Special Issue "Urban Resilience and Urban Sustainability under Climate Change"

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Contexts and Urban-Rural Interactions".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 March 2023) | Viewed by 4651

Special Issue Editors

Industrial Engineering Research Group, Polytechnic University of Cartagena, 30202 Cartagena, Spain
Interests: urban sustainability; urban mobility; urban logistics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The concept of resilience is gaining increasing attention in various fields related to cities and climate change. Although there is some disagreement among different sources on defining and measuring resilience, there is broad consensus that:

  • Cities must be resilient to a wide range of shocks and stresses in the face of climate change; and
  • Efforts to foster resilience to climate change must be coupled with efforts to promote urban development and sustainability.

Emerging issues for future studies should highlight some of the challenges associated with the practical application of resilience approaches. These challenges include addressing the equity issues associated with uneven patterns of resilience both within and between cities, assessing the costs of implementing resilience strategies, and identifying options for harnessing the potential for innovation in cities as a means of fostering resilience and sustainability.

Urban sustainability specifies that efforts in this new framework must respond to the mobility of citizens, individually and collectively, within and between cities, as well as the needs for the movement of goods; it will require, among other things, serious changes in the business models: vehicle autonomy, crowdsourced logistics, and urban micro-consolidation centers. In many urban models, crowdsourcing jobs are already common, giving uncertainty in the available workforce and their behavior.

  • Papers focused on defining and measuring urban resilience and climate change;
  • Papers focused on urban sustainability and climate change;
  • Urban use of resources across to urban resilience and sustainability;
  • Urban citizen movement and urban resilience and sustainability;
  • Urban freight movement and urban resilience and sustainability;
  • Urban commons, community organizations and the “third sector” as factors in “smart city” concepts (e.g., for demand management) and resilience.

Prof. Dr. Lorenzo Ros-McDonnell
Dr. Nir Y. Krakauer
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. 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 2200 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 resilience
  • urban sustainability
  • climate change
  • urban use of resources (water, electricity, etc.)
  • urban citizens and freight movements
  • responsive government and resilience

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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Article
Towards Rural Resilience: Assessing Future Spatial Urban Expansion and Population Growth in Quito as a Measure of Resilience
Land 2023, 12(2), 335; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12020335 - 26 Jan 2023
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Abstract
The urban and rural areas of the Metropolitan District of Quito (DMQ) have experienced an aggressive urbanization process in the last two decades, which in many cases has changed the most appropriate land use as determined by the local government. This problem is [...] Read more.
The urban and rural areas of the Metropolitan District of Quito (DMQ) have experienced an aggressive urbanization process in the last two decades, which in many cases has changed the most appropriate land use as determined by the local government. This problem is exacerbated by poor land use planning in a city that is growing in an uncontrolled and disorderly manner toward rural areas, as well as by the accelerated growth of rural localities. This article contributes and analyzes: (1) the geographic projections of the next 50 years for urban settlements and buildings in the rural areas of the DMQ using geographic artificial intelligence techniques (cellular automata); (2) a composite index of resilience (CIR) is constructed for each rural parish of the DMQ, adapted to the characteristics and conditions of the territory for which five dimensions with equal weights, the ecological footprint, and the size of each parish were considered; finally, (3) the change in CIR is determined based on the projections of spatial urban expansion and population growth for the next 50 years. According to the results, urbanization definitely has a negative impact on CIR, although it was found that in parishes with declining population growth CIR increases. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Resilience and Urban Sustainability under Climate Change)
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Article
The Objectivization of the Living Green Walls Concept as a Tool for Urban Greening (Case Study: LIKO-S a.s., Slavkov u Brna, Czech Republic)
Land 2023, 12(1), 229; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12010229 - 11 Jan 2023
Viewed by 488
Abstract
The improvement of human well-being and the urban environment in cities and towns around the world will always be at the forefront of our interests. After all, the resilience of the urban environment to climate change is very important now. For example, the [...] Read more.
The improvement of human well-being and the urban environment in cities and towns around the world will always be at the forefront of our interests. After all, the resilience of the urban environment to climate change is very important now. For example, the residents’ well-being can be improved in terms of environmental aspects. The opportunities for improving the urban environment are, of course, closely interconnected with other aspects, i.e., economic, technical and social. One of the ways to increase the resilience of cities is by progressive urban greening with small urban greenery elements. Exterior green walls are attractive, often used in urban areas, and are also the key issue of our paper. They represent at first sight (concerning their usual size) only a small instrument, but they can have a significant environmental, techno-economic and socio-cultural impact. Potential stakeholders may not be aware of this consequence. Our research focuses not only on a model exterior green wall (LIKO-S a.s., Czech Republic), where selected environmental aspects were measured for one year to confirm or deny the cooling effect of the exterior green wall on the surrounding environment, but also to objectify the issue of green walls. We also present proposals for tools that consider other aspects (technical-economic and socio-economic aspects): objectivization-decision scheme and guided interview for stakeholders’ motivation. These tools can serve future stakeholders in the pre-implementation phase of the intended exterior green wall. Objectivization of exterior green walls is the main goal of the present paper. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Resilience and Urban Sustainability under Climate Change)
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Article
The Effect of Urban Resilience on Residents’ Subjective Happiness: Evidence from China
Land 2022, 11(11), 1896; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11111896 - 25 Oct 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 832
Abstract
This study aims to analyze the role of urban resilience in residents’ subjective happiness in China. Results show that the overall urban resilience is a critical factor in improving residents’ subjective happiness, and each sub-class resilience index of cities in the ecological, social, [...] Read more.
This study aims to analyze the role of urban resilience in residents’ subjective happiness in China. Results show that the overall urban resilience is a critical factor in improving residents’ subjective happiness, and each sub-class resilience index of cities in the ecological, social, infrastructure, and economic aspects shows positive and significant correlations with residents’ subjective happiness. Heterogeneous results show that the effect of urban resilience is greater for residents with higher education or living in cities with larger population size. The mechanism results show that four possible channels are confirmed. The rise of urban resilience raises residents’ subjective happiness through increasing residents’ income or consumption, improving their health status, and raising their social trust or social integration. The main conclusion drawn from the empirical analysis is that raising urban resilience is an effective strategy to strengthen residents’ subjective happiness. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Resilience and Urban Sustainability under Climate Change)
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Article
Assessing Urban Resilience from the Perspective of Scaling Law: Evidence from Chinese Cities
Land 2022, 11(10), 1803; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11101803 - 14 Oct 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 835
Abstract
Urban resilience, as an emerging research focus in urban studies, is the capability of an urban system to adapt to the uncertainties and disturbances faced by modern cities. Numerical characterization of an urban system’s resilience can be performed with urban resilience indicators. Moreover, [...] Read more.
Urban resilience, as an emerging research focus in urban studies, is the capability of an urban system to adapt to the uncertainties and disturbances faced by modern cities. Numerical characterization of an urban system’s resilience can be performed with urban resilience indicators. Moreover, as cities evolve with intensive socio-economic interactions, the performances of urban indicators are heavily dependent on the scale of these interactions; these relationships are conceptualized as urban scaling laws. Therefore, this study explores the scaling patterns of urban resilience, analyzing the scaling relationship between different resilience indicators and urban population size, as well as the spatial–temporal evolutions of the scaling patterns. The empirical case is based on 267 prefectural-level cities in China. The results show resilience indicators demonstrate scaling patterns on both spatial and temporal scales. Moreover, the scale-adjusted metropolitan indicator (SAMI) differs from the commonly used per capita indicator. Therefore, the scale needs to be considered when assessing urban resilience performance. Findings in this study indicate that moderate scale enhances resilience, enriching urban resilience theorization and urban scaling laws application. The empirical results in the case study also provide a reference for future urban resilience planning and management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Resilience and Urban Sustainability under Climate Change)
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Review

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Review
From Garden City to 15-Minute City: A Historical Perspective and Critical Assessment
Land 2023, 12(2), 512; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12020512 - 20 Feb 2023
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Abstract
The 15-minute city concept was introduced as a post-COVID strategy to support more sustainable recovery from the pandemic and develop complete, climate-sensitive, and resilient neighborhoods. This review examines key neighborhood planning movements to identify the origins of the 15-minute city concept. These include [...] Read more.
The 15-minute city concept was introduced as a post-COVID strategy to support more sustainable recovery from the pandemic and develop complete, climate-sensitive, and resilient neighborhoods. This review examines key neighborhood planning movements to identify the origins of the 15-minute city concept. These include the garden city, neighborhood unit plan, modernist urbanism, post-modern urbanism, and eco-urbanism, which have emerged since the late 19th century. The results of the study show that the concept of the 15-minute city has ten basic characteristics: proximity, density, diversity, mixed-use, modularity, adaptability, flexibility, human-scale design, connectivity, and digitalization. The concept has been successful in advancing theoretical debates on sustainable urbanism. However, some criticisms of past planning movements also apply to the 15-minute city. Similar to the neighborhood unit and modernist urbanism, the concept follows a philosophy of physical determinism, setting goals without specifying how or by what means they will be achieved. At this point, one can only speculate about the future of the concept. A more detailed study of the real-world applications of the concept is needed before one can thoroughly discuss its strengths and weaknesses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Resilience and Urban Sustainability under Climate Change)
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