Sustainable Urban Development Planning Research Articles

Refining Long-Time Series of Urban Built-Up-Area Extraction Based on Night-Time Light—A Case Study of the Dongting Lake Area in China

By studying the development law of urbanization, the problems of disorderly expansion and resource wastage in urban built-up areas can be effectively avoided, which is crucial for the long-term sustainable development of cities. This study proposes a high-precision urban built-up-area extraction method for county-level cities for small and medium-sized towns in county-level regions. Our process is based on the Defense Meteorological Satellite/Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) and the NASA/NOAA Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which develops long-term series of coordinated night-time light (NTL) datasets. We then combined this with the Normalized Vegetation Index (NDVI) to calculate the Vegetation-Adjusted NTL Urban Index (VANUI). We combine land use data and a support vector machine (SVM) for semi-supervised classification learning to propose a high-precision urban built-up-area extraction method for county-level cities. We achieved the following results: (1) we fit binary polynomials to the DMSP/OLS and VIIRS NTL datasets based on the correspondence of the mean values to construct a consistent time series of NTL data. (2) Our method effectively improves the accuracy of urban built-up-area extraction, especially for county-level cities, with an overall accuracy of 91.84% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.83. (3) Our method can perform a long-time series of urban built-up-area extraction, and, by studying the spatial and temporal changes in urban built-up areas, it can provide valuable information for sustainable urban development and urban planning.

Refining Long-Time Series of Urban Built-Up-Area Extraction Based on Night-Time Light—A Case Study of the Dongting Lake Area in China

By studying the development law of urbanization, the problems of disorderly expansion and resource wastage in urban built-up areas can be effectively avoided, which is crucial for the long-term sustainable development of cities. This study proposes a high-precision urban built-up-area extraction method for county-level cities for small and medium-sized towns in county-level regions. Our process is based on the Defense Meteorological Satellite/Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) and the NASA/NOAA Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which develops long-term series of coordinated night-time light (NTL) datasets. We then combined this with the Normalized Vegetation Index (NDVI) to calculate the Vegetation-Adjusted NTL Urban Index (VANUI). We combine land use data and a support vector machine (SVM) for semi-supervised classification learning to propose a high-precision urban built-up-area extraction method for county-level cities. We achieved the following results: (1) we fit binary polynomials to the DMSP/OLS and VIIRS NTL datasets based on the correspondence of the mean values to construct a consistent time series of NTL data. (2) Our method effectively improves the accuracy of urban built-up-area extraction, especially for county-level cities, with an overall accuracy of 91.84% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.83. (3) Our method can perform a long-time series of urban built-up-area extraction, and, by studying the spatial and temporal changes in urban built-up areas, it can provide valuable information for sustainable urban development and urban planning.

Sustainable development in Mekong Delta, Vietnam: designing resilient cities based on landscape ecological principles

ABSTRACT Mekong Delta cities are increasingly degrading as a result of urbanization, flood control, and climate change. These cities are increasingly vulnerable to flooding, and current flood control measures are not only inappropriate but also exacerbate the impacts of climate change and urbanization. A flood-resilient city is a solution; however, applying this idea to the actual urban environment through exposure to flood risk is not effective for long-term, sustainable development. This research evaluates landscape structure, changes in land use, and changes in economic, social, and cultural structure, thereby proposing rules for sustainable urban development planning. In addition, this research also suggests a comprehensive functional space plan for Cao Lanh City. This city plays a role as a case study that helps clarify the proposed rules for sustainable urban development planning for Mekong Delta cities in Vietnam.

Ontological foundations of urban health policy ideas: the case of planning Sydney’s Western Parkland City

ABSTRACT This case study examines the ontological backgrounds of urban health policy ideas in planning the Western Parkland City, a large-scale regional development project in Sydney, Australia. Using an empirical approach, the study identifies seven key urban health policy ideas and analyses the nature of these ideas using urban health ontological frameworks. The dominant ontological paradigms appear as the medical-industrial and urban health science paradigms with strong alignment with the sustainable urban development and healthy urban planning research traditions. Additionally, the dominant ideas adopt a view of systems that is complicated more than complex, favour change driven by structure rather than agency, and involve perspectives that transcend across multiple scales. These findings highlight the importance of recognising the influence of paradigms in shaping policies and the need for transdisciplinary approach to policymaking.

An integrated approach for examining urban fragmentation in metropolitan areas: Implications for sustainable urban planning

Urban fragmentation is generally regarded as a strong urban structural polarisation that is closely related to sustainability, yet a comprehensive understanding of the management of different fragmentation scenarios and their causes is still lacking. The Wuhan metropolitan area, as a rapidly urbanising region, shows clear evidence of different forms of urban fragmentation due to rapid urbanisation and spatial differentiation in pedestrian network structure, neighbourhood residential pattern and land use structure. In this study, an integrated framework for examining the fragmentation of dynamic and complex metropolitan areas, is proposed. The results indicate that the 49 highly fragmented sub-districts are distributed with large gated communities, industrial parks, green spaces and rivers/lakes. The fragmentation forms of the Wuhan metropolitan area include morphological, connectional and functional (variety and conflict) fragmentation, which constitute six scenarios. The geographical detector model manifests that urban fragmentation is the result of natural, socio–economic and construction factors. The increase in spatial debris driven by housing prices (q = 0.334), gross domestic product (q = 0.282), population density (q = 0.359), constructive index (q = 0.292) and road density (q = 0.314) has dramatically affected spatial organisation co–evolution. Additionally, there are synergistic enhancement effects between each pair of driving factors, i.e., bivariate or nonlinear interaction strengthens the impact of each other factor on the index of urban fragmentation. The strongest bivariate interaction is between housing prices and constructive index, with a value of 0.503. The largest nonlinear interaction is between constructive index and industrial index, with a value of 0.487. These interactions all further exacerbate urban fragmentation. These findings not only contribute to an integrated methodological framework, but also provide scientific implications for the purpose of sustainable urban development and cleaner production planning.

A cold island connectivity and network perspective to mitigate the urban heat island effect

Many studies have proposed strategies to mitigate the urban heat island effect from the perspective of landscape patches, yet few studies have mitigated the urban heat island effect from the perspective of cold island connectivity and network. This study proposes a new method (Combined cooling pattern) to connect cold islands: surface (Cooling sources) - line (Networks)- point (Cooling spaces, heating spaces). Initially, the cooling sources are identified by the morphological spatial pattern analysis method and connectivity analysis. Then, to enhance the connectivity of the cooling sources, we applied circuit theory to construct the cooling network and identify the critical nodes. Finally, three levels of cooling strategies are developed. Taking Wuhan as an example, the results show that 27 cooling sources, 58 cooling corridors, 69 cooling spaces and 26 heating spaces are identified. A regional cooling network should be constructed to mitigate the urban heat island effect, and effective cooling measures should be implemented in key node areas. The method adopted can provide new ideas for sustainable urban development and urban climate adaptation planning.

Supply-demand measurement and spatial allocation of Sponge facilities for Sponge city construction

Sponge City Construction (SCC) has been extensively explored for controlling frequent urban waterlogging and non-point source pollution. Assessing the “supply” and “demand” of SCC as a city-wide approach may aid in appropriate areal coverage to achieve optimal performance on flood control based on local priorities and sustainable urban development plans. However, to date, very few studies have examined the potential spatial mismatches in the “supply” and “demand” of SCC. This study presented the development of a framework to explore the supply–demand relationship based on a spatial multi-criteria evaluation of the existing SCC facilities, risk exposure, and socio-economic vulnerability. The feasibility and application of such a framework were successfully demonstrated in a field application in Guangzhou, China. The results indicated that most of the high-density areas in the city centres of Guangzhou were exposed to high risk with strong SCC demands. Furthermore, Liwan and Yuexiu districts exhibited SCC supply deficits, while SCC supply surpluses were observed in other central districts in Guangzhou. The findings of this study provided insight into the development of a generalised and replicable method that could be used to achieve a balance between the “supply” and “demand” of SCC for more participatory, strategic and multifunctional planning of SCC in various urban contexts.

High-resolution circa-2020 map of urban lakes in China

Urban lakes provide important ecological services to local communities, such as flood mitigation, biodiversity, and recreation. With rapid urbanization, urban lakes are significantly affected by socio-economic development and urgently need attention. Yet there is still a lack of datasets that include tiny urban lakes on a global or national scale. This study aims to produce a high-resolution circa-2020 map of urban lakes (≥0.001 km2) in China. The 10-m-resolution Sentinel-2 imagery and a simple but robust water extraction method was used to generate waterbodies. The accuracy of this national-scale dataset was evaluated by comparing it with manually sampled urban units, with the average accuracy of 81.85% in area and 93.35% in count. The database totally inventories 1.11 × 106 urban lakes in China, with a net area of ~2.13 × 103 km2. Overall, the spatial distribution of urban lakes in China showed strongly heterogeneous characteristics. This dataset will enhance our understanding of the distribution pattern of China’s urban lakes and contribute to better ecological and environmental management as well as sustainable urban development planning.

A Study on the Dynamic Relationship between Landscape Information and Heat Island Intensity of Urban Growth Patterns—A Case of Five Cities in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei City Cluster

Urban heat islands (UHIs) endanger the health of urban residents. Different urban growth patterns (UGPs) have different effects on heat islands. However, the dynamic relationship between UGP landscape information and urban surface heat island intensity (SUHII) remains unclear. This study explored the dynamic relationship between SUHII and UGP landscape information through spatial regression and landscape pattern analysis using Landsat imagery and urban construction land data from five cities in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei urban agglomeration from 2010 to 2018. The results show that SUHII increase areas overlap with expansion patches, and the edge expansion and outlying areas show a warming effect. The influence of the edge expansion landscape area and pattern on SUHII changes is greater than the other two growth patterns. The relationship between UGPs’ landscape information and SUHII changes varies among cities. The larger the city size, the stronger the influence of landscape information. Among the landscape patterns, the influence of the landscape area and pattern on SUHII change is large and the influence of landscape fragmentation is smaller. Exploring the dynamic relationship between UGP landscape information and SUHII is conducive to optimizing the spatial layout and pattern selection of urban development and providing a scientific reference for sustainable and livable urban development planning.

Urban Sprawl or Urban Development? Peri-Urbanism in Metropolitan Areas of Amhara Region, Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, rapid urbanization has been transforming land-use regimes as cities regenerate and expand, incorporating peri-urban spaces and changing their physical and human landscapes. This study explores the challenges and opportunities of this transformation on peri-urban spaces in the Amhara National Regional State (ANRS) to inform future urban development planning and practice. It focuses on selected peri-urban areas in three metropolitan areas of ANRS —Bahir Dar, Dessie, and Gondar. It employs a phenomenological approach to interpreting data collected through focus group discussion, key-informant and in-depth interviews and observation. Its findings depict these peri-urban spaces rife with poor governance, tenure insecurity, livelihood crises, youth marginalization, and environmental pollution while opportunities were limited, unsustainable, and parochial. It concludes with remarks on the characteristic experiences of urban expansion and the need for effective involvement of stakeholders and residents to enable inclusive and sustainable urban development planning and implementation in peri-urban spaces.

Spatio-Temporal Evolution and Driving Mechanism of Urbanization in Small Cities: Case Study from Guangxi

Urbanization has an abundant connotation in dimensions such as population, economy, land, and society and is an important sign to measure regional economic development and social progress. The use of Night Light Data from remote sensing satellites as a proxy variable can significantly improve the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the measurement of urbanization development dynamics. Based on the Night Light Data and statistical data from 2015 to 2019, this paper quantitatively analyzes the spatio-temporal evolution pattern of urbanization in Guangxi and its driving mechanism using exploratory time-space data analysis, GeoDetector and Matrix: Boston Consulting Group, providing an important basis for sustainable urban development planning and scientific decision-making by the government. The findings show that (1) there is a high level of spatial heterogeneity and spatial autocorrelation of urbanization in Guangxi, with the Gini index of urban night light index and urban night light expansion vitality index always greater than 0.5, the global Moran’s I greater than 0.17, the spatial differentiation converging but the spatial correlation increasing. (2) The spatial pattern of urbanization in Guangxi has long been solidified, but there is a differentiation in urban development trend, with the coexistence of urban expansion and shrinkage, requiring differentiated policy design for urban governance. (3) The development and evolution of urbanization in Guangxi present a complex intertwined dynamic mechanism of action, with interaction effects of bifactor enhancement and non-linear enhancement among factors. It should be noted that the influence of factors varies greatly, with the added value of the tertiary industry, gross domestic product, total retail sales of social consumer goods having the strongest direct effect on the urban night light index, while the added value of secondary industry, per capita GDP, gross domestic product having the strongest direct effect on the urban night light expansion vitality index. All of them are key factors, followed by some significant influence factors such as government revenue, population urbanization rate, per government revenue, population urbanization rate, per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents that should not be ignored, and the rest that play indirect roles mainly by interaction.

SÜRDÜRÜLEBİLİR YAŞAMA YÖNELİK DAVRANIŞ VE TUTUMLARI MİMARLIK FAKÜLTESİ ÖĞRENCİLERİ ÜZERİNDEN OKUMAK

Objective: It created a sustainable urban culture with common behaviour patterns in the relationship between humans and natural and artificial environments. Therefore, it is essential to raise awareness about social responsibilities to protect the ecosystem. The study focuses on understanding the factors that determine the awareness, environmentalist attitudes and behaviours of students at the faculty of architecture towards sustainable living. Method: "Exploratory Factor Analysis" was conducted to determine the construct validity of the scale of attitudes and behaviors towards sustainable living and to reveal its factor structure. Spearman-Brown correlation analysis was applied to determine the scale's relationship and sub-dimensions. Mann-Whitney Test and Kruskal-Wallis Test were conducted to determine whether there was a significant difference between the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants and the factors. Findings: It was determined that the components of the SAB scale are "environmental awareness", "environmental behaviors" and "technocentric attitude". There was a significant difference between the gender and their environmental awareness and behaviour scores, while there was no significant difference between their technocentric attitude score averages. Conclusion: It was determined that students' environmental awareness affects their environmental behaviors and sustainable living. It is crucial for creating sustainable urban development planning.

REUSE OF IMMOVABLE CULTURAL HERITAGE SITES WITH ADAPTIVE ELEMENTS AS A WAY OF PRESERVATION AND PROMOTION

cultural heritage. Cultural heritage is an exclusive and irreplaceable property and source, and its preservation, as well as its use, must be considered within a process of sustainable urban development planning, creating all the boundaries connected with its use in order to transfer this treasure to future generations in a way that preserves its authenticity. Although, since ancient times, the built environments have changed their purpose to fit modern social needs in a rather pragmatic way. The use of immovable cultural heritage for contemporary purposes, or its renovation and adaptation, today presents a great challenge for architects, urban planners, and relevant protection authorities. The application of technical protection measures on cultural heritage built environment can guarantee their conservation with a limited lifetime, but for long-term existence and ensuring protection it is more satisfactory if they have some modern socially justified use. One of the models of restoration and adaptation of immovable cultural heritage is the model of adaptive reuse, also known as renovation or conversion. The model implies a functional transformation of a building or group of buildings through the adaptation of its inherited physical construction. Based on the assumption that the main purpose of adaptive reuse of immovable cultural heritage is its regeneration and adaptation, as well as creating of a positive reputation, economic growth and promotion of a site, , this article considers the effects and benefits of new purposes that have been reached in the process of adaptation of the inherited built environment through analysis of three European fortifications - Hohenwerfen (Austria), Liubliana Castle (Slovenia) and Carcassona (France). In addition, the paper discusses preventive conservation methods for the restoration and adaptation of this type of properties and heritage in Germany.
 Today, the building of the Residence of Bukovinian and Dalmatian Metropolitans in Chernivtsi is used as the main building of Chernivtsi National University named by Yuriy Fedkovich. So, the model of reusing has been practicing her since 1875. But the building didn’t need any adaptation or intervention after its original destination. But after including the building of Residence into the UNESCO World Heritage List, some reorganization issues, connected with tourist infrastructure, became especially relevant. Therefore, study the positive European experience is actual for such type of heritage, where this adaptation process is extremely necessary.

Mikroapartments in Deutschland – eine Analyse räumlicher Implikationen von Mikroapartmentanlagen

Sustainable urban development requires the sustainable development of the housing sector. The Commission for Sustainable Building at the German Environment Agency, for example, recommends a reduction in per capita living space and developing sufficient floor plan designs. In this sense, microapartments are of particular relevance. Aside from climate change mitigation and resource efficiency, there are other challenges to sustainable urban spaces which have to be considered. To this end, this paper researches micro-apartments in the context of sustainable urban development planning. As a conceptual framework, the approach of a more spaceoriented housing research is tested. A possible revitalisation of urban niches is identified as the main potential of microapartment complexes. However, we find micro-apartments do not contribute to affordable housing for students, who are a main target group of micro-apartments. Further research on whether tenants of micro-apartments are increasingly outsourcing housing-related activities is needed, so that the socio-spatial implications of micro-apartments can be better understood.

Walkability as the key element of urban planning within the Healthy Cities concept (systematic review)

The purpose of the study. The purpose of this work is the exploration and generalization of scientific researches on walkability to determine its advantages as an element of public policy in human-centered cities. Over the past fifty years, the world community has actively discussed the issue of healthy and sustainable urban development planning, which has gained particular relevance with the recent World Health Organization publication of the “Healthy Cities: An Effective Approach to a Rapidly Changing World” concept (2020). One of the Healthy Cities approach goals is to promote healthy urban planning and design centered on human well-being (unlike prevalent in the past vehicle orientation), and the main component of such planning is pedestrianization or walkability. The systematic reviews and meta-analyses reporting method (PRISMA) were used in the review. The search was carried out in the bibliographic databases Elibrary, PubMed, MEDLINE, Scopus, Google Scholar. The study of the structure, types, and relationship between pedestrianization and the type of urban planning revealed the global advantages of creating walkable areas, such as maintaining the physical, mental and social health of citizens, increasing social capital, and improving the city’s ecological and economic atmosphere. Conclusion. Thus the promoting walkability was concluded to be a public policy as a relatively simple and highly effective way to benefit in the short, medium, and long term. This fact ultimately makes pedestrianization one of the most important tools for healthy urban planning and design.

Urban expansion simulation towards low-carbon development: A case study of Wuhan, China

Rapid urbanization causes great changes of carbon metabolism. Current research mainly focuses on carbon consequences of urban expansion projections, but rarely explores how carbon management strategies affect future urban growth trajectories. Here, we propose a hierarchy of low-carbon management strategies and incorporate it into an integrated cellular automata model to obtain sustainable urban development plans. In the hierarchy, a top-down strategy regarding carbon emission reduction is used to adjust future urban land demand, while a bottom-up strategy regarding carbon sequestration conservation of land patches is used to constrain land use conversions. We design four expansion scenarios based on different combinations of the two low-carbon strategies for Wuhan in 2025, including business as usual (BAU), the scenario with top-town strategy (T-UES), the scenario with bottom-up strategy (B-UES), and the scenario with both two strategies (TB-UES). Our results demonstrate that the proposed method can generate promising urban expansion plans with less ecological loss, and promote compact and infilling urban development.

The impact of urban form on building energy and cost efficiency in temperate-humid zones

As residential buildings and urban areas account for a significant proportion of overall energy consumption, priority should be assigned to this dimension of housing and urban design solutions. This study developed an analytical framework to support coherent decision making in the early design stage regarding the impacts of different urban configurations odn building energy- and cost-efficiency. In line with this goal, a performance-oriented parametric simulation method was used to assess urban forms in relation to the principles of early design stage exploration and iteration. Using 120 urban forms developed for Istanbul as a temperate-humid climate, the study analysed the effect levels of urban (i.e., building height to street width [H/W ratio] and orientation) and building (i.e., typology, plan type and no. of floors) design parameters. The effect of each alternative on building performance was determined by calculating annual total energy consumption (heating, cooling and lighting), energy-related CO2 emissions, and life cycle costs. The results indicated that building height and H/W ratio played a more significant role than orientation in the energy and economic performance of the residential building used here in three urban forms (rectangular pavilion, rectangular slab and square pavilion). Additionally, to enhance guidance for the control of building performance in terms of energy and cost efficiency, the study results were presented comparatively to facilitate constructive and quantitative feedback. This approach bridges an existing gap by synthesising best practices for decision makers based on multiple performance objectives and solution spaces, contributing to more comprehensive understanding and awareness and, consequently, to more sustainable urban development planning.

Why isn’t urban development sustainable?

Despite the rise to prominence of sustainable planning, the state of urgency and the pressure imposed by the extreme competition between metropolitan territories reduces sustainability to a market-oriented doctrine for deregulated urban development. The aim of this article is an exploration of the current Athenian urban crisis, by centring on sustainable urban development plans, territorial planning institutions, and urban policies. To this end, the phenomenon of urban crisis is explained as a derivative of the failure of sustainability reforms. By establishing a link between the institutional framework governing urban development and the success or failure of sustainability reforms, this article seeks to contribute to the discussion around the attainability, scope and impact of sustainable urban development plans. Through the hypothesis that as long as territorial planning is used as means towards speculative urban development, it will only be equivalent to that of a real estate facilitating mechanism, it is argued that the urban development model of Athens, as well as the role that institutions have in its shaping, is incompatible with any notion of sustainability. The main contribution of this article is to potentially help towards developing a critical reflection on how projects, plans, territories and sustainability should be approached.

The impacts of land use and cover changes on ecosystem services value in urban highland areas

Land use and cover (LUC) changes are one of the main factors in global environmental change. It directly affects the welfare of society through changes in environmental conditions, such as land degradation and ecosystem services value (ESV). These ecosystem services have a large impact on quality of life in urban areas in the highlands, such as the region of Takengon, and must be addressed in land use planning. The purpose of this study is to identify the impact of LUC on ESV in 2009 and 2014.Both LUC maps divided into four categories, namely built-up area, water body, forest, and non built-up area, using the ArcGIS®10.1, with a supervised classification. Furthermore, an assessment of several environmental service variables was carried out, namely gas regulation, water supply, waste treatment, food production, raw material, and recreation. The classification results show that the LUC2009 and LUC 2014 were dominated by forests, with 10,064 ha of forest in 2009 and 8,959 ha of forest in 2014. The decrease in forest area from 2009 to 2014 also reduced the ESV by 12.33%. The government needs to consider landscape conservation and sustainable urban development planning.

Urban sanitation in Nigeria: the past, current and future status of access, policies and institutions.

Though rated among the largest economies in sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria is currently grappling with enormous socio-economic challenges such as high poverty rate, power and water supply shortages, large-scale unemployment ratio, economic recession and underperforming agricultural sector. Judging by the scale of urgent political and economic importance, urban sanitation definitely ranks low among the government's priorities. No wonder political slogans and manifestos of political parties feature provision of water supply while sanitation is conspicuously usually omitted. This is suggestive of the opinion that having not critically understood the status, challenges and opportunities associated with sanitation in the country's urban areas might be partly responsible for this. Thus, the current work presents a detailed review of the past, current and future status of urban sanitation in Nigeria in terms of access coverage, policies, institutions and future challenges and opportunities. The past status was difficult to evaluate because of the absence of data and unclear definitions of the term 'sanitation'. The current status shows among other findings that water supply issues receive domineering attention than sanitation, mainly due to merging together of discussions, policies and implementation of the two issues together. In cases where sanitation crops up in the agenda, rural areas are favored more than the urban areas. This pattern is also common in the literature. But the future of urban sanitation in Nigeria is double-edged depending on actions or inactions of the government and other stakeholders. The study further makes recommendations for - balanced and sustainable urban development planning, restructuring of land and housing policies and creation of enabling market environment that could trigger a viable sanitation industry - as the way forward.