This paper examines the interactions between planning systems, legal frameworks and green infrastructure (GI) assets in informal settlements by analysing the case of Amirieh, Iran. It seeks to address gaps in the literature by examining how, despite the importance of promoting sustainable development in informal urban contexts, planning dynamics may contribute to the degradation of GI in rapidly urbanising areas. Using a qualitative research approach, the paper demonstrates how laws intended to protect green areas can actually accelerate their erosion in an environment of perverse incentives and weak institutions. It highlights how the neglect of public environmental benefits in favour of capital development can exacerbate existing social inequalities in an informal settlement. • This paper illustrates how formal legal plans and the Acts designed to conserve Agricultural and garden lands, jointly accelerate the loss of Amirieh’s gardens to housing, through formalisation degrading GI. • Advances a push–pull explanatory framework: political-institutional “pull” (short tenures, visible-project bias, entrepreneurial municipal finance, legal loopholes) versus environmental/financial “push” (drought, water scarcity, rising costs, falling yields) driving GI loss. • Fills a documented lacuna in urban greening scholarship by analysing how formal frameworks undermine GI specifically in an informal-settlement context, extending Global South evidence. • Empirically substantiated through 37 interviews, structured field observation, and multi-scalar plan review with thematic analysis and triangulation. • Identifies socio-environmental consequences, loss of ecosystem services, livelihoods and cultural identity, and pathways to environmental injustice/green gentrification, worsening heat, flooding and air-quality risks.

The dynamics of sponge city parks: Integrated stormwater management and urban parks in shanghai

Upgrading of Gray and Green Infrastructure optimized combination: Synergistic decision tools under resilience demand and investment constraints.

From red tape to red infrastructure—Insights from urban flood risk management practitioners in four US cities

Are local authority green infrastructure strategies in England addressing climate and environmental risks to public health? A policy review

The changing landscape of concrete bridge infrastructure health monitoring and informed maintenance strategies: A decade of developments and trends

Green stormwater infrastructure and perception of the neighborhood social environment in Philadelphia 2010–2018

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Assessing environmental vulnerability of renewable energy infrastructure to dust storm hazards in arid regions: A case study of Iran

Engineering a resilient smart grid: Practical defense mechanisms and deployable framework against evolving cyber-threats

Development and application of photovoltaic noise barrier system for sustainable transportation infrastructures from a life cycle carbon perspective

Voltage profile improvement in the current northern power grid of Bangladesh: A techno-economic comparison of compensation strategies

Assessing green infrastructure in boreal forests using the Siberian jay (Perisoreus infaustus) as an umbrella species

Public preferences for urban trees and funding: Evidence from a discrete choice experiment in Islamabad

Assessing long-term urban ecological quality using the remote sensing ecological index: A case study of the Klang River Basin, Malaysia

FlowsDT: A geospatial digital twin for navigating urban flood dynamics

Advanced imaging core facilities are critical pillars of modern life sciences research, providing access to complex technologies, specialised expertise, and training. At the heart of these facilities are Imaging Scientists, whose work spans technology development, operations, training, data stewardship, and community coordination. Despite their central role, Imaging Scientists have rarely been the focus of coordinated funding at scale. Here, we evaluate the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Imaging Scientist program-to our knowledge, one of the first large-scale efforts to support this workforce-through an anonymous survey and selected case profiles across diverse institutional, technical, and geographic contexts. Survey responses highlight the program's value in enabling structurally underfunded activities such as technology integration, scalable training, leadership, and community building. By abstracting across cases, we identify recurring impact themes, showing how support for Imaging Scientists strengthens core facility foundations, accelerates adoption of new technologies, and fosters national and international networks. These findings illustrate that investing in Imaging Scientists generates measurable scientific-, institutional-, and community-level returns, complementing technology-focused funding and maximising the impact of research investments.

A central challenge in achieving sustainable urban transformation is reducing the environmental impact of existing buildings, many of which were not designed to meet today’s sustainability standards. While integrating green infrastructure into new construction is increasingly feasible, retrofitting older structures presents significant technical and spatial constraints. We address this challenge by developing a proof-of-concept for integrating modular flat-panel photobioreactors into existing urban buildings. Photobioreactors cultivate photoautotrophic microorganisms that fix atmospheric CO 2 through photosynthesis, producing oxygen and biomass. We constructed a window-integrated prototype ( 124 × 85 cm) and installed it directly into a standard window frame at the Biology Building, RWTH Aachen University, Germany, without major structural modifications. Window integration offers distinct advantages over facade-mounted systems for retrofit applications which include elimination of structural reinforcements and reduced visual impact on building envelope, as existing structural openings can be used, and stable operating temperatures due to the integration with climate-controlled building interiors. Two sequential cultivation trials using Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 (5-day window-installed and 20-day stand-alone tests) demonstrated biological activity while revealing critical technical barriers that must be addressed for continuous operation. This proof-of-concept successfully demonstrates the feasibility of window-integrated PBRs for building retrofit applications and establishes a research pathway for system optimization toward practical deployment.

Despite the potential of Green-Adaptive Green Infrastructure (GAGI) to increase the provision of ecosystem services, and to mitigate urban climate risks while maintaining biodiversity, there is a critical research gap in the empirical identification of the context specific factors in developing nations. Therefore, this study examine the critical barriers, drivers and potential strategies to optimize GAGI by employing satellite imagery and survey data of 1232 respondents from Pakistan. The research rationale stems from the need to align urban expansion with ecosystem resilience. By employing remote sensing techniques on satellite imagery data, land use land cover analysis highlights the significant urban expansion in the study area. For the empirical analysis, a deep learning-based hybrid structural equation modeling-artificial neural network analysis was used to capture linear and complex non-linear relationships. Findings reveal that integrated urban transformation, socioeconomic equity, governance, and infrastructural barriers were critical barriers to implementing GAGI. Among the drivers, economic development and innovation, environmental sustainability, and infrastructure integration and efficiency are the main drivers of GAGI implementation. Moreover, education and R&D support, GAGI incentives, government standards and regulations, publicity programs, and awareness are the potential strategies for implementing GAGI in Pakistan. Specifically, sensitivity analysis of artificial neural network identifies governance and infrastructural barriers, economic development and innovation, and incentives towards GAGI as the most influencing factors. The study highlights the need for GAGI and provides a reference for decision-making on GAGI implementation and landscape transformation in response to extreme climate changes.

Organizational perspectives on barriers and facilitators to an integrated care model for opioid use disorder and serious injection-related infections.