Dear Colleagues,

Cities are important socio-spatial, socio-economic and socio-environmental components. They house urban and environmental spaces, which have gradually gained notoriety due to the number of phenomena that begin and/or are directed within and/or towards a city, making them a driving force in promoting strategies for sustainable development (de Andrade Guerra et al., 2017).

Nevertheless, in recent decades, cities have experienced several phenomena, mainly of a climatic nature, that have challenged various areas of the world. This, in turn, has prompted research studies aimed at combating the effects of such changes, an increasingly urgent item on the agenda of all countries, localities and cities (Singh and Chudasama, 2021). In this context, cities per se are gradually evidencing an increase in temperature and a measurable increase in the phenomenon of heat islands (Leal Filho et al., 2018), promoting thermal discomfort and a need to readapt the use of various areas within a city.

Parallel to the phenomenon of heat islands, in seeking to promote improvements in the comfort and rational use of spaces, cities have begun to promote new technological trends, exclusive services and diversified uses of urban space. In this context, these new trends, marked as the fourth industrial revolution, have heralded significant changes in the way of thinking and articulating services for urban spaces (Gonçalves et al., 2021). These dynamics and trends have significantly enhanced the changes in our way of living and using spaces while driving forced migrations to the further detriment of climate change (Berchin et al., 2017).

Considering these circumstances, it is important to point out the role of cities, especially in coping with endemic pandemics, such as the outbreak of COVID-19, and other types of phenomena  (Filho et al., 2020) that challenge various scientific fields to rethink the idea of healthy and sustainable cities in the current global context (Santa et al., 2021).

In this way, as holders of diversified urban spaces produced from dynamics related to local and social aspirations (Teixeira Dias et al., 2021), cities are responsible for promoting quality housing for humans that is in harmony with the natural environment of the space. This means proposing the idea of an ecological urbanism, which translates into a solution that seeks to minimize local and regional impacts in order to improve and adapt to the climate changes we face (Dekay and O'brien, 2001).

In aligning efforts to promote cities and communities towards a more sustainable and intelligent future, the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals have become a fundamental guideline and a starting point for conducting studies and research that can respond to the dynamics of urban space and climate change from the perspective for sustainable cities.

In view of the above, this Special Issue is focused on promoting ecologically balanced and sustainable urban spaces with the premise that cities are powerful starting points for climate change. Thus, the aim here is to gather and present advances and new perspectives from studies investigating urban spaces in the context of their ecological aspect and proposing a holistic and interdisciplinary view on strategies that collaborate with the dynamics of the ‘urban ecology - climate change’ issue. Thus, this edition welcomes articles covering relevant topics on (but not limited to) the following subjects:

1. Contemporary production of urban space and urban ecology;
2. Urban sustainability and sustainable development;
3. Green cities and gray cities and adaptations to climate change;
4. Urban services and their impacts on climate change;
5. Impacts of urban planning on the micro-climate and regional climate;
6. Urban policies and environmental policies for ecological cities;
7. Strategic trends for climate adaptations in urban spaces;
8. Methodological studies and proposals of socio-environmental analysis and diagnosis of urban spaces in the dynamics of change in local-regional temperature;
9. Dialogues between sustainability, health and city intelligence in response to climate change;
10. Spatial/global phenomena, geotechnologies and monitoring of urban spaces to improve temperature, climate and environment.

References

Berchin, I. I., Valduga, I. B., Garcia, J., & de Andrade Guerra, J. B. S. O. (2017). Climate change and forced migrations: An effort towards recognizing climate refugees. Geoforum, 84, 147–150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.06.022

Andrade Guerra, J. B. S. O., Pereira Ribeiro, J. M., Fernandez, F., Bailey, C., Barbosa, S. B., & da Silva Neiva, S. (2017). Reprint of: The adoption of strategies for sustainable cities: a comparative study between Newcastle and Florianópolis focused on urban mobility. Journal of Cleaner Production, 163, S209–S222. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JCLEPRO.2017.05.142

Dekay; O'brien, M. (2001). Gray City, Green City New thinking and new settlement patterns can bring about urban sustainability. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292939651_GRAY_CITY_GREEN_CITY_New_Thinking_and_New_Settlement_Patterns_Can_Bring_About_Urban_Sustainability

Filho, W. L., Brandli, L. L., Salvia, A. L., Rayman-Bacchus, L., & Platje, J. (2020). COVID-19 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Threat to Solidarity or an Opportunity? Sustainability 2020, Vol. 12, Page 5343, 12(13), 5343. https://doi.org/10.3390/SU12135343

Gonçalves, G. D. L., Filho, W. L., Neiva, S. da S., Deggau, A. B., Veras, M. de O., Ceci, F., de Lima, M. A., & Guerra, J. B. S. O. de A. (2021). The impacts of the fourth industrial revolution on smart and sustainable cities. Sustainability (Switzerland), 13(13). https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137165

Leal Filho, W., Echevarria Icaza, L., Neht, A., Klavins, M., & Morgan, E. A. (2018). Coping with the impacts of urban heat islands. A literature based study on understanding urban heat vulnerability and the need for resilience in cities in a global climate change context. Journal of Cleaner Production, 171, 1140–1149. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JCLEPRO.2017.10.086

Santa, S. L. B., Cremonezi, G. O. G., Soares, T. C., Deggau, A. B., & de Andrade Guerra, J. B. S. O. (2021). Healthy Sustainable Cities and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Sustainable Development Goals Perspective. Environmental Footprints and Eco-Design of Products and Processes, 141–167. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3860-2_6/COVER/

Singh, P. K., & Chudasama, H. (2021). Pathways for climate resilient development: Human well-being within a safe and just space in the 21st century. Global Environmental Change, 68, 102277. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.GLOENVCHA.2021.102277

Teixeira Dias, F., Marques Pereira, D., & Santos Clemente, C. M. (2021). THE URBANIZATION PROCESS AND SPACE PRODUCING AGENTS. Academy Letters. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1288

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. José Baltazar Salgueirinho Osório De Andrade Guerra
Prof. Dr. Walter Filho
Prof. Dr. Ana Regina Aguiar Dutra
Guest Editors

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• sustainable cities
• climate change
• urban ecology
• sustainable development
• urban planning
• urban policy