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Land
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The Second Edition: Urban Planning Pathways to Carbon Neutrality
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The Second Edition: Urban Planning Pathways to Carbon Neutrality

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Land–Climate Interactions".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 August 2025 | Viewed by 4116

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Yan Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Interests: low-carbon land use; urban carbon metabolism; ecological environment and safety assessment of land; land use management and planning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce a Special Issue of Land titled “The Second Edition: Urban Planning Pathways to Carbon Neutrality”.

Carbon emissions have been recognized as the greatest known contributor to global climate change, and the goal of carbon neutrality has been proposed in an effort to slow global warming. Approximately 75% of global carbon emissions are generated in urban areas, which encompass only 2% of the world’s land territory. However, studying urban carbon emissions can provide important ideas for low-carbon urban development and carbon neutrality. Urban spatial planning is an important tool for the construction of national spatial governance systems and ecological civilizations. Its comprehensive planning and control can help to enhance ecological carbon sink and peak carbon emissions in many areas, such as industry, transportation, energy, and architecture, and to build carbon-neutral cities on the basis of both carbon emission reduction and carbon sink increase. Therefore, carbon-neutral city construction can make use of urban spatial planning, integrate low-carbon planning concepts and carbon emission control measures into the planning, accurately identify and manage energy carbon emission projects, promote urban production and life carbon peak, and increase the “green carbon sink” and “blue carbon sink”.

In this Special Issue, we are interested in contributions that link urban planning pathways to carbon neutrality, through either empirical research or conceptual/theoretical works, examining key processes including (but not limited to) the following:

  • Urban land use change and carbon emissions;
  • Urban spatial layout optimization and carbon neutrality;
  • Green transportation systems and carbon neutrality;
  • Urban carbon metabolism;
  • Urban ecosystems and carbon sequestration;
  • Low-carbon energy infrastructure construction;
  • Industrial transformation and low-carbon technology.

Prof. Dr. Yan Li
Guest Editor

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. Land 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 2600 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 spatial planning
  • carbon emission
  • carbon neutrality
  • spatial layout optimization
  • green transportation systems
  • green infrastructure

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Related Special Issue

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

29 pages, 20770 KiB  
Article
Enhancing Spatial Allocation of Pediatric Medical Facilities for Reduced Travel-Related CO2 Emissions: A Case Study in Tianjin, China
by Hongjie Dong, He Zhang, Rui Wang, Yutong Zhang, Yuxue Zhang and Lisha Zhang
Land 2025, 14(1), 71; https://doi.org/10.3390/land14010071 - 2 Jan 2025
Viewed by 464
Abstract
Due to the limited availability of medical facilities and the urgency and irreplaceability of medical-seeking behaviors, the transportation processes used to access these resources inherently result in high carbon emissions. Unfortunately, pediatric medical facilities are among the least substitutable destinations, making it challenging [...] Read more.
Due to the limited availability of medical facilities and the urgency and irreplaceability of medical-seeking behaviors, the transportation processes used to access these resources inherently result in high carbon emissions. Unfortunately, pediatric medical facilities are among the least substitutable destinations, making it challenging to reduce travel-related CO2 emissions by traditional means such as decreasing travel frequency or optimizing transportation means. This study proposes enhancing the spatial allocation of pediatric medical facilities to effectively reduce travel-related CO2 emissions. This study selects 27 hospitals with pediatric departments in Tianjin as the research subject. It introduces a model for measuring travel-related CO2 emissions for pediatric medical-seeking, STIRPAT, and ridge regression models as well as conducts simulations under various scenarios to test the hypotheses. Therefore, methods for enhancing the spatial allocation of pediatric medical facilities are proposed. The results show that (1) travel-related CO2 emissions for pediatric medical-seeking are the highest in the city center, outpatient-related CO2 emissions surpass inpatient ones, and children’s hospital-related CO2 emissions are higher than those related to comprehensive hospitals, from which potential carbon reduction points can be explored; (2) children’s hospitals with multibranch and composite functional allocations can significantly reduce CO2 emissions; (3) comprehensive hospitals can further alleviate CO2 emissions from children’s hospitals by enhancing the medical level, transportation infrastructure, population distribution, and other spatial environmental factors; (4) from the perspective of low-carbon travel and equity, a spatial allocation strategy should be adopted for children’s hospitals that includes multiple branches and composite functions, while comprehensive hospitals should focus on service capacity, parity, supply–demand ratio, and the population density of children. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Second Edition: Urban Planning Pathways to Carbon Neutrality)
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21 pages, 3255 KiB  
Article
How Does Urban Scale Influence Carbon Emissions?
by Jiayu Yang, Xinhui Feng, Yan Li, Congying He, Shiyi Wang and Feng Li
Land 2024, 13(8), 1254; https://doi.org/10.3390/land13081254 - 9 Aug 2024
Viewed by 1140
Abstract
Low-carbon cities aim to minimize greenhouse gas emissions in the context of climate change in the process of urbanization. Maintaining these cities at an appropriate physical scale has been proven to contribute to carbon reduction. Therefore, this study extended the definition of the [...] Read more.
Low-carbon cities aim to minimize greenhouse gas emissions in the context of climate change in the process of urbanization. Maintaining these cities at an appropriate physical scale has been proven to contribute to carbon reduction. Therefore, this study extended the definition of the city scale to an integrated framework with three dimensions: the construction land area, population, and economy. The urban construction land of 258 cities in China during 2012 to 2019 was divided into commercial, industrial, residential, and traffic sectors, and carbon emissions were calculated for each. The regression relationship between carbon emissions and the urban scale revealed by panel data analysis showed the following conclusions: (1) carbon emissions were concentrated in north China, provincial capital cities, and municipalities directly under the central government during the research period, and the industrial sector was the main emission resource, accounting for more than 85% of the total emissions. (2) Carbon emissions per unit of land decreased with the increasing land scale, regardless of the land-use type. The growth rate of carbon emissions was slower than that of the population, and cities also became more efficient as their economic scale expanded. (3) Compared with small cities, the large ones benefited more from increasing commercial and traffic land areas, whereas industrial emissions for production needs exhibited significant agglomeration characteristics. Overall, low-carbon planning should focus on the driving role of provincial capital cities as large cities tend to be more efficient, and develop the emission reduction potential of major industrial cities as well. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Second Edition: Urban Planning Pathways to Carbon Neutrality)
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19 pages, 6615 KiB  
Article
Development Strategy Based on Combination Typologies of Building Carbon Emissions and Urban Vibrancy—A Multi-Sourced Data-Driven Approach in Beijing, China
by Jingyi Xia, Jiali Wang and Yuan Lai
Land 2024, 13(7), 1062; https://doi.org/10.3390/land13071062 - 16 Jul 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1651
Abstract
When confronting the dual challenges of rapid urbanization and climate change, although extensive research has investigated the factors influencing urban carbon emissions and the practical strategies regarding urban vibrancy, the unclear mutual nexus between them and the development strategy for collaborative optimization requires [...] Read more.
When confronting the dual challenges of rapid urbanization and climate change, although extensive research has investigated the factors influencing urban carbon emissions and the practical strategies regarding urban vibrancy, the unclear mutual nexus between them and the development strategy for collaborative optimization requires further in-depth analysis. This study explores the delicate balance between urban vibrancy and low-carbon sustainability within the confines of Beijing’s Fifth Ring Road. By integrating OpenStreetMap, land use, population, and buildings’ carbon emission data, we have developed a reproducible method to estimate total carbon emissions and emission intensity. Furthermore, we have introduced vibrancy index data to distinguish the vibrancy evaluation of residential and non-residential land and applied cross-combinational classification technology to dissect the spatial correlation between urban carbon emissions and urban vibrancy. The results reveal that the four combination typologies show more significant differences and regularity in residential land. Based on the discovery of spatial correlation, this study puts forward corresponding development strategy suggestions for each of these four typologies based on the geographical location and requirements of urban development policies. In conclusion, our study highlights the importance of integrating carbon emissions and urban vibrancy comprehensively in sustainable urban planning and proposes that various land use combinations need targeted development strategies to achieve this goal, which need to consider population, energy, service facilities, and other diverse aspects. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Second Edition: Urban Planning Pathways to Carbon Neutrality)
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