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Advancing Environmental Governance for Sustainable Urbanization
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Advancing Environmental Governance for Sustainable Urbanization

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 (10 October 2023) | Viewed by 6926

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Bing-Bing Zhou

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of International Affairs and Public Administration, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China
Interests: sustainability science; land system science; environmental governance; collective action; coupled rural-urban system; island and coastal areas
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Helen Zheng

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Planning and Environmental Management, School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
Interests: urban regeneration; urbanization in China; job-housing relationship; application of GIS and advanced quantitative methods in spatial planning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability has long been widely recognized as the theme of our time, with profound long-term global trends (aka “megatrends”) such as urbanization playing pivotal roles in affecting local, regional, national, and global sustainability. Urbanization is a complex social-environmental phenomenon typically involving a rise in the number, land area, and population size of urban settlements, often associated with positive aspects such as modern industries, advanced technology, and better quality of life, as well as many undesirable social-environmental outcomes like environmental degradation, resource depletion, and social segregation. At the core of sustainable urbanization, from a strong sustainability perspective, is the monitoring, assessment, balance, and governance of the multidimensional trade-offs of urbanization’s socio-economic-ecological impacts on a dynamic or periodic basis, while at the same time maintaining the critical bottom lines of environmental sustainability. To date, however, the rich bodies of literature about environmental governance and urban sustainability remain largely separated, leaving an unfortunate knowledge–action gap for promoting sustainable urbanization.

In the above context, we set up this Special Issue in hopes of producing actionable knowledge to advance environmental governance for sustainable urbanization. Note that sustainable urbanization involves not only the sustainability of cities at varying urbanization stages, but also that of some non-urban areas that are deeply coupled with the urban world. We particularly welcome studies that take social-institutional, social-political, or social-cultural perspectives—in addition to the conventional social-technical and social-ecological perspectives—of the various urbanization-associated environmental issues (e.g., air pollution, heat exposure, urban flooding, habitat fragmentation, and soil degradation). We invite submissions making empirical, methodological, theoretical, or conceptual contributions, and papers accepted to this Special Issue will be published as either articles or reviews. We would be more than happy to receive multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary research submissions.

Dr. Bing-Bing Zhou
Dr. Helen Zheng
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

  • sustainable urbanization
  • coupled rural–urban system
  • urban environment
  • built environment
  • urban infrastructure
  • green infrastructure
  • environmental governance
  • spatial planning
  • place-based policymaking
  • actionable knowledge

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 8587 KiB  
Article
The Roles of Carbon Trading System and Sustainable Energy Strategies in Reducing Carbon Emissions—An Empirical Study in China with Panel Data
by Yue Yu and Yishuang Xu
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(8), 5549; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20085549 - 17 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1791
Abstract
Carbon emission reduction is now a vital element in urban development. This study explores the effectiveness of the two emerging methods to reduce carbon emission, which are carbon emissions trading system (ETS) and sustainable energy strategy, in the process of urbanization. We review [...] Read more.
Carbon emission reduction is now a vital element in urban development. This study explores the effectiveness of the two emerging methods to reduce carbon emission, which are carbon emissions trading system (ETS) and sustainable energy strategy, in the process of urbanization. We review the policy in the past decades to demonstrate the development of these two streams of carbon emission reduction methods and empirically test the effectiveness of the two methods with panel data across 30 provinces in China from 2009 to 2019. The sustainable energy strategy is confirmed to be effective in reducing carbon emissions in the region, while the effectiveness of carbon emissions trading system varies. We find that (1) substituting fossil fuel with other sustainable energy resources can effectively reduce the carbon emission; (2) the rewards from carbon emissions trading is a good incentive for the enterprises to reduce the carbon emissions; however, it is more tempting in the provinces that have the carbon emissions trading system, although the trading can be conducted across the province boarder. Our findings indicate that the sustainable energy strategy is a good practice and worth expanding to the whole country. It can be difficult for some provinces to transform and adopt the sustainable energy strategy if the fossil fuel is the major source for economic production. It is important to avoid setting fossil fuel as the main source for economic production or household consumption in the urbanization process. Meanwhile the carbon emissions trading system is found to contribute to CO2 emissions reduction only within the province. Therefore, having more provinces piloting the ETS will help the CO2 emission reduction further. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancing Environmental Governance for Sustainable Urbanization)
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12 pages, 1694 KiB  
Article
Towards Sustainable Food Security through Regional Grain Supply and Demand Analysis in China
by Tian Hu, Zhengshan Ju and Xiaoyang Liu
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(4), 3434; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20043434 - 15 Feb 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1366
Abstract
As a vital part of sustainable development, food security is challenged by prolonged and concurrent pressures. Efforts have long been devoted to balance grain production across China as a whole, and thereby the uncertainties and underlying crisis in the regional grain-producing systems are [...] Read more.
As a vital part of sustainable development, food security is challenged by prolonged and concurrent pressures. Efforts have long been devoted to balance grain production across China as a whole, and thereby the uncertainties and underlying crisis in the regional grain-producing systems are hidden. In this study, we characterize the dynamic evolution of 357 cities and explore the dominant supply and demand effects to signal early warnings of grain insecurity. Our results show that 220 cities are in unsustainable grain supply–demand conditions in comparison with 10 years ago. Additionally, the south and southwest of China have experienced enlarged disparities and more severe grain insecurity. The dual effects from both increased population and decreased grain output are substantially responsible for the unsustainable grain-producing system on the city scale. Moreover, cities identified as having grain insecurity occupy high-quality cultivated land, including 55.4% of top-grade land, 49.8% of high-grade land, and only 28.9% of low-grade land. We consequently inform the incongruity between grain productivity and regional grain conditions. It is suggested that current intensive management of cultivation and the strategy of differentiated responsibilities in grain production should be based on environmental sustainability and a degree of self-sufficiency across the region. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancing Environmental Governance for Sustainable Urbanization)
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21 pages, 2208 KiB  
Article
Watershed Horizontal Ecological Compensation Policy and Green Ecological City Development: Spatial and Mechanism Assessment
by Xinwen Lin, Angathevar Baskaran and Yajie Zhang
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(3), 2679; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032679 - 2 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1491
Abstract
Green ecological development has become an inevitable choice to achieve sustainable urban development and carbon neutrality. This paper evaluates the level of green ecological city development in the Xin’an watershed as measured by green total factor productivity (GTFP), analyzes the direct [...] Read more.
Green ecological development has become an inevitable choice to achieve sustainable urban development and carbon neutrality. This paper evaluates the level of green ecological city development in the Xin’an watershed as measured by green total factor productivity (GTFP), analyzes the direct and spatial effects of the Watershed Horizontal Ecological Compensation policy on GTFP, and further examines the moderating effect of the Research and Development (R&D) incentives, industrial structure, and income gap. This paper conducts difference-in-differences (DID) and spatial regression analysis on 27 cities from 2007 to 2019. The results show that GTFP progresses to varying degrees across cities over time, especially in the pilot cities. Crucially, the Watershed Horizontal Ecological Compensation policy significantly improved GTFP, although the effect was slight. Interestingly, the increase in GTFP in pilot cities that implemented the policy spatially suppressed the increase in GTFP in cities that did not implement the policy. Our evidence also shows that the positive effect of the policy is higher in regions with higher R&D incentives and industrial structure upgrading, which indicates that R&D incentives and industrial upgrading are crucial. In comparison, the income gap has not made the expected negative adjustment effect under the Chinese government’s poverty alleviation policy. However, the positive policy effect is heterogeneous in the downstream and upstream pilot cities. The “forcing effect” of the policy on the downstream cities is more favorable than the “compensating effect” on the upstream cities. Therefore, policymakers should pay more attention to ensuring the effectiveness of the Watershed Horizontal Ecological Compensation policy in enhancing GTFP as a long-term strategy to guarantee the sustainability of green ecological development in Chinese cities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancing Environmental Governance for Sustainable Urbanization)
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26 pages, 3149 KiB  
Article
Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Ecological Vulnerability and Its Influencing Factors in Shenyang City of China: Based on SRP Model
by Hanlong Gu, Chongyang Huan and Fengjiao Yang
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(2), 1525; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20021525 - 14 Jan 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1686
Abstract
For Shenyang, the central city of Northeast China, its municipal-level Territorial Spatial Planning is of great significance to the whole of Northeast China. Territorial Spatial Planning is an essential carrier of China’s ecological civilization construction. The demarcation of “three districts and three lines” [...] Read more.
For Shenyang, the central city of Northeast China, its municipal-level Territorial Spatial Planning is of great significance to the whole of Northeast China. Territorial Spatial Planning is an essential carrier of China’s ecological civilization construction. The demarcation of “three districts and three lines” defines the scope of ecological protection areas, which is of guiding significance to the future development of ecological civilization construction. The regional ecological vulnerability assessment can provide reference for ecological pattern planning and the demarcation of ecological red lines in “three districts and three lines”. In order to explore the spatial distribution pattern of ecological vulnerability in Shenyang, predict the development trend of ecological vulnerability in the future and guide the construction of ecological civilization in Shenyang and provide certain basis for Shenyang’s Territorial Spatial Planning and the delineation of “three districts and three lines”. This paper based on the “sensitivity-resilience-pressure” model selected 13 indexes, to evaluate the ecological vulnerability of Shenyang from 2010 to 2020. Furthermore, the spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors of ecological vulnerability in Shenyang are summarized using spatial autocorrelation analysis and geographic detector model, and the future development trend of ecological vulnerability in Shenyang in 2025 is predicted by using CA-Markov model. The results show that: (1) In 2010, 2015 and 2020, the total area of slightly vulnerable areas in Shenyang was large, and the ecological vulnerability showed a gradually vulnerable spatial change trend from south to north and from west to east. (2) The results of geographical detectors show that normalized difference vegetation index, economic density and nighttime light intensity are the main driving factors of ecological vulnerability in Shenyang. (3) The forecast result of CA-Markov model is reliable. In 2025, the ecological vulnerability of Shenyang will be mainly light and extreme vulnerability areas, and the areas of light and extreme vulnerability areas will increase in 2025. The research results can provide some reference for the delineation of “three districts and three lines” and ecological protection in Shenyang’s Territorial Spatial Planning, and have certain significance for promoting regional sustainable development and balancing ecological protection and economic development. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancing Environmental Governance for Sustainable Urbanization)
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