Landscape and Urban Planning最新文献

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.

Natural environments are changing with shifts in fire regimes. A little-understood impact is change to the interactions people have with forests. Generally, forests invoke positive feelings, but wildfire changes both forests and people’s experiences of them. These were investigated with attention to the ever-changing physical characteristics of fire-adapted forests. In a mixed method approach, interviews were used to explore the subjective experiences of 57 adults in forests at different times since fire. A photo-based survey with 529 responses enabled further analysis of forest characteristics in experience. The Human-Environment Interaction (HEI) model guided analysis of experience events on four factors which shape them: the physical environment, activities undertaken, personal resources and social support. We found that bushfires create potent environments by changing the sense of enclosure, colours and dead trees in forests. Different levels of environmental potency combine with activities and personal resources to invoke different types of experience, the main ones being aesthetic (feelings of pleasure) restorative (relaxation) and loss/recovery (sadness mixed with hope). Personal resources are particularly important in the loss/recovery type. People who are connected to nature (one such resource), feel the loss of forest elements, but also notice forest recovery, which inspires hope. As fire frequency increases with climate change, experiences can be expected to become more negative overall. However, thought-based adaptations may be occurring in the spread of beliefs that forests are inherently dynamic and in the emergence of a fire aesthetic. Forest managers can assist people to come to terms with wildfires by providing access to forests postfire and by engagement to encourage adaptation.

Although the availability of natural space is found to be associated with the reduction of neighborhood-level violent crimes, such relationship is often confounded by heightened public surveillance in such spaces. Using satellite remote sensing data and official crime record, we examined the extent to which natural space coverage and population-weighted exposure were associated with assault crime rates, including domestic violent assault, which minimalized the influence of surveillance. Analyses of data from New South Wales, Australia, between 2015 and 2019 showed that regions with more green space and higher population-weighted exposure to green space had lower rates of both domestic and non-domestic violent assault during the five-year period of inquiry. The coverage of water bodies did not reveal a significant association. This study underscores the consistent negative association between green space and interpersonal violence and highlights its potential implications for urban planning and landscape design as strategies for violence mitigation.

Understanding how mobility-based green space exposure influences momentary wellbeing is vital to promote life quality. Based on a survey conducted in 2017 characterizing residents’ daily activities and environmental pollution exposure in Meiheyuan Community of Beijing, we use Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Green View Index (GVI) to gauge the amount and visibility of exposure to green space at the granularity of activity episodes. Structural equation models are formulated to examine direct influences of green space on activity satisfaction, mediating effects of real-time environmental pollution, and environmental justice under a dynamic activity context. Our results show that the amount of greenness boosts activity satisfaction, and that the direct relationship between green visibility and activity satisfaction follows an inverted U-shaped curve. NDVI indirectly affects activity satisfaction by reducing perceived air pollution. GVI influences both objective and subjective noise pollution, thereby inducing indirect effects on activity satisfaction. Moreover, clear patterns of environmental injustice emerge: individuals with lower monthly incomes, renters, and the unemployed face heightened environmental pollution, when compared to their more affluent, homeowner, and employed counterparts. These findings underscore the significance of larger parks and green spaces for direct satisfaction enhancement, while street vegetation reduces perceived noise pollution and promotes wellbeing.

Walking and high-quality walking environments are essential for sustainable and healthy cities. Walkability depends on both objective environmental features and perceived aspects. However, less is known about how the interplay between objective and perceived walkability influences walking behaviour across different urban contexts. We conducted a spatially explicit comparison of walkability and walking routes between a city centre representing inner-city walking fabric and a suburb comprising transit and automobile urban fabrics in Helsinki, Finland. Our objective walkability index consisted of floor space ratio, functional mix, and accessibility variables, while the perceived quality index included safety, comfort, and enjoyment variables retrieved from public participatory GIS data reflecting citizens’ perceptions. We also compared the characteristics of hotspots of people’s reported routes for utilitarian and recreational walking, incorporating additional variables, namely green and blue index, which consisted of the NDVI and shoreline length. We found that prerequisites for walking significantly differed between city-centre and suburban contexts. In the city centre, objective and perceived walkability were high in the commercial centre, whereas in the suburb, they rarely overlapped. Suburban centres had a lower degree of perceived walkability than the city centre, but these areas were widely used for utilitarian and recreational walking. In the city centre, perceived protection was higher in utilitarian walking hotspots, which were also associated with higher building density, functional mix, and objective walkability index. Conversely, in the suburb, perceived protection was higher in recreational hotspots, associated with higher urban permeability, NDVI, and shoreline length. High perceived enjoyment, i.e., pleasant sensory experiences, induced both utilitarian and recreational walking across urban fabrics. Our results underline the importance of including citizen perceptions in walkability planning. With more limited mobility options, suburban walkability is crucial for fair mobility. Such contextual features of walkability need to be better addressed in future studies and planning practices.

Strategic planning approaches are essential for addressing the complex and multi-dimensional challenges in selecting blue-green infrastructure (BGI) location. The development of planning support systems (PSS) for BGI siting often lacks a value-based approach with early stakeholder engagement. In this study, we used value-focused thinking (VFT) to adapt and develop a BGI planning support framework to the Canadian urban context, moving towards an objective-driven framework. We provide a hierarchical objectives framework for BGI planning in urban areas, aligned with stakeholder values, with three-level information: higher-level objectives, lower-level objectives and measurable spatial attributes. To assess site performance across these attributes, value scales elicitation was conducted with 17 experts. The engagement of 37 stakeholders in co-creating and validating our objectives set helped identify common concerns and refine our framework, focusing on the most relevant objectives for stakeholders. The VFT approach and the resulting framework can be easily transferred to other cities in Quebec (Canada), but also to other urban contexts looking to optimize BGI site selection to maximize benefits across the multiple functions of BGI and opportunities arising from the urban context.

Effective climate change adaptation planning requires evaluating the interplay of physical landscape characteristics and community perceptions of places. Geographic information system (GIS)-based approaches to measuring environmental values can identify locations for planning prioritization. But they seldom are used to consider spatial differences in socio-ecological worldview. This study aims to identify how place-based risk perceptions and landscape values can inform climate change adaptation using a Q+PPGIS method. We integrated mapped landscape values and climate risks (from 39 PPGIS participants) with elicited discourses (for 28 Q-method participants) to develop a novel land classification approach (reflexive Q+PPGIS). The results demonstrate significant differences between wilderness as a discourse and perceived, and the physical features associated with mapped wild areas. Similar differences in discourse and spatial patterns are observed for climate risks. For example, participants’ mapped areas of bushfire risk do not align with agencies identified risk areas, their jurisdictions, and capacities to take action. This disconnect presents a challenge to adaptation. Local governments can use this new method to show constituents multiple and often competing community demands for action, enabling honest conversations about feasible actions, responsibilities, and resource allocation.

After the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, the Japanese government reconstructed coastal protection facilities to mitigate extreme disasters and coastal erosion. However, the substantial compression of coastal zones poses a challenge in coping with sea level rise, while maintaining a sustainable coastal ecosystem. To clarify the impact of environmental factors and sea level rise on coastal ecosystems in highly developed regions, this study integrated field surveys, geo-detector analysis, and coastal inundation models into the research framework. It explored the relationship between environmental factors and vegetation patterns and predicted the inundation areas and vegetation survivorship of 12 transects in the study area from 2030 to 2150. The results indicated that the distance from the tide embankment (DTE) and elevation (DEM) were the main driving factors, and the combination of the potential of hydrogen (pH) and DTE had a major impact on vegetation coverage. Notably, the distribution of vegetation was positively correlated with the width of the coastal zone, and when the width was less than 60 m, vegetation could not survive. With sea level rise, almost no vegetation will survive until 2150. Appropriate coastal width and height are conducive to maintaining the sustainability of coastal ecosystems.

Location-based games provide an opportunity to collect crowdsourced, spatially explicit data that can be used in decision-making processes in forest planning. While these games have been more widely used in collecting mapping and modelling data, there is limited research on their suitability for collecting location-based data on human preferences, opinions, and emotions in these contexts. Collecting human-centred data can be resource-intensive and costly, hence exploring the potential of location-based games is important. This study investigates the use of geocaching in gathering meaningful data in urban and rural settings. A methodology was developed wherein surveys were embedded in geocaches on trails located in urban and rural forests in Finland. These surveys collected quantitative, qualitative, and photographic data relating to human-forest relationships and landscape preferences. The findings indicate that trails closer to urban areas with higher population density showed increased cache log volume and survey response rates. Moreover, trails tended to collect most information in the first summer after establishment. It is recommended that future studies employing this methodology create shorter, easily accessible, circular trails and that survey questions should be clear and incorporate a method to verify that submitted responses reflect experiences at the chosen location. Furthermore, forest planning professionals and researchers seeking to utilise location-based games in data collection are advised to engage with the communities active in playing them to ensure success..