditions, presence of artificial feeding, and human population density) and tolerance behaviours separately by country. We found that squirrels were more tolerant in sites with taller trees and more underbrush cover in the UK, and more tolerant in sites with artificial feeding in Japan, while environmental variables were not associated with squirrels’ tolerance in Finland and Germany. Our results indicated that regional forms of environmental factors and human-squirrel interactions play a key role in tolerance modification at the larger spatial scale. Our study suggests the importance of considering regional-dependent relationships between tolerance behaviours and environmental characteristics for urban wildlife conservation and management.

Metacommunities are the set of local communities that are linked by the dispersion of potentially interacting species. The study of metacommunities is important to elucidate the relationship between processes that occur at different spatial scales. However, bird metacommunities in urban parks have been little studied. The objectives of this study were: 1) to analyze the relative role of species dispersal, environmental selection, and stochastic processes shaping urban bird metacommunities; and 2) to analyze the structure of the metacommunities of birds in urban parks. Bird surveys were made in 51 parks of six cities in Buenos Aires province, Argentina. To obtain the metacommunity structure, three elements were analyzed: coherence, turnover, and boundary clumping. We found that the metacommunity conforms to a clementsian structure, in which groups of species respond in a similar way to environmental gradients. The environmental and connectivity variables explained a greater proportion of the variance than the spatial variable. The composition of species was related to the location of the cities, the distance to the rural area, the distance to the urban center, the number of cars passing near parks, and habitat diversity. Due to the clementsian structure of metacommunities, they probably were structured under a species sorting and mass effect process. The number of cars and habitat diversity in the parks would be acting as environmental filters for bird species, while the distance to rural areas and the distance to the urban center would affect species dispersal to the parks. These findings emphasize the importance of maintaining and improving park connectivity and habitat diversity for bird species, managing them as cities grow.