A land-use decision approach integrating thermal regulation, stormwater management, and economic benefits based on urbanization stage identification.

Abstract

Driven by global climate change and urbanization, urban heat island (UHI) and urban storm flood (USF) have become the most frequent and influential hazards in recent decades. Land-use optimization can effectively cope with these hazards. However, the trade-offs between multi-hazard mitigation and economic development impose many limitations in practice. Furthermore, current region-based optimization methods no longer meet the precise management demand, and both subdivision and spatial heterogeneity identification have the potential for wider applicability. Hence, a systematic integration of climate adaptation and urban construction through land-use planning is urgently required. This paper proposes a new land-use decision approach for improving climate adaptability of urbanization. This approach involves multi-objective optimization, spatial subdivision, and urbanization stage identification, which enable the simultaneous achievement of environmental and economic benefits. Taking Xiamen as case study, the results showed that excessive pursuit of land economic output (LEO) limits the chance of mitigating UHI and USF. Improving the LEO per unit area of construction land could disrupt the link between land exploitation and the increasing side effects of climate hazards. Future urbanization hotspots in Xiamen will likely emerge at the urban fringe in Tong'an District and Xiang'an District. Within each developing unit, the upper limit of construction land was 81.06 hm2 and the green space was recommended to be 7.29-21.94 hm2. Construction land and bare land contributed most to UHI and USF, while forest and grassland were highly efficient in heat and runoff mitigation. The developed approach proved to be effective and practicable, especially for reducing the impacts of extreme UHI and USF.