Landscape and Urban Planning最新文献

Global warming and urbanization have exacerbated urban heat island issues in cities, affecting the liveability and long-term health and well-being of its citizens. This study explores how landscape composition and configuration regulate diurnal air temperature variations and the cooling potential of urban green spaces.

Using a spatially-dense citizen science weather station network in Leuven (Belgium), mean night temperature, mean day temperature, and diurnal temperature range were recorded during summer heat periods of 2022. Urban land cover data were collected at two buffer scales (50m and 250m) and analysed using composition (relative cover) and configuration metrics (aggregation and shape indices). Multiple linear (mixed) models were used to investigate associations between the composition and configuration of various land covers and air temperature at different temporal and spatial scales.

Results reveal dynamic effects of urban landscape on air temperature. A 10% increase in tree cover mitigated daytime warming by 0.11 °C, likely through shading and evapotranspiration. Aggregated trees further improved daytime cooling by 0.42 °C. A 10% increase in grasses and shrubs offered significant night-time cooling up to 0.47 °C, probably due to high albedo and ventilation potential. Additionally, increasing the aggregation of grasses and shrubs by 10% enhanced nocturnal cooling by 1.62 °C, while increasing the shape complexity of trees promotes night-time cooling by 0.44 °C.

This study further highlights the need for context-specific strategies. Conserving green locations as urban forests, while designing enclosed grey locations as urban savannas, characterized by interconnected grasses and shrubs interspersed with standalone trees, could mitigate urban heat stress and enhance urban resilience.

Lockdown measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a rise in people’s visits to forests and urban green spaces. However, as vaccination efforts progressed and infection rates declined, it remained uncertain whether forest visitation levels would return to pre-pandemic norms or even decreased. To explore the post-crisis status of forest visits, we conducted a comprehensive analysis using data from a representative online panel survey conducted in Switzerland. Specifically, we compared data collected one week prior to the lockdown (in March 2020), on visit frequency, duration, activities and locations visited, with data collected two weeks after the lockdown was enforced (2020), and also with data from the summer of 2021. We aimed to determine if forest visitation had returned to normal by the time of the third survey. Our findings indicate that during times of crisis, visitation patterns and recreational preferences in urban green spaces, such as forests, undergo changes, with some of these changes exhibiting greater persistence than others. Meanwhile the activities during a forest visit as well as motivations of forest visits seem to return to their initial levels after the crisis, for example, the changes in the frequency or lengths of the visits appear to be more persistent. Recognizing and understanding these changes are crucial for urban planners and forest management authorities to adapt policies and effectively address the evolving needs of visitors.

The literature identifies an important research gap regarding the variability in people’s needs and preferences for Urban Green Space (UGS) depending on sociodemographic and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, it is essential to understand the impact of these differences on UGS utilization preferences. However, there remains a lack of a comprehensive comparative research on this topic. This study compared the analysis of park usage and preferences from urban parks accessed on foot by analyzing and comparing the results of 2,360 online questionnaires from Guangzhou (China) with 7,159 responses from London (UK) using the Monitoring of Natural Environment Engagement (MENE) survey data. The results highlighted the importance of knowing which park usage and preferences were more likely to exhibit large variations/similarities based on different socio-demographic and cultural backgrounds. For example, one difference was in the UK older people were more likely to spend less time in parks, while in Guangzhou duration increased up to the age of 50 years before declining. One similarity indicated that park users in both countries tended to spend longer times in parks if they walked longer times accessing these parks. These findings have implications for distinguishing international planning and designing principles in various social cultural contexts.

The objective of the current study was to investigate, for the first time, the association between individual-level residential greenspace and redemption of antidepressant drugs in a longitudinal nationwide population-based sample in Sweden. A nationwide population-based sample of adults residing in Sweden was studied during 2013–2016 (N_individuals = 108716; N_observations = 324378). Residential greenspace land cover was assessed via high resolution geographic information systems, at 50, 100, 300, and 500 m buffers around individual residences. Antidepressant redemptions were assessed through the Swedish National Prescribed Drug Register. Greenspace-antidepressant associations were analyzed using generalized estimating equations (GEE), adjusting for demographic, socioeconomic and urban factors. Higher greenspace within 50–500 m residential buffer zones was associated with lower levels of prevalent antidepressant redemptions (50 m, odds ratio [OR] 0.878; 100 m, OR 0.891; 300 m, OR 0.873; 500 m, OR 0.899), while only greenspace in the 50 m buffer was associated with incident antidepressant redemptions (OR 0.853), in covariate-adjusted models. In conclusion, residential greenspace is associated with statistically significantly lower prevalent and incident antidepressant medication redemptions. The association is particularly salient for greenspace in the closest buffer zone around the residence. The results underscore the importance of green infrastructure and greenspace in the immediate residential-surrounding environment for mental health, and further point towards the need for an environmental psychiatry framework, and the importance of integrating health and environmental policies, urban planning and greening.

Monitoring urbanization processes is important because they are often accompanied by intensive landscape pattern transitions and pluralistic socioeconomic changes. To effectively monitor urban expansion and support regional planning, it is essential to develop a fast, accurate and universal urban–rural classification model, especially identifying the dynamic spatial patterns of urban, urban–rural fringe and rural areas. Although deep learning can effectively detect land cover changes, its applications in urban–rural identification have received little attention due to a lack of high-quality training datasets. In this study, we develop a novel transferable full-resolution convolutional neural network (FR-Net) to identify urban-fringe-rural areas. A large-scale training dataset was constructed using field surveys and aerial photography, and a data cube was stacked by multiple typical socio-natural indicators. We took the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration region in China as a case study and identified spatiotemporal evolutions of urban-fringe-rural areas from 2000 to 2020. The results indicated that over the past two decades, the urban–rural fringe expanded outward with urban areas, and both areas gradually increased, with an inverted U-shaped growth rate. Accurate identification of these fringes can benefit regional urban–rural planning and social governance. Based on the identification results, complex socio-ecological impacts of urbanization could be further explored. Testing demonstrated that the developed FR-Net model has high accuracy and robustness. Our developed open-source FR-Net model exhibits transferability and can be applied to multi-scale urbanized areas.

Scholars have found that many new multiuse trails are associated with neighborhood change like gentrification. However, gentrification of adjacent, gentrifiable neighborhoods is not universal, and studies of localized effects of trails are needed. This study documents gentrification and upgrading in both gentrifiable and non-gentrifiable neighborhoods along three multiuse trails funded and opened in large U.S. cities (Memphis, TN; New Orleans, LA; Washington D.C.) between 1993 and 2015. We use a case-control, pre-post design with Dynamic Difference-in-Difference models, incorporating Nonparametric Propensity Score Matching for the control group selection, to test the announcement and opening effects in neighborhoods adjacent to these trails. We document heterogeneity and complexity of neighborhood change both within and across these trail corridors. When pooling the three trails, we find evidence of opening effects but little evidence of announcement effects in gentrifiable neighborhoods, and some evidence of both effects in non-gentrifiable neighborhoods. Our trail-specific analyses indicate that gentrification occurred in some, but not all, trail corridors and gentrifiable neighborhoods. Evidence indicates gentrification in trail corridors may not result solely from announcement/opening effects, but may be initiated or accelerated by the upgrading in surrounding non-gentrifiable neighborhoods following trail announcement and opening. Additionally, the gentrification process may also involve the encroachment of white residents into minority (i.e., predominantly Black), gentrifiable neighborhoods. Policymakers, planners, and advocates working to build green infrastructure like trails need to consider the complexities of local context when developing strategies to mitigate adverse consequences of gentrification and displacement.

Like other user groups, people experiencing homelessness utilize parks and other public spaces for a variety of reasons, including recreation/leisure, physical activity, socializing, and to enjoy time in nature. However, unlike other user groups, unhoused park users also often rely on parks as a setting to engage in a variety of necessary metabolic and biophysical functions. Despite the centrality of these places to both unhoused and housed members of the public, there is little research focused on managing them for equitable outcomes between these two groups. We situate our work in this context, and specifically apply intergroup conflict as a framework for our analysis and discussion. Our results indicate that housed park users felt both interpersonal and social values conflict related to specific scenarios involving unhoused users. In general, those with more negative attitudes towards people experiencing homelessness were more likely to report conflict with unhoused park users. The greatest levels of conflict were perceived in the context of non-normative park use by unhoused users (activities that would be unacceptable by any user group). We suggest a variety of passive and active management strategies to reduce perceived conflict between unhoused and housed park users, including specific zoning, amenities, enforcement, and educational strategies.

Land subdivisions, especially in rural areas, pose a significant threat to sustainable development in many regions of the world. This issue is particularly challenging to understand in complex landscapes, where many biophysical and anthropic drivers interact without the necessary land regulatory guidance. We combined kernel density analysis and machine learning modeling to unravel the spatial patterns of land subdivisions and the complex relationships between their drivers. We used the Los Lagos region in southern Chile as a study case because it is a global biodiversity hotspot where land subdivisions are constantly increasing. We identify a significant increasing trend of subdivisions. Our modeling approach showed robust performance with an R² of 0.727, RMSE of 5.109, and a bias of −0.009. The proximity to urban areas, to the coast, distance to electric mains, demographic structure, and proximity to protected areas were significant predictors of land subdivision. Fertile lands, particularly those near urban centers, have become prime targets for subdivisions, exacerbating the conflict between urban development and agricultural sustainability. We highlight the increasing number of subdivisions on threatened ecosystems and highly productive soils. We discuss the interrelationship between the drivers and conclude that subdivision is primarily associated with conventional urban sprawl, although other urbanization phenomena could also be observed in some areas. These findings provide challenges and opportunities for global spatial planning and harmony with biodiversity conservation.

Rural-to-urban transformation in Southeast Asia must be discussed as a vicious cycle of hydrologic alteration, environmental degradation, and destructive land use changes that collectively jeopardize millions of lives. Particularly, top-down flood control schemes have been linked to significant degradation of the socioeconomic and biophysical features of rural landscapes and increasingly faster agricultural decline and environmental degradation.

In recent years, growing awareness has focused on ecosystem fragility and the need for a water-sensitive approach in planning. Water management and stream renaturation are expanding and rapidly developing disciplines that have produced radical advancements in ecological, geomorphological, and hydrologic areas. Despite such progress, however, these disciplines have failed to offer major advancements in socially related fields. A paucity of scientific research exists on the association between hydrologic alteration and the transformation of the landscape—which is a socially constructed phenomenon. As a result, the socio-cultural response to the morphological transformations of water regimes in peri-urban and desakota areas remains under-investigated.

The current study questions whether a specific morphological transformation of water streams, namely channelization cum environmental mitigation, can catalyze socio-cultural reactions and thus shape peculiar land use patterns. To examine that impact, we conducted a study on the Sheung Yue River in the New Territories of Hong Kong. Longitudinal data on the morphological change of the landscape at the catchment level from 1994 to 2022 were interpreted from aerial photographs and high-resolution satellite imagery, controlling for external factors. Alongside that data, 20 semi-structured interviews with local farmers provided in-depth knowledge of societal responses to the landscape mutation. Eleven interviews with knowledgeable informants also enhanced the understanding of river management and agricultural conservation. The overall findings revealed that integrating environmental mitigation strategies in channelization can moderate the negative impacts of the engineering-driven fluvial morphological transformation. Based on these findings, the study stresses the significance of socio-environmental responsive river management and integrated urban planning strategies for policymaking in Southeast Asia.

Rewilding is increasingly viewed as a process-driven approach to land management that offers an alternative to traditional nature conservation, supports nature recovery, and responds to climate change. However, implementing rewilding in British local authorities can be challenging. This qualitative study explores the challenges and opportunities of implementing rewilding in a British local authority setting, focusing on a local authority in Hampshire. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with professional officers and councillors who influence land management in the council, to understand their understanding of rewilding and the opportunities and barriers to implementing it.

The study found that the local authority favoured rewilding as an option for land management. However, there was a need to develop greater consistency in definition and research-based understanding. The study presents a framework outlining how rewilding could contribute to the delivery of ecosystem services, including combating climate change, positive carbon sequestration, connecting spaces, and increasing the functional and biological quality of land through the adoption of twelve key principles. The research outcomes provide insights into how rewilding could be embraced by other local authorities and offer recommendations for further research at a policy and practice level, with a focus on site-based interpretation.