Search Results (3,436)

Rapid urban expansion in arid intermediate cities often produces fragmented urban structures that exacerbate inequalities in public transport accessibility and hinder sustainable mobility. However, the relationships between urban fragmentation, transport accessibility, and travel behavior remain insufficiently explored in pre-Saharan cities. This study investigates these interactions through the case of El Bayadh, Algeria, using an integrated methodology combining urban morphological analysis, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), a household survey of 577 households, traffic counts, institutional interviews, and spatial equality assessment based on the Gini coefficient. Public transport accessibility was evaluated using a 300 m walking threshold, complemented by sensitivity analyses at 400 m and 500 m. The results indicate that approximately 65% of the population lives within 300 m of a bus stop, although coverage is strongly concentrated in central districts. A Gini coefficient of 0.41, provided by the El Bayadh Directorate of Transport and computed across 20 urban zones, indicates moderate-to-high spatial inequalities in accessibility that persist despite increasing the service threshold, suggesting that these disparities are more closely associated with urban fragmentation than with the specific walking-distance threshold used to define service coverage. The transport network comprises 11 bus routes, approximately 160 bus stops, and 90 km of routes; however, limited service quality and uneven spatial distribution contribute to a high dependence on private transport, with 45% of trips made by private car, 35% by taxi, and only 20% by bus. These findings are consistent with accessibility inequalities arising from the mismatch between fragmented urban morphology, centralized urban functions, and the configuration of the public transport network. The proposed framework provides transferable insights for planning more equitable and sustainable mobility systems in rapidly urbanizing arid intermediate cities. Full article

Spatial literacy and spatial thinking are fundamental skills for understanding space, interpreting geographical phenomena, and enabling active citizenship in a society increasingly driven by geospatial information. This review examines how digital tools and geospatial technologies contribute to cultivating spatial literacy and thinking within primary geography education. Following an integrative, PRISMA-informed review methodology combining searches of Scopus, Web of Science, and ERIC (n = 1373 records identified), this study draws on a corpus of 141 studies—comprising an original set of sources supplemented by newly identified, priority-ranked literature—examining digital maps, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Web GIS, StoryMaps, collaborative mapping, digital games, and augmented and virtual reality in geography teaching. This review proposes an explicit conceptual model clarifying the hierarchical and complementary relationships among spatial skills, spatial thinking, critical spatial thinking, spatial literacy, and spatial citizenship, together with a four-dimensional typology distinguishing technological platforms, representational formats, pedagogical approaches, and learning activity types; both are proposed as synthesizing heuristics for organizing the reviewed evidence and are offered as a basis for future empirical validation rather than as established models. The findings suggest that pedagogically grounded digital integration strengthens spatial skills, shifts learning toward active, participatory models, and helps cultivate spatial citizenship, though the strength of this evidence varies considerably by tool and by educational level, with primary-specific support remaining comparatively limited for higher-order outcomes such as critical spatial thinking. Crucially, the effective integration of these technologies depends on structured teacher training—addressing self-efficacy and confidence-related barriers alongside technical skills—and the adoption of innovative instructional approaches. Ultimately, digital tools provide effective means of deepening geographical learning and strengthening spatial literacy in primary schools. Realizing this potential, however, depends on matching the selection and use of each tool to the specific dimension of spatial learning it is evidenced to support. Full article

French colonial mass housing estates built in Algiers between 1950 and 1962 constitute a substantial part of the city’s housing stock and continue to shape its urban structure. As aging residential environments, they present important challenges for sustainable regeneration. Despite their significance, the relationship between urban configuration and long-term physical deterioration remains poorly understood. This study establishes a georeferenced inventory of these estates by combining archival documentation and field surveys with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and space syntax analysis. Configurational properties were quantified using Normalized Angular Integration (NAIN) in DepthmapX, while the physical state of each estate was evaluated through a systematic assessment of structural elements, façades, and public spaces. The results reveal considerable variation in integration and a statistically significant relationship between its levels and physical quality. Estates occupying more privileged positions within the street network generally exhibited better maintenance and higher-quality public spaces, whereas more isolated estates experienced greater deterioration. The findings suggest that street integration is associated with estate performance, providing quantitative evidence to support sustainable regeneration planning by proposing a practical decision-support framework for identifying evidence-based resilience planning and governance priorities. Full article

This paper proposes an urban-scale dynamic screening method for the preliminary seismic-risk prioritization of masonry buildings. The method is based on the integration of rapid surveys, relational databases, geographic information systems, and accelerometric data recorded during seismic events. It is not intended to replace comprehensive seismic vulnerability or risk assessment procedures. In its present formulation, it provides an event-specific preliminary dynamic-priority indicator, derived from recorded ground motions, to support post-event inspections and subsequent detailed analyses at the urban scale. The procedure combines a rapid visual survey (on average covering ca. 300 buildings per day) with a database management system (DBMS) linked to a three-dimensional cartographic database of the building stock. The geometric and structural information collected in the field is integrated with the processing of ground acceleration records, from which the pseudo-acceleration spectra, peak ground acceleration (PGA), and spectral amplification ratios (DAF) are derived. Through the relationship between spectral period and building height, the method identifies height classes and number of storeys corresponding to the highest spectral amplification ratios derived from the recorded ground motions. Buildings belonging to these classes are not classified as vulnerable in absolute terms, but are considered priority buildings for subsequent checks, inspections, or detailed analyses. The method was applied to the municipalities of Umbertide and Gubbio, in the province of Perugia, which were affected by the seismic sequence of 9 March 2023. The processed accelerometric records identified Classes I, II and III, corresponding to one-, two-, and three-storey masonry buildings. The illustrative GIS application focused on Classes II and III; 27 of the 33 masonry buildings included in the damaged-building sample (82%) belonged to these two classes. The main contribution of the study is the definition of an integrated, rapid, and replicable workflow that can support local authorities, technicians, and civil protection operators in the preliminary management of seismic risk at the urban scale. Full article

Urban and peri-urban regions increasingly face climate-related pressures, competing land-use demands, and the need to expand renewable-energy infrastructure while maintaining agricultural land and landscape functions. Agrivoltaics, which combines photovoltaic energy generation with agricultural production, represents a potentially multifunctional approach to land use; however, regional GIS assessments often stop at environmental suitability surfaces without translating those results into planning-relevant cadastral inventories. This study develops and applies a planning-oriented Geographic Information System (GIS) framework for preliminary statewide agrivoltaic screening in Connecticut. Annual global solar radiation and terrain slope were integrated through a weighted suitability model, while incompatible land-cover classes were treated as hard exclusions through a binary land-cover mask. The workflow subsequently excluded protected and open-space lands, associated suitable areas with cadastral parcels, normalized and dissolved parcel identifiers using ParcelKey, and a recalculated suitable area from the resulting unique parcel geometries and then applied a minimum requirement of 1 ha of cumulative suitable area per retained parcel. The final baseline inventory contained 3497 normalized unique cadastral parcels encompassing 16,366.49 ha of GIS-identified suitable area, with suitable land representing an average of 42.46% of total parcel area. Peri-urban contexts accounted for the largest share of the final suitable area, containing 2497 parcels and 73.16% of the total, compared with 476 urban and 524 rural parcels. Sensitivity analysis indicated strong stability under alternative weighting schemes, with spatial overlap exceeding 99% relative to the baseline. Reducing the suitability-score threshold from 3.0 to 2.5 produced only minor changes, whereas increasing it to 3.5 reduced the inventory to 3095 parcels and 13,712.89 ha. From a sustainability perspective, the framework provides a spatial decision-support approach for coordinating renewable-energy planning with agricultural land stewardship, conservation constraints, and more efficient use of already fragmented land resources. By making the effects of exclusions, parcel thresholds, and analytical assumptions explicit, the approach supports more transparent and reproducible evaluation of land-use trade-offs relevant to sustainable development. The resulting inventory is intended as a first-stage planning resource rather than a determination of project feasibility or site-level sustainability performance. Full article

Water security is a significant challenge for the Saudi Arabia Kingdom’s development and stability, affecting other economic sectors beyond the water sector. Insufficient water resources are causing economic and social crises; addressing this issue is crucial for the country’s growth and stability. This study aims to manage water resources in central Saudi Arabia (Wadi AS SAHBAA) through a two-level approach. The first level involves extracting rainfall amounts from satellite imagery to predict future rainfall intensity using PERSIANN-CCS-CDR data. The second level focuses on monitoring groundwater recharge using geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing techniques. The study further seeks to understand rainstorm behavior influenced by climate variability and applies geomatics techniques for quantitative analysis. The results show that the Wadi AS SAHBAA basin receives an annual precipitation of 116.6 mm/year and mean annual precipitation of 9.7 mm. The year 2019 experienced the highest recorded precipitation, reaching 222.3 mm and mean annual precipitation of 18.5 mm. Between 2013 and 2019, the AS SAHBAA region experienced increased rainfall driven by intense storm events; however, it declined during the period 2020–2022. Moreover, 2021 recorded the lowest annual precipitation of 53.8 mm with mean annual precipitation of (4.5 mm), possibly linked to reduced storm activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study uses several methods to estimate groundwater recharge from rainfall and concludes that the average infiltration during 2013–2022 was varying from 1.59–36.63 mm, representing about between 1.03 and 28.5% of total rainfall. This is reflected in groundwater storage capacity, which ranges from approximately 1.65 to 38.27 million m³ yearly. This study provides a framework for monitoring precipitation and groundwater recharge and offers practical recommendations for regional development and sustainable water management. Full article

Background: Managing agrologistics supply chains under infrastructure scarcity requires integrative, spatially explicit decision-support tools. This study develops a macro-level digital twin of the multimodal agricultural supply chain in Kazakhstan’s Almaty region to optimize freight allocation and guide strategic investment planning. Methods: Our methodology integrates Earth observation data (ESA WorldCover 10 m) with a large-scale multimodal road–rail graph network (1.39 million nodes) to identify 135 crop production clusters. Using linear programming in MATLAB, we optimize the regional distribution of 322.2 thousand tons of seasonal maize, wheat, and soybeans while localizing new storage silos using Green Field Analysis. Results: The baseline simulation reveals a critical storage capacity deficit, yielding a Capacity Coverage Ratio of only 23.8%. However, implementing optimal multimodal rail-road routing mathematically reduces the Logistics Cost Index from 8,642,195 to 4,716,175 units, achieving overall cost savings of 45.4%. Conclusions: The proposed digital twin and its performance metrics provide a scientifically grounded, data-driven toolkit for public–private partnerships, ensuring robust infrastructure investment localization and facilitating the transition toward the Agriculture 4.0 paradigm. Full article

The extensive use of high-resolution digital elevation data, along with continuous improvements in computing power and geographic information system (GIS) tools. Has driven the development of spatial data processing, management, and spatial interpolation methods. This study aims to construct a high-quality spatial distribution map of thermal comfort in densely populated areas of northwestern Jordan using climate data collected from six meteorological stations between 1991 and 2024, based on the indoor temperature index (IAT). To analyze the spatial variability of climate elements, a digital elevation model (DEM) with a spatial resolution of 30 m was used and resampled to a 0.5-km grid. Spatial interpolation employed inverse distance weighting (IDW), with each grid cell using data from the three nearest meteorological stations. The results showed that areas with higher temperatures inside the villas were clearly concentrated in the summer, especially in the lowlands near the Jordan Valley. Indicating that these areas are more susceptible to thermal stress. The model results also show that it performs well in predicting thermal comfort, with a coefficient of determination (R²) between 0.95 and 0.98 and mean squared error (MSE) between 0.35 and 0.50. which reflects the ability of these models to represent the relationship between climate variables and predict thermal comfort levels with a high degree of accuracy. The results indicate significant spatiotemporal differences in thermal comfort within the study area, with longer durations of heat stress in summer. This highlights the importance of combining geospatial methods with numerical simulations in studying the impacts of climate change and supporting urban planning and climate adaptation strategies. Full article

Geological conditions fundamentally constrain land-use suitability, terrain stability, and long-term sustainability, yet they remain underutilized in urban planning frameworks. This study presents a GIS-based geological suitability assessment model, tested on the City of Valjevo, Serbia, integrating lithological, structural, land use/land cover change and spatial data to guide urban development decisions. Seven lithological units—Quaternary deposits, lacustrine sediments, carbonate rocks, volcanic and pyroclastic rocks, ophiolites, ophiolitic mélanges, and Jadar Block sediments—were classified into four suitability classes based on lithological composition, structural characteristics, and rock mass behavior. An Integrated Geological Index (Igeo) was derived using an area-weighted approach across a regular hexagonal grid, enabling spatially explicit suitability mapping. Comparison with land use/land cover changes for 2012–2021 revealed a notable mismatch between geological suitability and observed development patterns: favorable and conditionally favorable terrains cover 72.5% of the study area but account for only 48.7% of recent urban expansion, while unfavorable terrains, occupying just 20.9% of the territory, absorbed 51.3% of new development. No expansion occurred within highly unfavorable terrains. These findings expose critical gaps in integrating geological criteria into planning practice and demonstrate a reproducible methodology for embedding geological suitability into sustainable urban development strategies across geologically heterogeneous regions. Full article

Selecting suitable agricultural land is critical for food security and sustainable development, particularly in arid regions facing resource scarcity and environmental degradation. This study assesses agricultural land suitability in Sohag governorate, Egypt, using a hybrid Geographic Information System (GIS), Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and geostatistical approach. Thirty-four representative soil profiles were morphologically described and analyzed for ten physical (slope, depth, erosion, texture, stoniness, drainage) and chemical (EC, pH, CaCO₃, organic matter) criteria, weighted using both the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and FAHP. Geostatistical analysis characterized the spatial variability in soil properties across the study area. The two suitability maps were validated using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves and Kappa statistics: the FAHP achieved higher prediction accuracy (AUC = 0.83, Kappa = 0.91) than the AHP (AUC = 0.81, Kappa = 0.88). The AHP-based map classified 40% (1154.92 km²) as moderately suitable (S2), 33% (952.81 km²) as marginally suitable (S3), and 27% (779.57 km²) as unsuitable (N); the FAHP-based map classified 42% (1212.67 km²) as S2, 30% (866.19 km²) as S3, and 28% (808.44 km²) as N. The proposed framework may serve as a reference for similar arid environments and support progress toward Sustainable Development Goals 2, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13 and 15, conditional on local soil, water, climate and management conditions. Full article

Cultural heritage sites are affected by environmental and anthropogenic pressures that require decision-analysis methods capable of combining heterogeneous datasets while accounting for uncertainty. Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), particularly when integrated with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Earth Observation (EO) data, is widely used in geospatial analysis involving multiple, often conflicting criteria. This review examines the evolution, application domains, and methodological challenges of MCDA in cultural heritage risk assessment. The literature indicates a predominant reliance on weighting-based methods, especially the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) combined with GIS-based weighted overlay techniques, while uncertainty treatment, temporal monitoring, validation, and multi-threat applications remain limited. Three illustrative applications show that asset-level, regional susceptibility, and historic-urban frameworks address complementary decision needs but differ in their data, expertise, and institutional requirements. Recent developments show a trend to combine MCDA with fuzzy logic, machine learning, and uncertainty modeling, although methodological consistency across these approaches remains uneven. The findings suggest that multi-criteria risk assessment for cultural heritage may depend less on introducing new analytical techniques and more on improving the integration of existing methods. Incorporating repeatable environmental observations, sensitivity analyses, multi-threat assessment, and stakeholder participation may support a more coherent and reproducible approach to heritage-risk assessment. Full article

Mediterranean agriculture is increasingly constrained by severe and recurrent water scarcity. Rising temperatures, declining precipitation, and more frequent droughts are driving higher crop water demand and reducing rainfall reliability. Combined with growing competition for limited freshwater resources, these climatic pressures pose a major challenge to the long-term sustainability and productivity of farming systems in the region. In this context, urban treated wastewater (UTWW) is increasingly recognized as a strategic alternative resource. Regulation (EU) 2020/741 establishes minimum quality requirements for agricultural water reuse based on the fit-for-purpose principle. The Italian regulatory framework requires regional authorities to plan water reuse by mapping reclamation facilities, water demand, and distribution networks. From this perspective, to support the planning process, this study describes the application of a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based methodology to assess the potential for UTWW reuse in Sicily by integrating national datasets (regularly updated) and comparing reclaimed water supply with irrigation demand from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives. UTWW supply was estimated by integrating data from the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) Census of Water for Civil Use and the European Environment Agency (EEA) dataset, while irrigation demand was derived by combining Copernicus crop data, ISTAT irrigated-to-total UAA ratios and crop-specific irrigation demand (Seasonal Specific Volumes) derived from the SIGRIAN database. Two scenarios were analyzed for grasslands, vineyards, olive groves, and orchards. Scenario 1 included only wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) located inside irrigation areas, whereas Scenario 2 also included selected WWTPs located outside irrigation areas where orographic and distance constraints allowed potentially feasible connections. Under Regulation (EU) 2020/741, potential compatibility with the required water quality classes was identified at the screening level for all crop categories considered, which require classes B, C or D. From a quantitative perspective, Scenario 1 identified 19 WWTPs serving 11 out of 38 irrigation areas with an aggregated uncapped demand coverage of 53%; only two areas reached full local demand satisfaction. Scenario 2 added 23 external WWTPs, increased potentially served areas to 20, and raised the aggregate uncapped coverage to 73%. When surplus volumes were capped within each irrigation area, effective demand satisfaction was 12% and 22% in Scenarios 1 and 2, respectively, highlighting the importance of storage, conveyance and inter-area transfer. The results indicate that treated wastewater reuse could contribute to agricultural water security and climate-resilient water management in Mediterranean regions. The framework supports the first-order identification of candidate reuse areas, but site-specific assessments of effluent quality, risk management, costs, and seasonal storage remain necessary before implementation. Full article

This study aims to spatially analyze the potential soil loss rates of the Özkonak Watershed, located within Nevşehir Province, using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) integrated with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) technologies. In the 149.9 km² watershed, the main parameters triggering erosion—rainfall erosivity (R), soil erodibility (K), slope length and steepness (LS), land cover and management (C), and support practices (P)—were modeled in a GIS environment. According to the spatial analysis results, 85.8% of the watershed area falls within the “very low” and “low” erosion susceptibility classes. Nevertheless, erosion increases markedly in the northern areas with high slope gradients and in areas where agricultural activities are concentrated. The mean soil loss across the watershed was calculated as 2.75 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹. The eroded and transported material was determined to constitute a threat to the dam. The findings indicate that conservation plans, including afforestation in the upper watershed, adjustment of land use to natural land capability, and construction of check dams, should be implemented to ensure sustainable management of the watershed. From a soil and sediment remediation perspective, the identification of erosion-source areas and sediment-transport pathways provides a scientific basis for source-control measures aimed at reducing sediment delivery and associated water-quality deterioration in the Bayramhacılı Dam reservoir. Full article

This study investigated the effectiveness and accuracy of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and frequency ratio (FR) models, which integrated remote sensing (RS) and geographic information systems (GIS), for delineating and validating groundwater potential zones (GWPZs) in Northern Mozambique. For both methods, six key factors influencing groundwater potential were selected from which thematic maps were generated for each. In the AHP method, the influencing factors (IFs) were subjected to a hierarchy of criteria and sub-criteria. Then, using a pairwise comparison matrix based on professional assessment and literature review, relative weights were assigned to each factor. Analysis of the AHP ultimately resulted in the integration of the various thematic layers using the weighted sum tool in ArcGIS 10.8 to produce a composite GWPZ map. In the FR method, 1026 borehole locations for the area were randomly divided into two sets: 718 boreholes (70%) were used as a training dataset, and the remaining 308 boreholes (30%) were kept as a testing dataset for validation purposes. From the training dataset, the ratio of the probability of a groundwater event (wells) occurring in a class of influencing factors to the overall probability of that event happening in the study area was calculated as the FR for that class, representing the weight assigned to each factor. The overall FR was also computed using the weighted sum tool to produce a GWPZ map. The map produced from each model delineated the area into five zones: “very low”, “low”, “moderate”, “high” and “very high”. The testing dataset was then used to validate the GWPZ maps using the field data overlay technique. The respective validation results revealed the AHP model outperformed the FR model in terms of accuracy for delineating GWPZs. Full article

Rare metal exploration increasingly relies on the integration of heterogeneous geological datasets and advanced analytical methods to improve the efficiency and reliability of mineral prospecting. This study presents the development of a web-based Geographic Information System, Geospatial Information System for Optimized Rare Metal Exploration in Eastern Kazakhstan (GISORMEK), using the central part of the Kalba–Narym rare-metal belt (Eastern Kazakhstan) as a case study. A comprehensive geospatial database was developed through the digitization of archival geological maps and the integration of geological, geochemical, tectonic, geophysical, geomorphological, and mineral occurrence datasets. To complement historical mapping data, Landsat-8 multispectral imagery was incorporated to improve lithological discrimination and identify hydrothermal alteration zones. Two remote sensing techniques were applied: Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for lithological mapping and enhancement of geological features, and band ratio (BR) analysis for the calculation of geological spectral indices, including the iron oxide index and the hydroxyl-bearing (Al–OH) mineral index. The resulting spectral indices were subsequently integrated to generate a predictive hydrothermal alteration map. GISORMEK integrates historical and contemporary datasets within a unified web-GIS framework, ensuring spatial consistency, reproducibility, and accessibility. The proposed framework enhances the interpretation of the mineralization potential of the Kalba–Narym region and provides geospatial platform for supporting rare metal exploration and future mineral prospectivity assessments. Full article