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Advances in Urban Spatial Planning and Carbon Emission

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A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Science and Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (7 April 2023) | Viewed by 15160

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Qianxin Wang

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Guest Editor

School of Environment and Spatial Informatics, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China
Interests: remote sensing; geographic information science; urban spatial planning

Prof. Dr. Xiaoping Liu

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Guest Editor

School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Interests: geographic information science; urban spatial planning; spatial modeling and analysis

Prof. Dr. Honghui Zhang

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Guest Editor

The Key Laboratory of Carbon Neutrality and Territory Optimization, Ministry of Natural Resources, Beijing 100036, China
Interests: geographic information science; urban spatial planning; land use change and carbon

Dr. Guohua Hu

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Guest Editor

School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China
Interests: geographic information science; urban sustainability; land use change modeling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Global warming represents a significant and increasingly more serious challenge for humanity and the planet. The global average surface temperature increased by about 0.85 °C from 1880 to 2012, and the main factor was the emission of human-made greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide represents the largest amount of greenhouse gases and has the greatest impact on the environment. Fundamentally, carbon dioxide is a byproduct of economic activity. Since the majority of economic activity happens in an urban setting, measures should be implemented to build a low-carbon city. Urban spatial planning is an efficient way to reduce urban carbon emissions and realize carbon neutrality. This Special Issue seeks to publish papers (original research and reviews) that report associations and findings on how the urban spatial pattern has influenced carbon emission and how to build a low-carbon city by urban spatial planning. In addition, papers on how to monitor and calculate urban carbon emissions by remote sensing, the Internet of Things, and simulation and analysis of urban carbon emission by Artificial Intelligence and Geographic Information System technology are welcomed.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Urban planning for carbon neutrality;
Transportation and energy consumption;
Urban carbon emission monitoring and calculation;
Simulation and analysis of urban carbon dynamics;
Carbon sources and carbon sinks in urban and rural areas;
Policies and optimization path of carbon neutrality;
Green building and low-carbon city;
Land use/cover change and carbon emission.

Prof. Dr. Qianxin Wang
Prof. Dr. Xiaoping Liu
Prof. Dr. Honghui Zhang
Dr. Guohua Hu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

urban planning
low-carbon city
energy consumption
greenhouse gas
carbon emission
carbon neutrality
carbon footprint
carbon sources
carbon sinks

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 1621 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Impact of Location-Based Tax Incentives and Carbon Emission Intensity: Evidence from China’s Western Development Strategy

by Yufeng Wang, Shijun Zhang and Luyao Zhang

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(3), 2669; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032669 - 2 Feb 2023

Viewed by 1141

Abstract

This study seeks to address the question of whether China’s Western Development Strategy (WDS) has affected the carbon emission intensity of the regions it covers. There remains a distinct lack of analysis based on the normative causal inference method regarding the impact of this economic development policy on carbon emissions. Our research contributes to the large body of international literature studying the effects of place-based policy and has implications for place-based policies regarding the impact of carbon emissions. It constructs a duopoly model to illustrate the relationship between lower prices of capital (caused by policies such as tax reduction) and carbon emissions. Using county-level data on both sides of the provincial boundary of the WDS from 1998 to 2007, and applying the difference-in-differences method, our results indicate that the WDS has significantly increased carbon emission intensity of the western counties. Our findings also indicate that while the WDS has had no significant positive effect on counties’ economic growth, no policy trap effect was found. There is also no evidence suggesting that the economic activities attributable to the WDS have brought any negative externalities of carbon emissions to the counties east of the western provincial border. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Urban Spatial Planning and Carbon Emission)

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22 pages, 4650 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Relationship between Spatial Characteristics of Urban-Rural Settlements and Carbon Emissions in Guangdong Province

by Liya Yang, Honghui Zhang, Xinqi Liao, Haiqi Wang, Yong Bian, Geng Liu and Weiling Luo

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(3), 2659; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032659 - 1 Feb 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1549

Abstract

As containers of human activities, both urban and rural built-up settlements play roles in the increment of regional GHG emissions. This study investigates the relationship between the spatial characteristics of different urban-rural settlements and carbon emissions in Guangdong province, China. After estimating the carbon emissions of 21 cities in Guangdong province from 2005 to 2020, this paper constructs a panel regression model based on the STIPRAT model to identify the impact of different types of urban-rural settlements on carbon emissions with controlling socioeconomic factors. The results show that the increase in high-density urban areas and low-density rural built-up areas have a significant positive correlation with carbon emissions. Moreover, the impact of rural built-up settlements is stronger than urban areas. In addition, our results indicate that carbon emission has little correlation with the spatial landscape pattern. This study highlights the importance of rural built-up settlements for understanding regional carbon emissions. Local governments should not only focus on the reduction of carbon emissions in the large urban agglomerations but also need to make a plan for the small and medium-sized towns that are dominated by industries. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Urban Spatial Planning and Carbon Emission)

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16 pages, 3204 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Impact of Rationalization and Upgrading of Industrial Structure on Carbon Emissions in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration

by Runde Gu, Chunfa Li, Dongdong Li, Yangyang Yang and Shan Gu

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(13), 7997; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137997 - 29 Jun 2022

Cited by 51 | Viewed by 3354

Abstract

Carbon dioxide mainly comes from industrial economic activities. Industrial structure optimization is an effective way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This paper uses the panel data of 13 cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration from 2006 to 2019, uses the Theil index to calculate the industrial structure rationalization index, and uses the proportion of industrial added value to calculate the industrial structure upgrade index. By constructing the STIRPAT model, this paper quantitatively analyzes the impact of industrial structure rationalization and upgrade on carbon emissions. The results show that the rationalization and upgrading of industrial structure in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration significantly inhibit carbon emissions. Compared with the rationalization of the industrial structure, the upgrading of industrial structure in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration has a better effect on carbon emission reduction. For the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, government expenditure on science and technology can promote the upgrading of industrial structure to a certain extent, thereby reducing carbon emissions. There is a big gap between the industrial structure development level of Hebei province and that of Beijing and Tianjin. Finally, based on the conclusion, this paper puts forward the policy enlightenment of promoting the optimization process of industrial structure and reducing carbon emissions of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Urban Spatial Planning and Carbon Emission)

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22 pages, 9256 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Mapping Building-Based Spatiotemporal Distributions of Carbon Dioxide Emission: A Case Study in England

by Yue Zheng, Jinpei Ou, Guangzhao Chen, Xinxin Wu and Xiaoping Liu

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(10), 5986; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19105986 - 14 May 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2115

Abstract

The spatiotemporal inventory of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from the building sector is significant for formulating regional and global warming mitigation policies. Previous studies have attempted to use energy consumption models associated with field investigations to estimate CO₂ emissions from buildings at local scales, or they used spatial proxies to downscale emission sources from large geographic units to grid cells for larger scales. However, mapping the spatiotemporal distributions of CO₂ emissions on a large scale based on buildings remains challenging. Hence, we conducted a case study in England in 2015, wherein we developed linear regression models to analyze monthly CO₂ emissions at the building scale by integrating the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, building data, and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite night-time lights images. The results showed that the proposed model that considered building data and night-time light imagery achieved the best fit. Fine-scale spatial heterogeneity was observed in the distributions of building-based CO₂ emissions compared to grid-based emission maps. In addition, we observed seasonal differences in CO₂ emissions. Specifically, buildings emitted significantly more CO₂ in winter than in summer in England. We believe our results have great potential for use in carbon neutrality policy making and climate monitoring. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Urban Spatial Planning and Carbon Emission)

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18 pages, 3064 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

The Effect of Urban Shrinkage on Carbon Dioxide Emissions Efficiency in Northeast China

by Tianyi Zeng, Hong Jin, Zhifei Geng, Zihang Kang and Zichen Zhang

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(9), 5772; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19095772 - 9 May 2022

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2484

Abstract

Climate change caused by CO₂ emissions is a controversial topic in today’s society; improving CO₂ emission efficiency (CEE) is an important way to reduce carbon emissions. While studies have often focused on areas with high carbon and large economies, the areas with persistent contraction have been neglected. These regions do not have high carbon emissions, but are facing a continuous decline in energy efficiency; therefore, it is of great relevance to explore the impact and mechanisms of CO₂ emission efficiency in shrinking areas or shrinking cities. This paper uses a super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) model to measure the CO₂ emission efficiency and potential CO₂ emission reduction (PCR) of 33 prefecture-level cities in northeast China from 2006 to 2019. For the first time, a Tobit model is used to analyze the factors influencing CEE, using the level of urban shrinkage as the core variable, with socio-economic indicators and urban construction indicators as control variables, while the mediating effect model is applied to identify the transmission mechanism of urban shrinkage. The results show that the CEE index of cities in northeast China is decreasing by 1.75% per annum. For every 1% increase in urban shrinkage, CEE decreased by approximately 2.1458%, with urban shrinkage, industrial structure, and expansion intensity index (EII) being the main factors influencing CEE. At the same time, urban shrinkage has a further dampening effect on CEE by reducing research and development expenditure (R&D) and urban compactness (COMP), with each 1% increase in urban shrinkage reducing R&D and COMP by approximately 0.534% and 1.233%, respectively. This can be improved by making full use of the available built-up space, increasing urban density, and promoting investment in research. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Urban Spatial Planning and Carbon Emission)

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18 pages, 16660 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Exploring the Effects of Roadside Vegetation on the Urban Thermal Environment Using Street View Images

by Bin Li, Hanfa Xing, Duanguang Cao, Guang Yang and Huanxue Zhang

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(3), 1272; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031272 - 24 Jan 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3263

Abstract

Roadsides are important urban public spaces where residents are in direct contact with the thermal environment. Understanding the effects of different vegetation types on the roadside thermal environment has been an important aspect of recent urban research. Although previous studies have shown that the thermal environment is related to the type and configuration of vegetation, remote sensing-based technology is not applicable for extracting different vegetation types at the roadside scale. The rapid development and usage of street view data provide a way to solve this problem, as street view data have a unique pedestrian perspective. In this study, we explored the effects of different roadside vegetation types on land surface temperatures (LSTs) using street view images. First, the grasses–shrubs–trees (GST) ratios were extracted from 19,596 street view images using semantic segmentation technology, while LST and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values were extracted from Landsat-8 images using the radiation transfer equation algorithm. Second, the effects of different vegetation types on roadside LSTs were explored based on geographically weighted regression (GWR), and the different performances of the analyses using remotely sensed images and street view images were discussed. The results indicate that GST vegetation has different cooling effects in different spaces, with a fitting value of 0.835 determined using GWR. Among these spaces, the areas with a significant cooling effect provided by grass are mainly located in the core commercial area of Futian District, which is densely populated by people and vehicles; the areas with a significant cooling effect provided by shrubs are mainly located in the industrial park in the south, which has the highest industrial heat emissions; the areas with a significant cooling effect provided by trees are mainly located in the core area of Futian, which is densely populated by roads and buildings. These are also the areas with the most severe heat island effect in Futian. This study expands our understanding of the relationship between roadside vegetation and the urban thermal environment, and has scientific significance for the planning and guiding of urban thermal environment regulation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Urban Spatial Planning and Carbon Emission)

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