New Trends in Urban Spatial Planning and Sustainable Development

Dear Colleagues,

The urban area is the pivotal place for human socio-economic activities, occupying less than 2.4% of the world's area but inhabiting more than half of the world's population. While the rapid urbanization process promotes economic development and improves the quality of human life, it also brings a series of environmental problems (such as landscape fragmentation, biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, extreme climate, greenhouse effect and environmental pollution, etc.), objectively exacerbating ecological risks. Urban sustainable development and public health are therefore facing severe challenges. Urban spatial planning is an effective tool to deal with environment and public health crises in the process of urbanization. A comprehensive understanding of the process mechanism, driving force and evolution trend of the above problems and their relationship with urbanization is a necessary prerequisite for scientific and rational urban spatial planning to ensure sustainable development. Since 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic has continued to hit public health and socioeconomic development around the world. It reflects the vulnerability of human society in coping with sudden disasters. In the context of the normalization of the epidemic, the layout and optimization of urban space through planning are urgently needed to ensure regional as well as global sustainable development in the post-epidemic era. This Special Issue focuses on the latest research progress related to urban spatial planning and sustainable development, such as new theories, new methods and new models, etc. Both original papers and review papers are encouraged for submission. Potential research topics include, but are not limited to, the following: (1) Urbanization process and global environmental change; (2) Evolution of ecosystem structure, functions and services during urban expansion; (3) Urban spatial planning under the carbon neutrality goals; (4) Prevention and control of urban environmental pollution (including water, air, soil pollution and degradation, etc.); (5) Land use land cover change (including urban expansion, urban sprawl) processes and the driving mechanism; (6) Regional ecological risk prevention and control and reconstruction of ecological security pattern; (7) Urban spatial planning in the post-epidemic era (including emergency shelters, spatial allocation of medical resources and services, etc.).

Dr. Wei Wu
Guest Editor

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