Search Results (641)

Resource-based cities face complex land-use pressures. Examining the evolution of production–living–ecological spaces (PLESs) and the spatial conflicts associated with this evolution provides an important basis for reducing land-use tensions and promoting more coordinated and sustainable spatial development. Drawing on land-use records spanning 2000–2020, this study integrates a transfer-matrix approach, a PLES conflict assessment model, and spatial autocorrelation analysis to examine the spatiotemporal evolution of PLESs and their conflict patterns in Shenmu City, China. The results show that (1) industrial production land expanded more rapidly than any other land category, mainly through the conversion of agricultural production land. Agricultural production land continued to decrease as it was converted into both industrial production land and ecological land. Grassland served as an important transitional space between production and ecological spaces, with its evolution shifting from rapid expansion in the early period to relative stability in the later period. (2) In terms of spatial conflicts, moderate conflict remained the dominant category and generally increased over time. By contrast, strong and relatively strong conflicts decreased, while weak and relatively weak conflicts gradually increased. Spatially, conflict patterns shifted from highly concentrated areas in the southeastern resource-extraction zone to a more dispersed and balanced regional distribution. (3) Global Moran’s I decreased from 0.62 to 0.49, indicating a weakening of overall spatial clustering. High–High clusters contracted into fragmented patches, whereas Low–Low clusters continued to expand in the northwestern ecological zone, reflecting the gradual improvement of local environmental conditions. Overall, although spatial conflict intensity has decreased and strong conflicts have been substantially reduced, conflicts have shifted mainly toward moderate levels rather than being fully resolved. As the dominant and still expanding category, moderate conflict represents a potential risk that requires continuous monitoring and adaptive intervention. By focusing on a county-level resource-based city, this study provides a fine-grained empirical case. It identifies an evolutionary pattern characterized by the reduction in severe spatial conflicts and the accumulation of moderate conflicts, which differs from the patterns commonly observed in urbanization-driven cities. The findings suggest that spatial conflicts in resource-based cities are highly responsive to targeted ecological governance policies. Future sustainable spatial development should be promoted through differentiated zonal governance, ecological restoration, and the green transformation of the industrial structure. Full article

Background/Objectives: Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) remains a public health threat in sub-Saharan Africa. The 10th Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2018–2020 led the Rwanda Ministry of Health to launch a large-scale Ebola vaccination campaign using the two-dose Ad26.ZEBOV and MVA-BN-Filo regimen. The campaign was implemented by local organizations, the Center for Family Health Research and Rinda Ubuzima, in partnership with the Rwanda Biomedical Center. Methods: The campaign targeted those who live near or routinely cross the Rwanda/DRC border and unvaccinated first responders. Children <2 years and pregnant women were excluded. Results: Between December 2019 and September 2021, 219,775 individuals attended vaccination sites and 216,108 received the first dose. Of those, 110,699 (51.2%) were adults (≥18 years) and 105,409 (48.8%) were children aged 2–17 years. A total of 118,048 (54.6%) were women and 98,060 (45.4%) were men. Of all first-dose clients, 203,303 (94.1%) received the second dose. Participants who were older, male, in Rubavu district, and urban were more likely (p < 0.05) to be lost between the first and second dose. Most individuals who were ineligible for the second dose were women who fell pregnant after the first dose. Conclusions: Findings highlight that a large-scale vaccination campaign, including remote areas, is feasible with high adherence despite the concurrent COVID-19 pandemic. Early stakeholder engagement and local leadership were critical to success. Future studies of reasons for non-adherence, as well as strategies to integrate family planning into campaign activities to reduce ineligibility due to pregnancy, are warranted. Full article

Green walls, as part of nature-based solutions, have been implemented in urban environments, enhancing energy efficiency, thermal regulation, biodiversity, environmental quality, and human well-being. Despite these benefits, green walls’ environmental performance across their life cycle is reported inconsistently in the literature, limiting robust comparisons and evidence-based decision-making in the built environment. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the environmental performance of green walls, living wall systems, and active living walls, including systems that improve indoor air quality and enable water reuse. A systematic literature review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines using the databases ScienceDirect, Scopus, and Google Scholar. The results show that methodology gaps in life cycle assessment (LCA) studies of living wall systems restrict their applicability for evidence-based design and specification. Future research should integrate embodied and operational impacts in scenario-based and sensitivity analyses considering plant selection, irrigation strategies, maintenance regimes, replacement rates and service-life assumptions. More focus should be given to tropical cities to understand the impact of climate, water demand, vegetation performance. and maintenance intensity. These improvements would lead to more comparable, context-sensitive, and design-oriented LCA evidence for sustainable building applications. Full article

The purpose of this study is to examine positive and negative emotions about climate change reported by youth living in northern California and explore how these emotions are linked to climate anxiety, activism, and other measures of well-being. We surveyed ethnically diverse first- and second-year students (N = 521, mean age = 19) at a Jesuit, urban university in California in Fall 2022. Survey measures assessed climate-related emotions, eco-anxiety, and eco-impairment, along with activism, optimism, and compassion. Bivariate and multivariate models examined positive and negative eco-emotions, controlling for race, gender, and income. Overall, climate anxiety was linked to greater activism and confidence that actions matter. However, experiencing positive climate-related emotions had a stronger relationship to activism and optimism for the present and future, compared to negative emotions which were linked to higher eco-anxiety and greater compassion for others. Climate education and communication should consider inducing and reinforcing positive emotions to encourage youth activism, especially since negative emotions in response to climate change are linked to worse mental health. More research on a range of climate emotions is needed, and future interventions should test how to induce hope without minimizing the seriousness of climate change to support confidence and youth action. Full article

Under the dual impact of new urbanization and rural population mobility, divorced rural women in China face severe challenges in obtaining collective membership qualification for land expropriation compensation. The newly enacted Rural Collective Economic Organization Law (RCEOL) contains ambiguous provisions, hindering effective implementation. This study asks: How can collective membership qualification for divorced rural women be determined based on pre-enactment court judgments to refine the law’s ambiguities? Adopting a qualitative design, data were collected from China Judgments Online. Through systematic keyword search, 238 court judgments were retrieved and analyzed using a three-level coding procedure (open, axial, selective). The theoretical framework draws on Amartya Sen’s capability approach. Three main findings are briefly summarized. First, a concrete determination scheme is proposed: the “stable rights-obligations relationship” is operationalized via collective medical insurance purchase and non-abandonment of contracted land; “basic livelihood security” emphasizes land’s security function without requiring primary income reliance; the “stable production-living relationship” criterion should be discarded. Second, the household registration (hukou) condition is becoming ambiguous, but such ambiguity reflects governance adaptation to complexity, moving toward “de-hukouization.” Third, legal ambiguity, while challenging, creates a flexible space for adaptive rural governance. This study contributes by introducing Sen’s capability approach into the analysis of divorced rural women’s membership qualification and providing empirical grounds for clarifying Article 11 of the RCEOL. Future research may observe changes in case volume and litigant testimonies after the law’s implementation to evaluate its real effects, further enriching the discussion on institution—agency interaction. Full article

The urban housing sector plays a significant role in global energy consumption and carbon emissions, making the sustainable transformation of domestic buildings essential to achieving climate goals. Urban housing is also linked to the energy transition, social equity, public health, and environmental resilience. The UK’s Warm Homes Plan (WHP) is seen as a key policy initiative that aims to improve energy efficiency and living conditions, and to promote the transition to a low-carbon future. This study provides an integrated review of retrofit assessment, policy mechanisms, and socio-environmental factors in the context of urban housing decarbonization. This study adopts a structured critical review approach to analyze retrofit strategies, low-carbon heating systems, renewable energy integration, and smart control technologies. The study highlights that retrofit assessment is not limited to technical performance but also includes social acceptability, affordability, and urban infrastructure compatibility. Furthermore, case study comparisons show that decarbonization outcomes are improved when technical measures are integrated with effective governance, stakeholder engagement, and local policy support. This study presents an integrated conceptual framework that links technical retrofit measures, policy coordination, and socio-environmental indicators. The results show that isolated technical solutions are insufficient for decarbonizing urban housing. Rather, a multi-dimensional planning approach is necessary to enable a sustainable, resilient, and socially inclusive housing transition. Full article

The X-minute city has gained prominence as a planning paradigm for promoting sustainable local living, yet its operationalisation remains methodologically heterogeneous. This paper conducts a systematic review (Scopus, last search 4 March 2026) of 45 quantitative, proximity-based studies to examine how modelling decisions shape X-minute city assessments. Using reflexive thematic analysis, this review shows that proximity “as-modelled” is not an inherent property of urban space but a construct produced through a sequence of interdependent decisions concerning: analysis scope; functional inclusion; analysis approach; spatial representation; modelling variables; and assessment logic. These decision cascades, often implicit or inconsistently reported, generate substantial variation in results and limit the comparability and transferability of existing X-minute city analyses. The paper identifies connections between decision domains, examines how upstream assumptions influence downstream analytical possibilities, and highlights dominant modelling pathways and methodological divergences. Beyond proposing future directions (e.g., use of multi-threshold scenarios, equity-sensitive parameters, hybrid data strategies, and uncertainty/sensitivity reporting), the study provides a grounded baseline framework and guidance for documenting modelling processes. This research ultimately supports more transparent, reproducible, and context-sensitive proximity assessments, thereby contributing both conceptually and practically to the robustness and policy relevance of X-minute city studies. Full article

Household rainwater tanks (HRWTs) have re-emerged globally as a decentralised strategy to address water scarcity, climate variability, and increasing urban water demand. In several jurisdictions, including New South Wales, Australia, rainwater tanks have been chosen to meet the mandatory potable water reduction target in new residential developments for nearly two decades; however, growing evidence indicates persistent underutilisation and variable performance in practice. Despite their recognised benefits in reducing potable water demand, mitigating stormwater runoff, and enhancing urban resilience, the global HRWT research landscape remains fragmented across disciplinary and thematic boundaries. This paper presents a multifaceted review, defined here as an approach that synthesises multiple perspectives on the topic. It integrates systematic mapping of peer-reviewed literature with a critical thematic analysis across four dominant research domains: technological and design innovation, policy and governance frameworks, environmental performance, and social–behavioural dimensions. The findings reveal a strong research focus on technical optimisation, while policy effectiveness, environmental trade-offs, and household-level behavioural factors receive comparatively uneven attention. Regulatory and incentive-based instruments are shown to produce inconsistent outcomes, shaped by local institutional capacity to design, implement, enforce, and sustain programs, as well as by climatic context and household acceptance. Environmental assessments identify both benefits and burdens, including energy use, treatment requirements, and operational complexity. Social and behavioural studies indicate growing acceptance of household rainwater tank (HRWT) systems. However, financial constraints, local conditions, and ongoing maintenance demands continue to influence adoption and performance. A key insight from this review is the limited attention given to households’ lived experiences, particularly how users adopt, adapt, operate, and maintain HRWT systems over time. This gap constrains progress across technical, policy, environmental, and social dimensions and risks cycles of early policy uptake followed by stagnation. The review highlights the need to integrate household perspectives into future research, policy design, and industry practice to improve system performance, user experience, and the long-term contribution of HRWTs to sustainable urban water management. Full article

This paper explores the behavioural change process initiated within the Gdańsk Coastal City Living Lab (CCLL)—a site-based effort, initiated under the H2020 SCORE project and significantly deepened through the Horizon Europe PRO-CLIMATE project—through the lens of transforming human–nature relationships for sustainable urban biodiversity conservation. While SCORE established the technical baseline for Nature-based Solutions (NbSs), PRO-CLIMATE provides the critical behavioural framework to ensure these solutions are socially adopted and sustained. Located in a flood-prone coastal city, the Gdańsk CCLL addresses the critical need for nature-based solutions (NbSs) in minimizing the negative impacts of climate change, particularly pluvial flooding. At the heart of this initiative is a participatory change process facilitated by local Change Agents in collaboration with key stakeholders across water management, local government, academia, and civil society. Drawing on interdisciplinary insights from social science, the paper uses the Nature Futures Framework to analyse how conservation actions are influenced by the relational, intrinsic, and instrumental values that stakeholders and residents attach to nature. The paper situates these values in the Gdańsk context and examines how they shape motivations and willingness to engage in urban NbS, such as green roofs, retention parks, and rainwater gardens. The study presents qualitative findings from stakeholder engagement workshops, Change Agents’ reflections, and support mechanisms from behavioural change experts. It evaluates how behavioural change was facilitated through shared vision building, feedback loops, and trust-based relationships, and how barriers were negotiated. A key contribution of the paper is the exploration of how bottom-up and top-down processes intersect in urban adaptation strategies and how behavioural change frameworks can be designed to institutionalise sustainable human–nature interactions in urban governance. The Gdańsk case offers transferable insights for other cities facing climate vulnerabilities while striving to embed biodiversity conservation into everyday practice. Full article

This study critically engages the ongoing national conversation and policy discourse on land expropriation without compensation in South Africa, offering both analytical insight and a principled position. It presents a qualitative, normative-analytical inquiry grounded primarily in critical documentary analysis of legislation, jurisprudence, and land reform scholarship. The study situates the contemporary debate within South Africa’s broader historical and structural context, where patterns of land dispossession continue to shape persistent spatial inequality and exclusion. The analysis proceeds from the premise that meaningful urban spatial transformation cannot be realised without addressing the structural constraints embedded within existing land governance and spatial planning systems. In this regard, debates around land expropriation are not simply questions of property law or economic policy but are fundamentally connected to broader concerns of spatial justice, economic inclusion, and social equity. These concerns are particularly salient when considering emerging imaginaries of African urban futures, including the notion of the Pan-African City—an urban formation envisioned as spatially integrated, socially inclusive, and reflective of shared continental aspirations for equitable development. The central argument advanced in this study is that unless South Africa gives serious and programmatic attention to land expropriation—moving beyond token or partial policy measures—the structural conditions necessary for such inclusive urban futures will remain unattainable. In this sense, any vision of a Pan-African City within South Africa’s borders risks remaining short-lived, if not altogether specious. To fully engage this debate, the paper unpacks and interrelates the concepts of land expropriation, compensation, expropriation without compensation, economic inclusivity, social equity, spatial justice, and the Pan-African City. These concepts cannot be adequately understood independent of the distinctly South African context—a context shaped by a history of racialised dispossession, deeply entrenched spatial inequalities, and the limitations of both first-generation (restitution, redistribution, tenure reform) and second-generation (e.g., the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act) land reform initiatives. The point advanced is unequivocal: without resolving the land question, sustainable housing and human settlement solutions in South Africa will not materialise. Anything less risks entrenching a democratic façade atop an unresolved colonial, segregationist, and apartheid foundation. Full article

Africa reported lower COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality compared to other continents, despite widespread SARS-CoV-2 transmission and limited vaccine access. Proposed immunological explanations include potential pre-existing immunity such as cross-reactive humoral or cellular responses from earlier coronavirus exposures. However, functional immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 in African populations remain poorly characterized. To address this gap, we assessed post-pandemic neutralizing antibody responses against the SARS-CoV-2 D614G variant. We analyzed plasma samples from 989 participants in a cross-sectional survey in Ghana’s Eastern and Greater Accra regions. A live virus neutralization assay using Vero E6 TMPRSS2 cells was employed to quantify SARS-CoV-2 D614G-specific neutralizing antibodies. Responses were assessed across collected demographic data. Urban participants exhibited higher median neutralizing antibody titers than rural counterparts, in both vaccinated and unvaccinated groups (p < 0.0001). Among unvaccinated individuals, median neutralizing antibody titers were comparable across age groups in urban settings. Vaccinated individuals showed elevated median titers across all age groups, with urban residents demonstrating stronger responses. Significant sex-based differences in neutralizing titres were also identified. Our findings reveal marked disparities in functional antibody responses between urban and rural populations, likely shaped by differences in SARS-CoV-2 exposure and vaccination. Continued surveillance and immunological profiling remain key for informing vaccine strategies and future pandemic preparedness. Full article

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted the functioning of the health system, including nursing education, particularly within resource-constrained contexts such as in South Africa. This study explored the lived experiences of nursing students during the COVID-19 period at Lilitha College of Nursing, a public nursing college operating across multiple urban and rural campuses in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Methodology: A qualitative phenomenological design was employed, guided by the Dimensions of Wellness Framework. Purposive sampling was used to recruit a diverse cohort of nursing students who were registered during the period 2020–2022. Semi-structured, one-on-one interviews were conducted with 20 participants between 1 and 31 October 2025, until data saturation was attained. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, translated verbatim, and analysed manually using the six phases of thematic analysis. Results: The findings revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic severely affected nursing students’ academic progress, mental and physical health, clinical training, and overall well-being, revealing institutional unpreparedness and gaps in support during crisis conditions. Conclusions: The study highlights the need for fair, holistic, and crisis-ready support systems to protect nursing students’ well-being and learning during future emergencies. Full article

In alternative education programs, school wellbeing is enacted partially through the spatialized (emplaced and embodied) lived experiences of students whose educational futures are fragile. Displaced to a series of trailers and limited to half-day attendance, the participants in this qualitative study were removed from mainstream classes in a large urban high school to attend alternative programming. Utilizing a critical counter-mapping youth participatory action approach, 24 participants mapped their barriers and supports to school wellbeing by moving through, sitting within, and writing together in the school spaces they were no longer permitted to occupy during their studies. As a research collective, students produced twenty-six annotated counter-maps, inscribing their school histories, present tensions, and hopes for educational futures onto existing geographical maps of the building. Findings contribute to understandings of students’ perspectives on best practices for complex school interactions as a foundation for building school climates that center educational wellbeing, care, play, and relationships. In addition to insights into current spatial practices in schools and how they might be rewritten to advance an equity-orientation, this work makes visible the tensions between the school’s emphasis on academic performance and the youth’s lived experiences of injustice on the spatial and metaphorical edges of the system. Full article

This paper explores the value of imperfections and curated decay in the conservation of architecture and public art as vehicles of cultural memory. While conventional heritage practice treats physical degradation as a threat, newer conservation ethics argue for embracing material impermanence within an aesthetics of care. We examine how acknowledging patina, weathering, and even structural decline can become an act of care, maintaining the “spirit” and authenticity of a place. The theoretical framework integrated the aesthetics of imperfection, including concepts like the Japanese wabi-sabi, which finds beauty in the incomplete and impermanent, critical heritage theory (which questions whose memories and values are preserved or excluded) and cultural memory studies (notably Nora’s notion of lieux de mémoire, where material sites become symbolic elements of communal memory). Methodologically, the article is grounded by two case-study video essays, Imperfections (Genoa) and Scars (Nicosia), as instruments of research, which provide visual analyses of decayed architectural environments. These examples illustrate how curated decay can transform abandoned buildings and war-scarred urban zones into powerful mnemonic devices, provoking reflection on history, identity and the ethics of preservation. Despite extensive theorisation of patina/age-value and curated decay, recent heritage debates offer limited operational criteria for distinguishing intentional curated decay from unmanaged neglect in lived urban conservation contexts. Drawing on ethics and aesthetics of care, this article asks if and how care can be operationalised into a decision framework for urban conservation and tests this framework through two selected buildings: Albergo dei Poveri (Genoa) and Home for Cooperation (Nicosia). The authors argue that caring for heritage does not always mean restoring it to an as-new state; curating ageing and traces of time can support remembrance, resilience, and reconciliation, enriching heritage’s role in future urban imaginaries. Full article

Two major global trends shaping 21st-century society are population aging and urbanization. Consequently, the living conditions of older adults have become an increasing focus of societal attention. Social–Emotional Responses play a crucial role in the mental health, emotional well-being, and social identity of older adults. Urban streets, as key sites for walking and social activity among older adults, can be seen as extensions of their homes—places where they regularly interact with neighbors and build new connections. Compared to built environments often termed “gray spaces,” exposure to green spaces has been shown to offer greater benefits to residents’ well-being. Among streetscape features, the Spatial Openness Level is closely associated with the psychological well-being of elderly individuals. Visual-spatial features correlate with an EEG-derived proxy for emotional state during exposure to street scenes. The Gray-Green space Exposure Ratio (GER) and Spatial Openness Level (SOL) serve as key indicators for evaluating streetscape quality. Designing age-friendly streets requires evidence-based tools that link visual features to emotional well-being. This study provides such a tool by combining EEG measurements with configurational analysis of street visual dimensions: SOL and GER. In this study, conducted in Wuhan City, objective physiological monitoring of brainwave activity was employed to examine the responses of older adults to variations in GER and SOL. The results indicate that SOL significantly influences the emotional states of older adults (correlation coefficient R² = 0.7262, p < 0.01). The results indicate that the effect of GER on the emotional states of older adults was moderated by gender. Specifically, GER exerted a significant effect on the emotional states of females (correlation coefficient R² = 0.6262, p < 0.01), whereas no significant effect was observed in males (p > 0.01). These results allow us to rank the nine tested scenes. For example, Scene L-3 (open space with abundant vegetation) scored highest on emotional well-being, while Scene H-1 (enclosed gray space) scored lowest. The difference is explained by the configurational logic: greenery delivers emotional benefits only when combined with sufficient openness. The findings will enable EEG data to extend beyond serving as a unique standalone outcome and integrate into a more comprehensive explanatory model. This model aims to elucidate how urban morphology influences the micro-foundations of social activity in later life. Furthermore, it seeks to equip urban designers and policymakers with an evidence-based tool for creating age-friendly environments, facilitating a shift from intuition-driven to evidence-based design. Future research should incorporate additional environmental factors to establish a more comprehensive assessment framework for age-friendly urban spaces. Full article