Changes In Urban Environment Research Articles

Reparative innovation for urban climate adaptation

Scholars of climate urbanism have raised the conundrum that action to address the ongoing challenges of climate change in cities have distributional impacts, deepening existing inequalities. This challenge is related in part to the ideas of urban innovation that dominate climate responses. Disruptive innovations are directed towards the rupture of existing systems of knowledge, seeking to create new ways of looking at the problem. The emerging scholarship on climate urbanism suggests that measures to adapt to climate change in urban environments heeding a disruptive narrative have uneven impacts and too often disadvantage the most vulnerable communities. In this article, we ask what it means to look for reparative innovation for climate change adaptation instead. Reparative thought has influenced different debates on climate change adaptation and other issues related to social justice, from dealing with the aftermath of conflicts to engaging in reparative experiences to deal with trauma. Critical theory has also looked into reparation as a means to engage with reparative understandings of cultural objects and heritage. We argue for a focus on reparative innovation to open up alternative innovation frameworks that acknowledge existing material urban histories and engage with the multiple forms of knowledge within the urban experience that support climate adaptation.

Reparative innovation for urban climate adaptation

Scholars of climate urbanism have raised the conundrum that action to address the ongoing challenges of climate change in cities have distributional impacts, deepening existing inequalities. This challenge is related in part to the ideas of urban innovation that dominate climate responses. Disruptive innovations are directed towards the rupture of existing systems of knowledge, seeking to create new ways of looking at the problem. The emerging scholarship on climate urbanism suggests that measures to adapt to climate change in urban environments heeding a disruptive narrative have uneven impacts and too often disadvantage the most vulnerable communities. In this article, we ask what it means to look for reparative innovation for climate change adaptation instead. Reparative thought has influenced different debates on climate change adaptation and other issues related to social justice, from dealing with the aftermath of conflicts to engaging in reparative experiences to deal with trauma. Critical theory has also looked into reparation as a means to engage with reparative understandings of cultural objects and heritage. We argue for a focus on reparative innovation to open up alternative innovation frameworks that acknowledge existing material urban histories and engage with the multiple forms of knowledge within the urban experience that support climate adaptation.

Impact and Assessment of Urban Wind Environment Change on Architectural Heritage Protection

In view of the contradiction between urban construction and protection of architectural heritage, this paper analyzes the hidden dangers of wind and fire protection of architectural heritage from the perspective of wind environment impact of high-rise buildings. The wind environment simulation and fire simulation based on computational fluid dynamics are used to study the typical building heritage cases in Guangzhou. The wind environment indicators that affect the comfort, safety and fire development of the wind environment of the building heritage are explained, so as to form a strategy for evaluating the impact of wind environment of high-rise buildings on the protection of building heritage.

Mercury concentrations provide an indicator of marine foraging in coastal birds

The transfer of nutrients between marine and terrestrial systems has important ecological consequences, and animal movement is an important driver of nutrient transfer. Coastal birds forage in marine environments and breed in terrestrial habitats, and thus serve as vectors moving nutrients from the sea to the land. However, urbanization can influence the extent to which coastal birds forage in marine or terrestrial environments due to the availability of human subsidies. Establishing a reliable and straightforward indicator of marine foraging would be useful for assessing changes in the use of terrestrial vs. marine habitats in the face of urbanization and broader environmental change, and for understanding the flow of nutrients and energy between terrestrial and marine environments. Mercury (Hg) is a highly toxic heavy metal which bioaccumulates in marine food webs, and is a potential indicator of marine foraging. Methylmercury (MeHg), is present only in aquatic ecosystems and reaches elevated concentrations in the prey species of marine birds. Thus, high concentrations of MeHg would be expected for birds foraging in marine environments in comparison to those foraging on terrestrial sources. We hypothesized that the degree of marine foraging influences Hg uptake in coastal birds. To test this hypothesis, we combined GPS tracking data with measurements of Hg concentrations in the blood of herring gulls (Larus argentatus) along an urban gradient in the northeast United States. We examined Hg concentrations for 51 individual herring gulls tracked with GPS tags at study sites representing high, medium and low degrees of urbanization. Our results showed a strong and significant positive relationship between Hg concentrations and the proportion of herring gull foraging locations occurring in offshore waters. Hg concentrations differed significantly between herring gulls whose primary foraging habitat occurred in marine vs. terrestrial environments. Gulls in more urban colonies spent less time foraging in marine environments, and had significantly lower Hg concentrations than those at the more remote study. Our results suggest that Hg concentrations in blood can be used to reflect the extent of marine foraging for animals using both marine and terrestrial habitats. Hg concentrations could be valuable monitoring tool to assess how the use of marine foraging habitats changes through time (dietary shifts) or relative to environmental change such as urbanization.

Assessment of land use land cover dynamics and urban growth of Kanksa Block in Paschim Barddhaman District, West Bengal

Population dynamics in terms of population growth is experiencing an unremitting increase in the developing countries leading to significant pressure on obtainable land resources in urban locations as well as adjoining rural hinterland. The growth of urban population is one of the most important driving forces of change in urban environment, which ultimately are manifested by the development of suburban growth. Under such backdrop, other land uses like agricultural land and forests at urban fringes are lost their identity as well as converted to the built-up area which reduces different ecosystem services. In order to get better the process knowledge of land use planning, information on present land use patterns and its changes over the certain course of time is indispensable for effective plan formulation in any region. Present inquiry concerns with land use dynamics in close proximity to the Durgapur urban industrial region in Kanksa Community development Block of Paschim Bardhaman District which is a part of a lateritic forested tract as well as experienced with phenomenal population growth in the last 2 decades with a doubling of urban population in 1 decade mainly in the Census towns around the Durgapur industrial complex. The overall objective of this study is to understand the land use land cover change in Kanksa Block and its spatiotemporal aspects with special emphasis on urban growth. Increase in urban area is massive in first 10 years in comparison to rest of the 10 years in cost of other land uses. This will help to recognize the conversion of land use that has mostly been affected by this massive urban growth, physical and temporal pattern of urban growth and finally to establish the interrelationship between this landuse land cover change and population dynamics. The use of Geographical Information system would also identify the most critical zone for future landuse planning for better sustainability.

Universal Design as a Tool for the Humanization of Social Consciousness in Design Practice

This paper considers design as a socially responsible tool that can and should be used to challenge existing social and cultural conditions and facilitate the humanization of social consciousness and design activity. Providing inclusivity is undoubtedly a goal of design, and many countries today are engaged in facilitating such changes in urban environments. Universal design is one of the most important tools that can meet the challenges of creating a comfortable living environment and developing an inclusive mindset. We demonstrate the potential of universal design using examples of the design projects developed by the students of the Department of Industrial Design, Ural State University of Architecture and Art. These projects show a wide range of possible applications of the principles of universal design and demonstrate the potential of universal design to facilitate and engender new understanding of inclusive and accessible environment that can help reshape public consciousness regardless of whether or not such projects are actually put into practice.
 Keywords: universal design, disabled people, humanization of social consciousness, humanization of design activity, inclusive mindset

Development of Social Communities and Public Space of the City and Urbanistic Discourse

The article deals with a number of problems related to establishment of public space of a municipality and the role of urbanistic discourse in its development. The pre-requisites of these phenomena are the accelerating urbanization and the consequent changes (both common and specific for countries and cities) in urban environment for residents. Resulting from automobilization, urbanization and ghettoization of districts, the city center is losing its status of the city core. Streets, squares and parks are also becoming less socially important. What may help restore their importance is the emergence of a new type of social communities based on the trends of the new urban planning that solves the problem of residents’ social isolation and turns residents into citizens. In this context, a social community that features public activities is called «public space» Introduction of digital communications into urban milieu enables creating a new form of public space. Via modern communications and the mass media, urban residents satisfy their need for socializing, and act not only as consumers of cultural and social opportunities of the city, but also as its active reorganizers. The authors infer that urbanistic discourse reflects interests of residents, urban communities, municipal authorities and groups of urbanization experts in urban environment development. Thus, topicality of urbanistic discourse is explained by the new trends in urban transformation, formation of social communities, and the diversity of modern means of communication.

Low-Cost Data Acquisition Station for Microclimate Detection and Public Health Risks Management: A Case Study of Casablanca

the environmental data acquisition station is used to manage the public health and detection of a microclimate of a city for a broadcast processed high precision data for users. This research article is summarizing the applications of Electronics and GIS applications to health risks management due to air pollution, noise and microclimate change detection, to study the geography of urban health risks and environmental change in Casablanca, Morocco. acquisition of environmental and Climatological Data using sensor networks, results a new possibilities and advantages, of environmental data monitoring using electronic circuit with a broadcasting system via a technology with wireless transmitter. The main object of this research is to present a simple and rapid method to provide instant microclimate and environment data, which can be used to manage the public risks caused by pollution and environment changes. As the climate and environment conditions are variable from a place to place, it is difficult to get accurate climate and environment for a particular location in a city. With the advancement of technology, especially data acquisition systems, the problem of large set up area and cost has been reduced. The data acquisition station can be set up at any place and provide an accurate and instant climate and environment report to any citizen of the city. The report of the data acquisition system can be used by the users to choose the best place for them to live due to their diseases. In addition, these data can be collected in a GIS system to create a microclimate change and air pollution map of different zones in the city, predict the future climate, and air pollution of the city.

An evolutionary complex systems perspective on urban health

Deliberations about how to govern complex problems of urban health and wellbeing sustainably have often been implicitly biased by ideas such as being ‘human-scale’ or ‘people-centered.’ With increasing urban populations and increasing urban system interconnectivity, many cities have transformed into city regions or clusters, and the external effects of urban growth are carried mainly by the marginalized and the environment putting urban health increasingly at risk. Here we address the question of why human societies have not been better at collectively adapting to the challenges of urbanization and global environmental change? We build a theoretical framework of multi-level selection, complex systems evolution, and governance, following which we then present ‘human-scale’ and ‘people-centered’ ideas of urban development as expressions of two types of socio-political organization with different degrees of self-organization. We found several reasons for which the maladies of current urban development emerged and the seeming inability to resolve them. First, urban systems became increasingly interconnected and evolved into ultrasocial superorganisms, displaying preference to sustain themselves as a whole rather than their subordinates. Second, the difference in scaling effects between the biological and the social network contributed to the mismatch between rapid urban growth and slow adaptation. Furthermore, institutions of decreased variety reinforce themselves and become dominant, creating a positive feedback mechanism and promoting invasive and exploitative exponential growth, but they also reduce the creativity and resilience of urban systems. We also found that both the “human-scale” and the “people-centered” approaches acknowledge the exponential growth and decreasing variety in urban systems, and advocate for correcting the mismatches. To incorporate people's needs and values for long-term, truly sustainable urban health governance, we recommend combining the self-organizing, evolutionary feature of “human-scale” and the coordinative, political feature of “people-centeredness.”

QUANTITATIVE REMOTE SENSING ANALYSIS OF THERMAL ENVIRONMENT CHANGES IN THE MAIN URBAN AREA OF Guilin BASED ON GEE

Abstract. The dynamic change of urban thermal environment caused by the change of land use type has become one of the important problems of urban ecological environment protection. In Guilin city as research area, based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE), the random forest algorithm was used to classify the land use classification of Landsat remote sensing images in 2010, 2014 and 2018, and the mono-window algorithm was used to calculate the surface temperature. The surface vegetation was solved according to the NDVI pixel binary model. Coverage, and finally dynamic statistics and comparative analysis of land use, vegetation cover and surface temperature. The main results as follows. (1) From 2010 to 2018, the average temperature in the main urban area of Guilin is on the rise (increased by 1.29 °C), and the temperature zones in each class are converted from low temperature zone, lower temperature zone and medium temperature zone to higher temperature zone and high temperature zone. (2) Lower temperature zone and the low temperature zone is mainly distributed in vegetation and water body coverage areas, while the medium temperature zone, higher temperature zone and the high temperature zone are mainly distributed in construction land and unused land cover area. (3) High vegetation cover area in 2014–2018 (reduced by 31.34%) The main reason for the sharp decline is the substantial increase in the area of construction land (expansion 30.19%). (4) GEE-based random forest algorithm Land use classification had higher classification accuracy (more than 80% in all three periods). The results can provide scientific basis for improving urban thermal environment and scientific reference for the development strategy of Guilin city.

Projection of present and future daily and evening urban heat load patterns

In this modeling study the recent and future daily and evening thermal climate of a Central-European city (Szeged, Hungary) was investigated in terms of heat load modification by applying MUKLIMO_3 model to project daily and evening climate indices. For surface parameterization the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) scheme was used. The investigation encompassed three climatological time periods (1981–2010, 2021–2050 and 2071–2100) and two emission scenarios for future climate (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). Our results show that highest index values appear in the city centre and stretch to the NW direction (LCZs 2, 3 and 8) and they decrease towards to the vegetated rural surfaces (mainly LCZ D). That is, the values depend on the zone types and there are more days towards to the densely built-up LCZs. Also, a general temporal change can be detected as the index patterns show the substantial increasing tendency for both indices towards the end of this century. This temporal change suggests a two-way conclusion: first, the increasing number of hot days means a strongly deteriorating change of unfavourable thermal conditions, and second, the change in the number of the evening index provides more opportunities for regeneration and leisure-time activities outdoors in the already thermally less stressful evening hours for the urban inhabitants. This study gives very illustrative examples on the expected climate changes during this century and these examples show that there are several sides to these changes in urban environments. Furthermore, they clearly prove that global or regional scale climate predictions without urban climate interactions do not have enough detailed information.

Urban-level environmental factors related to pediatric asthma.

During the 20th century, urbanization has increasing and represented a major demographic and environmental change in developed countries. This ever-changing urban environment has an impact on disease patterns and prevalence, namely on noncommunicable diseases, such as asthma and allergy, and poses many challenges to understand the relationship between the changing urban environment and the children health. The complex interaction between human beings and urbanization is dependent not only on individual determinants such as sex, age, social or economic resources, and lifestyles and behaviors, but also on environment, including air pollution, indoors and outdoors, land use, biodiversity, and handiness of green areas. Therefore, the assessment and identification of the impact of urban environment on children's health have become a priority and many recent studies have been conducted with the goal of better understanding the impacts related to urbanization, characterizing indoor air exposure, identifying types of neighborhoods, or characteristics of neighborhoods that promote health benefits. Thus, this review focuses on the role of urban environmental factors on pediatric asthma.

Социальные аспекты ярмарки в пространстве городской культуры

We consider the necessity of the fair activities development in the urban culture space. A fair has the beneficial influence on social and cultural and economic changes in the urban environment. The research is based on the relevance of studying the fair potential as a social and cultural phenomenon, which is both economic and cultural as it contains functions of a social and cultural nature. To determine the fair social aspects in the urban culture space we consider fair as a social institution, examine its social and organizational activities. We consider the historical aspects of the fair appearance and functioning in the urban culture space. The social aspects of the fair are determined in many ways by the material world peculiarities which fill the fair space. Social, cultural senses and meanings are enclosed in the fair things and the fair itself is some kind of a language of culture. Communicative function of the fair is significant, it manifests itself in the creation of a communicative space, which includes communication, information exchange, self-realization, self-representation. A cultural and historical analysis of the fair social aspects led to several conclusions. Firstly, modern fairs are aimed at the preservation and reproduction of traditional culture. Secondly, such events contribute to the formation of new economic and social and cultural communication platforms. Such events as the fair fill the urban space with art, creative life, and allow urban culture to develop. The fair contributes to the renewal and dynamics of urban space. It preserves and complements the traditional sphere of cultural heritage.

Organizational and economic mechanisms of preventizing the impact of climate change on urborural territories

The impact of climate change on the territory and population is only increasing every year. Extreme weather events are expected to be repetitive and difficult to predict. New research shows that the effects of global warming are felt in large cities, at least twice as strong as in rural areas. That is why taking the necessary precautionary measures becomes an urgent task. The key, according to researchers, is adaptation and prevention. The authors of the article, analyzing the prerequisites and consequences of climate change, propose a scheme of organizational and economic mechanisms to counteract climate change in complex urban environments. Long-term goals include reducing urban heat islands through urban planning and climate-friendly home design to create a conducive, non-air-conditioned environment. In order to maximize the effectiveness of such adaptation measures, active multidisciplinary collaboration is required with the involvement of professionals in many industries. The assessment of the impact of climate change on the environment and human health has identified a number of gaps in knowledge and problems in the implementation of appropriate health measures. The article substantiates the relevance of climate change research in Ukraine. In addition, the main results of the research on population safety in the global climate change are summarized. Factors of the impact of global climate change on the environment, man, society, economy and complex agglomerations are highlighted. The consequences of climate change of natural, economic and social nature are presented. Directions and measures to adapt natural and socio-economic systems to global climate change are substantiated. The classification of the mechanisms of counteraction and mitigation of the negative effects of global climate change is given.

Assessing the changing urban sound environment during the COVID-19 lockdown period using short-term acoustic measurements

AbstractThe implementation of lockdown measures due to the COVID-19 outbreak has resulted in wide-ranging social and environmental implications. Among the environmental impacts is a decrease in urban noise levels which has so far been observed at the city scale via noise mapping efforts conducted through the framework of the Environmental Noise Directive. This study aims to understand how lockdown measures have manifested at a local level to better determine how the person-level experience of the urban soundscape has been affected and how these affects differ across urban space typologies. Taking London as a case study, a series of 30-second binaural recordings were taken at 11 locations representing a cross-section of urban public spaces with varying compositions of sound sources during Spring 2019 (pre-lockdown, N = 620) and Spring 2020 (during-lockdown, N = 481). Five acoustic and psychoacoustic metrics (LAeq,LA10,LA90, Loudness, Sharpness) were calculated for each recording and their changes from the pre-lockdown scenario to the lockdown scenario are investigated. Clustering analysis was performed which grouped the locations into 3 types of urban settings based on their acoustic characteristics. An average reduction of 5.4 dB (LAeq) was observed, however significant differences in the degree of reduction were found across the locations, ranging from a 10.7 dB to a 1.2 dB reduction. This study confirms the general reduction in noise levels due to the nationally imposed lockdown measures, identifies trends which vary depending on the urban context and discusses the implications for the limits of urban noise reduction.

Using multiple hybrid spatial design network analysis to predict longitudinal effect of a major city centre redevelopment on pedestrian flows

Predicting how changes to the urban environment layout will affect the spatial distribution of pedestrian flows is important for environmental, social and economic sustainability. We present longitudinal evaluation of a model of the effect of urban environmental layout change in a city centre (Cardiff 2007–2010), on pedestrian flows. Our model can be classed as regression based direct demand using Multiple Hybrid Spatial Design Network Analysis (MH-sDNA) assignment, which bridges the gap between direct demand models, facility-based activity estimation and spatial network analysis (which can also be conceived as a pedestrian route assignment based direct demand model). Multiple theoretical flows are computed based on retail floor area: everywhere to shops, shop to shop, railway stations to shops and parking to shops. Route assignment, in contrast to the usual approach of shortest path only, is based on a hybrid of shortest path and least directional change (most direct) with a degree of randomization. The calibration process determines a suitable balance of theoretical flows to best match observed pedestrian flows, using generalized cross-validation to prevent overfit. Validation shows that the model successfully predicts the effect of layout change on flows of up to approx. 8000 pedestrians per hour based on counts spanning a 1 km2 city centre, calibrated on 2007 data and validated to 2010 and 2011. This is the first time, to our knowledge, that a pedestrian flow model with assignment has been evaluated for its ability to forecast the effect of urban layout changes over time.

Museum as an element of multicultural space

The purpose of the article is to show that museum having been one of the first establishments for a long time, became a multicultural space. The author describes the main stages of the museum spaces’ development and points out the cultural and social processes that influenced the functional composition throughout the whole history. The comparison of modern museum and proto-museum institutions is given, common features that stay unchanged and perform practically as a core of its’ functioning are highlighted. Moreover, the links between museum typology and ongoing processes in society are demonstrated and grounded. The article stresses out the museum spaces’ multicultural features and the way how urban environment changes in its turn, being influenced by it as a culture-forming establishment.

Cultural models of and for urban sustainability: assessing beliefs about Green-Win

Green-Win is the proposal where that government, society, and business can all reap benefits while at the same time playing a vital role in the transition to sustainable development and lower carbon futures. We argue that, while the Green-Win proposition is central to many state and expert models of sustainability transitions, as a construction, it belies more complex trade-offs and cognitive models of sustainability and societal transitions. Cultural models are cognitive representations shared by a community which provide both models of the world, which aid in interpreting what is in the world, how it works, what is possible (or not) and why, and models for the world, which suggest how to act in it to bring about desired outcomes (cf. Geertz 1973). We surveyed 225 respondents in Shanghai, China, Istanbul, Turkey, and Beirut, Lebanon to assess their basic beliefs about sustainability, specifically whether it is possible to implement concrete practices that realize environmental sustainability goals in conjunction with economic development—the Green-Win proposition. We found important similarities and differences among urban stakeholders’ cultural models of sustainable development. For example, Chinese and Lebanese respondents displayed a strong belief that economic growth and environmental sustainability are compatible, while Turkish respondents showed significant disagreement with this proposition. We argue that such basic notions about the possibility of Green-Win opportunities between environmental sustainability and economic development are important to understand in the context of mitigating and adapting to climate change in critical urban environments. Cultural models of and for green development may either enable or inhibit transformations in urban systems according to local conditions. Finally, we discuss the potential implications of cultural models’ research for targeting communications and engendering collaborations among diverse stakeholders in order to align perspectives and overcome barriers that may otherwise limit successful visioning, planning, and implementation for transformation towards sustainable development.

Participative Placemaking in Serbia: The Use of the Limitless GIS Application in Increasing the Sustainability of Universal Urban Design

The 20th century brought about major social challenges related to civil and human rights, triggering changes in urban environments and gradually adjusting the spatial and functional performances of cities to the needs of all users. In this article, the concept of Universal Urban Design (i.e., “Design for All”) is regarded as a sustainable placemaking process which enables the higher accessibility and usability of cities for all people, regardless of their age or (dis)abilities. The pilot project “Creating Accessible Pedestrian Corridors by the Limitless GIS Application” conduced in Serbia from 2017 to 2019 by the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Belgrade and the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Limitless proposes an innovative approach to urban design. Based on information and communication technology (ICT) adaptation, it is focused on the alternative concept-design of buildings, provision of ICT-based infrastructure, socioeconomic integration of all users, and ultimately on overall urban sustainability. The main outcome of the project was the development of a Geographic Information System (GIS) android application and an e-platform for adaptive placemaking. The project also provides a set of accessibility criteria based on Universal Urban Design, criteria that enable the mapping of locations based on the type of use, a set of recommendations for identified problems, as well as a brief analysis of the latest technological solutions for overcoming detected physical barriers. The Limitless GIS android application differs from the existing ones since it primarily identifies two target groups: (1) people with disabilities who could upload necessary data by established criteria; and (2) employees in the public sector (city authorities and municipalities) in charge of planning alternative routes and setting priorities and investment costs based on the identified problems. Pilot results of the project have revealed that in the current Serbian practice, there is still a lack of planned, consistent and continuous movement routes in urban areas. Terrain configuration represents a serious limitation for people with disabilities, while lifting platforms are recognized as a better solution than ramps (both for paraplegics and quadriplegics), due to their higher efficiency and minimized spatial requirements. Therefore, the android application and e-platform presented in this article contribute to the detection of actual problems at the local level as well as to the overall improvement of planning/design practice in Serbian cities.

Urban Impervious Surface Detection From Remote Sensing Images: A review of the methods and challenges

Urban impervious surface (UIS) offers potentially valuable information for the development of sustainable urban management strategies and environmental change monitoring actions. In this article, we focus on UIS-detection-related issues, identify and analyze systematic challenges, construct a general processing scheme for UIS detection, provide four categories of major methods, and propose a deep compressive-based convolutional deep belief network (dc-CDBN) method and a novel classification strategy for multisource data fusion models.