Search Results (857)

Mexico City frequently experiences high near-surface ozone concentrations, and exposure to elevated near-surface ozone causes harmful effects to the inhabitants and the environment of Mexico City. This necessitates developing models for Mexico City that predict near-surface ozone levels in advance. Such models are crucial for regulatory procedures and can save a great deal of near-surface ozone detrimental effects by serving as early warning systems. We utilize three machine-learning models, trained on seven-year data (2015–2021) and tested on one-year data (2022), to forecast the near-surface ozone concentrations. The trained models predict the next day’s 24-h near-surface ozone concentrations for up to one month; before forecasting the following months, the models are trained again and updated. Based on prediction results, the convolutional neural network outperforms the rest of the models on a yearly scale with an index of agreement of 0.93 for three stations, 0.92 for nine stations, and 0.91 for one station. Full article

Urban transport is a key driver of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe, making its decarbonization essential to achieving EU climate neutrality targets. This study examines how European strategies, such as the Green Deal, the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy, and the Fit for 55 package, are reflected in Romania’s transport policies, with a focus on implementation challenges and urban outcomes in Bucharest. By combining policy analysis, stakeholder mapping, and comparative mobility indicators, the paper critically assesses Bucharest’s current reliance on private vehicles, underperforming public transport satisfaction, and limited progress on active mobility. The study develops a context-sensitive reform framework for the Romanian capital, grounded in transferable lessons from Western and Central European cities. It emphasizes coordinated metropolitan governance, public trust-building, phased car-restraint measures, and investment alignment as key levers. Rather than merely cataloguing policy intentions, the paper offers practical recommendations informed by systemic governance barriers and public attitudes. The findings will contribute to academic debates on urban mobility transitions in post-socialist cities and provide actionable insights for policymakers seeking to operationalize EU decarbonization goals at the metropolitan scale. Full article

How to promote sustainable development and deal with the actual development demands in economic transformation through land-use planning is crucial for local governments. The urban sustainable development mainly relies on creativity and talents in the digital era, and talents are increasingly attracted by local people-oriented land use. However, the current planning ideology remains at meeting corporate and people’s basic needs rather than specific needs of talents, especially the increasingly emerging digital creatives. To promote the talent agglomeration and sustainable development through land planning, this paper uses micro-celebrities on Bilibili, an influential creative content creation platform among young people in China, as an example to study the geographical distribution of digital creative talents and its relationship with urban amenities by constructing an index system of urban amenities, comprising natural, leisure, infrastructure, and social and institutional amenities. The concept of borrowed amenities is introduced to examine the effects of amenities of surrounding cities. This study demonstrates that micro-celebrities show a stronger preference for amenities compared with other skilled talents. Meanwhile, social and institutional amenities are most crucial. Furthermore, urban leisure represented by green spaces and consumption spaces is also attractive. At the regional scale, with prefecture-level cities as units, the local talents agglomeration is also influenced by the borrowed amenities in the context of regional integration. It indicates that the local land use should consider the characteristics of the surrounding cities. This study provides strategic inspiration that a happy and sustainable city should first be people-oriented and provide sufficient space for consumption, entertainment, and interaction. Full article

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the development, deployment and challenges of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITSs) in Europe. Driven by the EU Directive 2010/40/EU, the deployment of ITSs has become essential for improving the safety, efficiency and sustainability of transport. The study examines how ITS technologies, such as automation, real-time traffic data analytics and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication, have been integrated to improve urban mobility and road safety. In addition, it reviews significant European initiatives and case studies from several cities, which show visible improvements in reducing congestion, reducing CO₂ emissions and increasing the use of public transport. The paper highlights, despite progress, major obstacles to widespread adoption, such as technical interoperability, inadequate regulatory frameworks and insufficient data sharing between stakeholders. These issues prevent ITS applications from scaling up and functioning well in EU Member States. To overcome these problems, the study highlights the need for common standards and cooperation frameworks. The research analyses the laws, technological developments and socio-economic effects of ITSs. By promoting sustainable and inclusive mobility, ITSs can contribute to the European Green Deal and climate goals. Finally, the paper presents ITSs as a revolutionary solution for future European transport systems and offers suggestions to improve their interoperability, data governance and policy support. Full article

The European Union (EU) is striving to achieve its goal of being climate-neutral by 2050. Aligned with the European Green Deal and in search of means to decarbonize its urban environments, the EU advocates for smart positive energy districts (PEDs). PEDs contribute to the United Nations’ (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) of “Sustainable Cities and Communities”, “Affordable and Clean Energy”, and “Climate Action”. PEDs are urban neighborhoods that generate renewable energy to a higher extent than they consume, mainly through the utilization of innovative technologies and renewable energy sources. In accordance with the EU 2050 aim, the PED concept is attracting growing research interest. PEDs can transform existing energy systems and aid in achieving carbon neutrality and sustainable urban development. PED is a novel concept and its implementation is challenging. This study aims to present the emerging technologies enabling the proliferation of PEDs by identifying the main challenges and potential solutions to effective adoption and implementation of PEDs. This paper examines the importance and utilization of cyber-physical systems (CPSs), digital twins (DTs), artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, and blockchain technologies, which are all fundamental to the creation of PEDs for enhancing energy efficiency, sustainable energy, and user engagement. These systems combine physical infrastructure with digital technologies to create intelligent and autonomous systems to optimize energy production, distribution, and consumption, thus positively contributing to achieving smart and sustainable development. Full article

Sound source localization represents one of the major challenges for soundscapes due to the dynamicity of a large variety of signals. Many applications are found related to ecosystems to study the migration process of birds and animals other than other terrestrial environments to survey wildlife. Other applications on sound recording are supported by sensors to detect animal movement. This paper deals with the immersive 3D soundscape by using a multi-channel spherical microphone probe, in combination with a 360° camera. The soundscape has been carried out in three Italian squares across the city of Parma. The acoustic maps obtained from the data processing detect the directivity of dynamic sound sources as typical of an urban environment. The analysis of the objective environmental parameters (like loudness, roughness, sharpness, and prominence) was conducted alongside the investigations on the historical importance of Italian squares as places for social inclusivity. A dedicated listening playback is provided by the AGORA project with a portable listening room characterized by modular unit of soundbars. Full article

Currently, cities’ security vulnerabilities are diverse, complex, and interrelated, making the building of resilient cities an essential requirement to deal with these risks and ensure the long-term growth of cities. China is making headway toward resilient urban governance, as evidenced by a focus on ecological hazards and widespread application in urban planning, social development, and other areas. However, as urbanization continues, traditional governance techniques confront the challenge of “lack of clarity, inadequate execution, and slow response.” To address these difficulties, this work introduces a novel dual-core-driven model of ‘defense system + organism’. By analyzing the main urban safety risks currently present in Changsha City and employing literature synthesis, field surveys and interviews, and comparative analysis, it investigates the application status of resilient urban governance and empirically constructs a ‘three-dimensional fifteen-wing’ governance system, achieving a transition from passive defense to an intelligent–adaptive governance paradigm. Full article

A public transportation system consists of complex processes and requires comprehensive planning activities for a city when dealing with the travel behavior decisions of passengers. Travel behavior decisions are important in selecting suitable transportation alternatives for passengers. In the literature, little attention has been paid to prioritizing the criteria and ranking the alternatives for assessing sustainable and traditional public transportation modes when considering the travel behavior decisions of passengers. In this paper, a five-phased novel decision analysis framework, including Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), and VIekriterijumsko KOmpromisno Rangiranje (VIKOR) techniques, is proposed to evaluate the alternatives. In addition, to the best of our knowledge, the novel decision-making framework in this paper has not been employed before to assess sustainable transportation alternatives dealing with the travel behavior decisions of passengers. Next, the thirteen criteria are specified, including economics, safety, travel quality, and environmental and health aspects, to analyze the travel behavior decisions of passengers with regard to the experts’ notions, published reports, and papers. Then, the seven public transportation alternatives are determined, including sustainable and traditional transportation modes. A case study was carried out in Istanbul, Türkiye. Based on the results, service frequency, the vehicle type and its mechanism, and ease of accessibility were found to be the top three significant criteria that affect travel behavior decisions. Furthermore, metro, Marmaray, and metrobus are the top three public transportation alternatives. In addition, the results were verified. Moreover, managerial and theoretical recommendations are provided to policymakers. Lastly, sustainable development goals 11.2 and 11.b can be achieved by designing an accessible, affordable, environmentally friendly, safe, and sustainable public transportation system when analyzing the travel behavior decisions of passengers. Full article

Urban mobility structure detection and functional distribution learning are significant for urban planning and management. However, existing methods have limitations in handling complex urban data and capturing global spatial structure features. To deal with these challenges, we proposed a multi-scale feature-aware urban mobility structure embedding method based on contrastive learning. First, we designed a multi-scale contrastive learning strategy to effectively learn local human activity features and global spatial structure features, determine the community affiliation of regions, and generate regional embedding vectors. Next, we introduced a correlation matrix to encode the functional synergy and competition of Point of Interests (POIs) and construct the complex correlation between urban mobility structure and urban functional distribution to evaluate the quality of regional embedding vectors. Experiments in Haikou City show that the proposed method can accurately detect the urban mobility structure and functional distribution. The analysis reveals that the central urban area of Haikou exhibits concentrated functions and significant traffic tidal effects, while the suburban areas have relatively weaker functions, with residents displaying a high level of dependence on the central area. Therefore, urban planning needs to optimize the functional layout, improve the functions of the suburbs, and promote the balance of urban space. Full article

With the rapid development of the tourism industry, scientific evaluation of tourism resources is crucial to realize sustainable development. Especially how to quantify resource advantages in international tourism cities has become an important basis for tourism planning and policy making. However, the limitations of traditional evaluation methods in the allocation of indicator weights and nonlinear data processing make it difficult to meet the development needs of international tourism cities. Therefore, this study takes Guilin, an international tourist city, as the research object and proposes a hybrid framework integrating fuzzy neural network (FNN) and analytic hierarchy process-fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (AHP-FCE). Based on 800 questionnaire data covering tourists, practitioners, and local residents, the study constructed a multilevel evaluation system (containing 12 specific indexes in the three dimensions of nature, service, and culture) using the Delphi method of expert interviews. It is found that AHP-FCE can effectively analyze the hierarchical relationship of evaluation indexes, but it is easily affected by the subjective judgment of experts. In contrast, FNN can effectively improve evaluation accuracy through the adaptive learning mechanism, and it especially shows significant advantages in dealing with tourists’ perception data. The empirical analysis shows that Guilin has obvious room for improvement in “environmental friendliness” and “cultural communication effectiveness”. The integration framework proposed in this study aims to enhance the scientific validity and accuracy of the assessment results, and provides reference and inspiration for the sustainable development of Guilin international tourism destination. Full article

Urbanisation is a common cause of the loss of biological diversity. The most diverse natural areas in urban centres are city parks. The aim of this study was to examine the importance of songbirds for park visitors, the environment, and biodiversity in cities, based on the example of the Croatian coastal belt. A survey was conducted in the first half of 2024 (survey N = 662). The results show a low degree of basic biological knowledge of the main songbird species present in urban parks along the Croatian coastal belt. Citizens, on average, had a good basic understanding of the relationships between park songbirds and the environment. There were no statistically significant differences between cities of residence concerning basic biological knowledge of the main park songbird species in the Croatian coastal belt (p = 0.076), basic knowledge of the relationships between park songbirds and the environment (p = 0492), interactions between humans and songbirds in parks (p = 0.403), or opinions on conserving park songbird populations (p = 0.115). The final analysis confirmed that there was a statistically significant difference in education levels among participants regarding basic biological knowledge of the main park songbird species in the Croatian coastal belt (p = 0.001), basic knowledge of the relationships between park songbirds and the environment (p = 0.014), interactions between humans and songbirds in parks (p = 0.001), and opinions on conserving park songbird populations (p = 0.041). The dominant role of female respondents also raises the question of why male respondents do not participate in the research, which opens up opportunities for new research that would mainly deal with the topic of gender differences in attitudes towards park birds. Full article

The digital transition and decarbonization are strategic European objectives, supported at different levels by the Green Deal, the Energy Performance Building Directive (EPBD), and policies and tools such as the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) and the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI). The SRI measures a building’s ability to use intelligent technologies to reduce its consumption and increase the energy awareness of occupants for energy efficiency. Furthermore, today, it has a limited impact on national regulations and public decision-making. Its application presents challenges including those related to heritage conservation. This paper contributes to the Italian SRI framework through an experimental application in the renovation of a historic building in the metropolitan city of Reggio Calabria (Italy). The analysis evaluates the SRI’s adaptability by comparing its pre-renovated state, current state, and pre-design plan. The SRI calculation integrates assessment tools with BIM models for a potential future digital twin approach. The study, part of a funded national research project, aims to enhance policies for digitalization in the green transition. The paper is organized into the Introduction; Materials and Methods, which contains the methodological approach; Results; and Discussion and Conclusions. Following the experimental application, the results show that standardizing the SRI approach could enhance energy efficiency and digitalization in buildings. Full article

Background/Objectives: The high sensitivity of paediatric nurses directly influences the quality of nursing care provided to patients. The purpose of this study is to present the most frequent issues faced by paediatric nurses in their everyday work and their responses to difficult situations at work, define the actions applied when a difficult situation occurs, and assess the level of stress and other factors influencing the level of stress experienced by paediatric nurses. Methods: This study was conducted using an original survey form and a standardised psychological questionnaire based on the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) for paediatric nurses. Results: The study involved 416 paediatric nurses and indicated a medium level of stress among the nurses. The median stress level, calculated as the sum of answers to questions based on the PSS-10, was 18 (16.0 ÷ 20.0), and the mean was 17.9 (min–max = 1–30). The median Sten score was 6 (5.0 ÷ 7.0), and the mean Sten score was 5.94 (min–max = 2–9). Nurses aged 21–30 years, who live in a city, have a Bachelor of Science in Nursing or a Master of Science in Nursing, and work ≥ 61 h a week and 161–250 h a month experience a higher level of stress. Factors such as choosing which child to help first, spending a great deal of time filling out medical documentation, obtaining a sick child’s consent to perform nursing procedures which the child does not understand, involving the minor in decision-making, impolite or offensive behaviour from a sick child or their parents, ineffective nursing and treatment methods, providing care against the opinion/views of a sick child or their parents, difficulties in or a lack of understanding of the situation of a sick child and their family, performing nursing procedures that can cause the child pain, and the inability to fulfil a sick child’s request increase the level of stress experienced by paediatric nurses. When a difficult situation occurs at work occurs, the nurses usually meet and talk about the situation with someone close (72.4%) or engage in other activities to avoid thinking about the situation (66.6%). They consult a psychologist/psychotherapist very rarely (9.6%) and a psychiatrist extremely rarely (4.6%). Conclusions: Polish paediatric nurses were found to experience a medium level of stress. Since paediatric nurses are exposed to stress, providing them with psychological care is important. The level of perceived stress is dependent on the nurse’s age, place of residence, and education, as well as weekly and monthly working durations. Paediatric nurses experience many difficult situations in their everyday work that influence their stress levels. Management should pay special attention to difficult workplace situations faced by paediatric nurses and implement regular actions to reduce the levels of stress experienced. Full article

Geosystem services are increasingly recognized as critical for the sustainable development of rapidly growing cities in the Global South, because of their association with improved public health, reduction in environmental pollution, microclimate effects, and the ecological goods and services that provide benefits to local people. However, maintaining urban green spaces is a particular issue in cities in the Global South, such as São Paulo (Brazil) and Johannesburg (South Africa), where rapid inward migration and poor urban planning result in low environmental quality and the deterioration of geosystem services. This study explores the geosystem (including environmental and ecosystem) services provided in protected green spaces in these two cities, using the specific examples of Parque Estadual da Cantareira (São Paulo) and Melville Koppies (Johannesburg). This study uses an inventory-based approach to list and critically explore the availability and properties of different geosystem services found in these sites, and their wider implications for environmental planning and sustainable urban development. The results show that, although superficially similar, these sites have very different geosystem services, and that a simple inventorizing approach for geodiversity and geosystem service provision as used in many previous studies is highly problematic and over-simplifies site-scale geological and environmental properties, and how these are used and valued by local people. A more integrated approach dealing with the interplay of geosystem, environmental, and ecosystem services can provide a much firmer basis for urban planning and management in the Global South, suitable for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Full article

As sponge city construction is gradually promoted globally, it is very important to construct a scientific and reasonable performance evaluation framework. This paper establishes an indicator system with 5 primary indicators and 15 secondary indicators, calculates subjective weights by fuzzy hierarchical analysis, determines objective weights by a projection tracing model, calculates comprehensive weights of indicators by combining game theory, and finally determines the city’s evaluation level based on the interval-counting multi-objective gray target decision-making model. Eleven typical sponge cities were selected for the case study analysis, which verified that the research framework of this paper can effectively deal with complex data and the reliability of the evaluation results, providing new ideas for the evaluation of sponge city construction performance. It also helps city managers to optimize the construction plan and resource allocation in a timely manner, thus enhancing the comprehensive benefits of the city and providing a scientific basis for the long-term development of sponge cities. Full article