Search Results (1,257)

Multifunctional land use has gained increasing attention for reconciling societal (life function), economic (production function), and environmental (ecological function) development needs and addressing sustainable land use challenges in rapidly urbanizing regions. Consistent with mainstream international land use functions (LUFs), this study’s production-living-ecological (PLE) framework covers three key land functions, matching global research paradigms. To develop a sustainable county-level land use quantitative structure optimization model, this study innovatively integrates a mechanical equilibrium model with the multi-objective genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), overcoming the limitations of conventional qualitative production-living-ecological spaces (PLES) optimization. Furthermore, by establishing a mapping relationship between urbanization drivers and PLES functional evolution, it also enables structural optimization across urbanization subsystems. The optimization results indicate the following adjustment directions: southern coastal and southwestern counties require targeted population and socioeconomic urbanization improvements, while northern counties demand differentiated ecological urbanization regulation, and southeastern coastal areas should prioritize ecological protection. Most counties exhibit cropland and construction land expansion alongside woodland shrinkage, featuring expanded production and living spaces but contracted ecological functions. In contrast, certain counties achieve coordinated sustainability by eliminating inefficient construction land. This study operationalizes macroscopic PLE coordination into feasible quantitative strategies, enriching optimization methodologies and providing transferable insights for territorial spatial governance. Full article

Environmental noise is a major environmental and public health concern in rapidly urbanizing cities, yet integrated studies combining field measurements, GIS-based spatial analysis, and predictive modelling remain limited in Central Asia. This study assessed the spatial distribution of urban noise pollution in Samarkand (Uzbekistan) and explored its statistical association with selected public health indicators, forecasting future trends. Measurements were conducted at 50 georeferenced sites covering more than 300 streets. The measured data were processed and mapped using ArcGIS 10.5 (Esri, Redlands, CA, USA) to produce the spatial distribution of environmental noise across the study area. Official data on registered vehicles, industrial enterprises, and disease incidence (2014–2024) were analysed using Pearson correlation, Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), and its extension incorporating exogenous variables (ARIMAX) models. Results revealed pronounced spatial heterogeneity in noise levels, highest along transport corridors and industrial zones. Industrial enterprises showed the strongest correlations with disease incidence; vehicle registrations were excluded from final models owing to collinearity with industrial activity. ARIMA projected continued industrial growth through 2030, while ARIMAX models identified significant associations between industrial activity and diseases of the ear and mastoid process and of the nervous system (MAPE 28.55% and 19.78%). As an ecological, exploratory study using infrastructural proxies rather than measured noise exposure, findings should be interpreted as associations rather than causation. The framework offers a transferable approach for environmental risk assessment and sustainable urban planning. Full article

Against the backdrop of accelerating globalization and the reconfiguration of ecological security patterns, border regions—serving as critical carriers of national spatial governance—exhibit pronounced spatial heterogeneity and stage-dependent characteristics in land use evolution that warrant systematic investigation. This study focuses on global border zones to reveal the trends and evolutionary pathways of land use change, thereby providing a scientific basis for border spatial governance. Using the period of 1992–2020, four phases of global land cover data from the European Space Agency (ESA) were employed. Buffer zones of 50 km, 100 km, and 150 km were established along global national boundaries, and the study period was divided into three decadal stages. Border types were classified into terrestrial borders, coastal borders, and island borders. An integrated indicator system was constructed, including the Single Land Use Dynamic Degree (SLUDD), Integrated Land Use Dynamic Degree (ILUDD), and Weighted Composite Transition Intensity. A multi-scale nested analytical framework coupled with transition matrices was applied to assess land use evolution across global, continental, and bilateral national scales. The results indicate the following: (1) Distinct evolutionary pathways exist among border types. Terrestrial borders exhibit a combination of development and ecological restoration, with staged peaks in urban expansion; coastal borders are dominated by a unidirectional conversion from cropland to built-up land; and island borders demonstrate concurrent agricultural decline, ecological recovery, and built-up expansion. (2) From 1992 to 2020, global border land use underwent a transition from high-intensity transformations to low-intensity steady adjustments. Major changes were centered on the expansion of production space, outward diffusion of built-up areas, and vegetation restructuring. High-intensity changes were concentrated near boundary zones and attenuated significantly with increasing buffer distance. (3) At the continental scale, stable hierarchical patterns emerge in terms of change intensity, spatial gradients, and transition structures. Borders in Eurasia and North America show higher activity, Africa exhibits widespread diffusion, and South America and Oceania are characterized by forest boundary reshaping and vegetation adjustments, respectively. (4) Typical border regions can be categorized into three evolutionary types: forest ecological frontiers, agricultural expansion zones, and land–sea composite corridors. Regional trajectories vary significantly, with Southeast Asia transitioning rapidly toward stabilization, West Africa retaining periodic high-intensity disturbances, and South America remaining in a low-intensity adjustment state. This study clarifies the evolutionary patterns and boundary effect ranges of global border land use, providing theoretical support and empirical references for resource allocation and ecological regulation in border regions. It also lays the groundwork for refining border typologies, quantifying driving mechanisms, and developing differentiated cross-border governance strategies. Full article

Rapid urbanization in tropical Asia has fundamentally transformed land use–land cover while intensifying urban thermal stress, yet the relationship between land cover change and thermal conditions is frequently assumed to be spatially uniform. This study challenges that assumption by demonstrating that land cover–thermal relationships in Colombo District, Sri Lanka, are highly spatially and temporally heterogeneous, with statistically significant associations detected in only 17–47% of the study area in any given year, underscoring that context, not land cover type alone, governs thermal outcomes. Using multi-temporal Landsat satellite imagery, LULC maps were derived, and the urban heat island effect (UHIE) and urban thermal field variance index (UTFVI) were calculated for seven time periods (1989, 1996, 2002, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2024). Geographically weighted regression (GWR) was applied to model local relationships between LULC classes, namely wetland vegetation, water bodies, impervious surfaces, and other pervious surfaces, and thermal indices across a 500 m spatial grid, revealing a 74% loss in wetland vegetation and a 326% increase in impervious surfaces over the study period. Water bodies exhibited spatially variable cooling effects relative to wetland vegetation, most pronounced in eastern regions during earlier periods, while impervious surfaces showed consistent, spatially persistent warming effects concentrated in western and southern urban cores. By coupling GWR with a 35-year multi-sensor time series, this study provides a spatially explicit, longitudinal account of how land cover–thermal relationships evolve as tropical urbanization intensifies, offering an evidence base for spatially targeted rather than uniform climate adaptation planning in rapidly urbanizing tropical cities. Full article

Riparian landscapes in peri-urban floodplains are important components of urban green infrastructure, but urbanization is eroding their capacity to support ecosystem services. This study examined the implications of riparian landscape change for ecosystem service capacity and developed spatially explicit recommendations to inform land use planning in Shanghai’s peri-urban fringe. A multi-scale landscape metric-based proxy assessment was applied to characterize changes in landscape composition and configuration at the regional and riparian buffer scales. From 2000 to 2020, the study area underwent pronounced land use change: the dominant land use type shifted from agricultural land (59.16%) to built-up land (67.69%), while 28% of water area and 57% of vegetated land were converted to other uses. Landscape metrics indicated a systemic shift toward fragmentation, characterized by higher patch density, smaller mean patch size, lower largest-patch and Contagion Indices, and simpler patch geometries. Changes within riparian buffers further indicated an overall decline in the potential capacity to provide provisioning, regulating, and cultural ecosystem services. By integrating landscape composition and configuration across spatial scales, the proposed framework links regional land use control with site-scale riparian design and provides an adaptable basis for sustaining ecosystem services in rapidly urbanizing floodplain and deltaic cities. Full article

Accelerated urban expansion and socioeconomic growth have led to substantial changes in territorial spatial organization and growing pressures among spatial functions. Therefore, conducting fine-scale identification, functional evaluation, and coordination analysis of production-living-ecological space (PLES) carries practical value for improving spatial allocation and fostering harmonious regional coordination. By integrating remote sensing imagery and point-of-interest (POI) data, this study employed a hierarchical identification method combining the object-oriented random forest method with the DBSCAN (Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise) algorithm to map the PLES spatiotemporal evolution in Fuzhou’s rapidly urbanizing territory over the 2012–2024 period. PLES functions were quantitatively assessed through a comprehensive evaluation index system, while the standard deviation ellipse, GeoDetector, and coupling coordination degree models were further employed to reveal their evolutionary patterns, driving mechanisms, and synergistic interactions. The results indicated that ecological-dominated spaces occupied the dominant share (nearly 63%). Meanwhile, living-dominated spaces expanded significantly, growing by 68.93 km² during the study period. The PLES comprehensive function increased by 15.50%, with the living function and production function rising by 57.19% and 61.84%, respectively. Distinct spatial differentiation existed in PLES functions across urban and rural territories, shaping mutually complementary functional systems. The coupling coordination level of PLES functions continuously improved, although notable regional disparities existed, with highly coordinated areas concentrated in midwestern urban areas. PLES functional evolution was jointly driven by natural and socioeconomic factors, which interacted through nonlinear or two-factor enhancement effects. This study provides a replicable methodological framework for fine-scale PLES research and offers scientific support for regional spatial governance and high-quality coordinated development. Full article

Habitat production in informal settlements and vulnerable urban areas faces critical challenges regarding habitability and lack of infrastructure. This article evaluates a prototype for progressive temporary housing based on a modular metal scaffolding structure, conceived as an autonomous housing response unit in the district of Chilca-Huancayo, Peru. Unlike conventional solutions, the proposal integrates metabolic independence systems through photovoltaic generation and rainwater harvesting to guarantee functional autonomy from public utility networks. Adopting a mixed-method, experimental-applied approach, the research articulates technical simulations, full-scale structural load tests, and a social perception assessment. The results demonstrate the technical feasibility of the model: the energy system covers the entirety of basic demand, and the structural component exhibits ductile behavior under seismic demands, guaranteeing stability without brittle failures. Furthermore, the social dimension reveals high acceptability among residents in emergency scenarios. The study concludes that the use of reusable industrial systems enables a resilient and rapidly deployable architecture. It is argued that this model constitutes a viable alternative for risk management and the mitigation of the housing deficit in the context of urban exclusion, highlighting its potential for territorial replicability as a response to the social production of habitat on the periphery. Full article

Urban expansion directly reduces vegetation via impervious surface growth, though indirect urban environmental effects may partially offset these losses. This study examines the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) region from 2000 to 2025 by integrating multi-source remote sensing and socioeconomic data to investigate the effects of urban expansion on vegetation greenness (NDVI) and productivity (NPP). The results show that impervious surfaces expanded from 21,747 km² to 33,688 km². Yet NDVI and NPP did not decline in tandem. Instead, they responded differently. NDVI exhibited broad increases—particularly in the northwest ecological zones. NPP was more sensitive to impervious surface expansion. Further analysis reveals that impervious surface coverage is the primary driver of NPP, while per capita GDP dominates NDVI. Correlation analysis confirms these relationships are consistent in direction. The combined contribution of socio-economic variables (GDP, per capita GDP, and population) substantially exceeds that of impervious surface area. This suggests that economic development, as a whole, is the dominant force shaping vegetation greenness in the region. These findings challenge the conventional trade-off narrative between urban growth and vegetation health. They demonstrate that urban expansion and ecological improvement can advance in parallel. This requires sustained greening investments and coordinated regional planning. The results offer actionable insights for carbon-sensitive land-use regulation in rapidly urbanizing regions. Full article

Urban wetlands and agricultural lands are among the most important socio-ecological systems in urban areas. They support food production, biodiversity conservation, water regulation, climate resilience, and human well-being. However, rapid urbanization negatively affects wetland–agricultural coexistence (WAC) by destroying habitats, fragmenting landscapes, and intensifying land-use conflicts. Our study proposed a Wetland–Agriculture Coexistence Index (WACI) to assess the spatial pattern of WAC in Colombo, Sri Lanka. We considered four components for the WACI framework: wetland condition (WC), agricultural condition (AC), urban pressure (UP), and hydrological connectivity (HC). The WACI was developed using Landsat 8/9, Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), and Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) data, along with road network, population, and hydrological network data. Variables used in this study include land surface temperature (LST), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Modified Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index (MSAVI), Bare Soil Index (BSI), soil moisture, elevation, slope, population density, distance to roads, hydrological connectivity, and built-up %, which were normalized and integrated into four dimensions using an equal-weighted approach to develop the WACI. The results showed substantial spatial heterogeneity in WAC across Colombo. The average WACI was 0.51, indicating a moderate WAC. This study further identified that favorable environmental conditions, rich hydrological connectivity, and low urban pressure increased coexistence potentials. The spatial pattern of WACI identified priority areas for conservation, restoration, and sustainable urban planning implications in Colombo. Our WACI framework provides a practical and transferable method for assessing WAC in urban areas. The findings of this study support balanced urban wetland–agricultural management, conservation, food security, and long-term sustainability of rapidly urbanizing cities. Full article

This study develops and applies a GIS-based 3D visualization model for observed flooding and subsidence conditions to support preliminary spatial screening for sustainable urban land fund development in the rapidly urbanizing Binh Chanh area, Ho Chi Minh City, during the period of 2020–2024. Field-survey records, official flood records, topographic maps, InSAR-based subsidence information, rainfall and tidal records, cadastral data, urban land-use expansion data, and planning information were integrated in a GIS environment. A DEM was generated using IDW interpolation and used as the terrain base for overlaying observed flood-prone locations with elevation, subsidence, road networks, cadastral parcels, urban land-use expansion, and planned urban land fund development areas. The overlaid datasets were then visualized in ArcScene, and an integrated map of observed flooding, subsidence, and urban land-use planning to 2030 was created to support preliminary spatial screening for sustainable urban land fund development. The observed inventory shows an increase in recorded flood-prone locations from 12 in 2020 to 34 in 2024, with maximum recorded flood depth reaching approximately 1.0 m and the largest recorded inundated area approaching 56,000 m². Areas below 1.2 m elevation account for 80.30% of the study area, while the high and moderately high subsidence classes occupy 57.19%. The proposed approach provides a practical, parcel-linked 3D GIS visualization tool for organizing observed flood information, communicating spatial constraints, and supporting preliminary screening in data-limited urbanizing areas. Full article

The accelerating aging of China’s rural labor force—characterized by an ‘earlier and more severe’ trajectory in rural areas compared to urban ones—poses a fundamental challenge to agricultural modernization, yet its implications for the development of agricultural productive services remain poorly understood. This study addresses a central question for agricultural sustainability: does rural labor aging act as a ‘catalyst’ or a ‘stumbling block’ for the development of agricultural productive services? To address this question, we employ fixed-effects, panel threshold regression, and mediation models using provincial panel data from 2011 to 2022, systematically investigating the nonlinear effects and transmission mechanisms. A significant single threshold is identified at an aging rate of 8.17%. Below this threshold, labor aging promotes productive service development via a demand-pull effect; above it, the promoting effect weakens substantially due to an adoption-inhibition effect driven by human capital decline. Mechanism analysis reveals a negative mediating role of cultivated land scale management: land concentration induced by labor aging, without corresponding human capital upgrades, is associated with “inefficient scale management” as reflected in the suppression of service development. While our empirical measure captures operational scale rather than efficiency per se, this negative mediation pattern is consistent with the presence of an inefficiency trap. Heterogeneity analysis shows the strongest inhibitory effect in northeast China, while eastern regions with strong factor substitution capacity are less affected. As most provinces had crossed the threshold by 2022, policies should shift from leveraging the dividend period to addressing deep-aging challenges, including breaking the trap of inefficient scale management and adopting region-specific strategies. These findings highlight that achieving agricultural sustainability in an aging society requires shifting from relying on the demographic dividend to proactively overcoming the structural lock-in of deep aging. Our proposed policies could contribute to fostering a more resilient and sustainable agricultural system in China, and may also offer valuable references for other rapidly aging economies with appropriate contextual adaptation. Full article

Landslide susceptibility assessment is essential for hazard mitigation and sustainable urban planning, yet many existing approaches rely primarily on static environmental predictors and often neglect active slope deformation. This limitation is particularly relevant in rapidly urbanizing areas, where human activity may destabilize slopes and reactivate dormant landslides. This study develops a process-informed susceptibility framework that integrates LiCSBAS-derived SBAS-InSAR deformation into a MaxEnt model for the urban and peri-urban residential areas of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Two comparative models were implemented: (i) a baseline model using conventional conditioning factors and (ii) an enhanced model incorporating Sentinel-1 LOS velocity derived from SBAS-InSAR time-series analysis (2020–2023). The study quantitatively evaluates the predictive value of deformation-informed susceptibility modelling under single-orbit InSAR conditions, independently validates velocity data using EGMS observations, and constitutes the first integration of InSAR-derived ground deformation into landslide susceptibility assessment for Cluj-Napoca. Results show moderate-to-strong agreement between SBAS and EGMS deformation data (Pearson correlation ≈ 0.7). Incorporating LOS velocity improved model performance (AUC from 0.809 to 0.833; p < 0.001) and increased the spatial correspondence between mapped landslides and high- and very high-susceptibility zones. The integrated framework enabled the identification of localized active instability zones and provided a practical basis for hazard-informed urban planning and land management. Full article

Rainfall–runoff pollution poses a major challenge to urban water quality management, particularly in rapidly developing regions. However, its spatial variability and source characteristics remain inadequately understood. This study investigates the types, concentrations, and sources of pollutants in rainfall runoff across different urban land-use settings, with the aim of providing insights for more effective water management strategies. By quantifying pollutant occurrence frequencies, comparing reported event mean concentrations, and summarizing literature-reported pollution sources, we evaluated the spatial heterogeneity of runoff contamination from a descriptive perspective. The compiled literature data showed descriptive differences in reported pollution levels among land-use types, with relatively high pollutant concentrations frequently reported in residential and traffic areas. These differences should be interpreted as functional-area-based patterns rather than continuous geographic spatial distributions. Pollutants such as chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids (SS), and total nitrogen (TN) frequently exceeded China’s Class V surface water quality standards. Atmospheric deposition and surface litter were the most frequently reported pollution sources, while traffic-related activities were frequently associated with elevated heavy metal concentrations in the reviewed studies. These findings underscore the urgent need for targeted, land-use-specific pollution control strategies that not only reduce runoff pollution but also improve source-control efficiency for sustainable urban water management. This study offers valuable insights that may be transferable to other urban environments worldwide, with important implications for policy development and urban resilience in the face of increasing environmental pressures. Full article

Data-driven models are increasingly used for flood and landslide susceptibility mapping in rapidly urbanizing regions, particularly in the Global South. In this context, land use and land cover (LULC) is routinely adopted as a conditioning factor, although its geomorphological meaning and temporal consistency with hazard inventories are seldom evaluated. Information Value (IV) models have been widely applied to landslide susceptibility, but their use for flood susceptibility in complex coastal cities remains limited. This study evaluates IV-based flood and landslide susceptibility in Vitória, Brazil, a predominantly insular city characterized by sharp geomorphological contrasts and high population density. Two LULC datasets with different levels of urban detail were tested as conditioning factors alongside topographic and hydrological variables. Eighteen models were constructed for each hazard and validated using Area Under the Curve (AUC) metrics and expert judgement. Morphological attributes were the most important predictors: slope alone achieved an AUC of 0.90 for landslides, whereas elevation reached 0.71 for floods. The inclusion of LULC increased AUC values to 0.94–0.95 for landslides and 0.85–0.89 for floods, but also introduced spatial and temporal biases associated with stationary and coarsely classified land cover. Our findings highlight the limitations of incorporating LULC as a conditioning factor without temporal harmonization with hazard inventories or adequate urban class disaggregation. We argue that, in complex urban settings, LULC is more appropriately interpreted as a proxy for exposure and vulnerability than as a dominant predisposing factor, and that its use in predictive models should be critically assessed to avoid misleading conclusions. Full article

Background/Objectives: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are a leading cause of death globally, particularly in low- and middle-income countries undergoing rapid epidemiological transition. Apolipoprotein E (APOE) polymorphisms have been implicated in modulating risk for cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. This study characterizes the distribution of APOE alleles and genotypes in an Angolan population sample and explores associations with demographic variables. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Huambo Province, Angola, with 200 unrelated adults aged 40–70 years. Genotyping for ε2, ε3, and ε4 was performed via real-time PCR. Allelic and genotypic frequencies were calculated and tested for Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. Associations with sex, age (≤54 vs. >54 years), and urban vs. rural residence were analyzed. Results: ε3 was the most frequent allele (63%), followed by ε4 (24.8%) and ε2 (12.2%). The ε3 homozygous genotype was prevalent (44%), with ε3/ε4 (19%) and ε2/ε3 (18%) also common. Significant Hardy–Weinberg disequilibrium was observed due to excess ε4 homozygotes and deficit of certain heterozygotes; possible contributing factors, including population structuring, convenience sampling, and technical aspects of genotyping, are discussed. ε4 prevalence was higher in urban residents and older individuals, while ε3 and ε2 were more common in rural areas and younger participants. Conclusions: Our results reveal notable genetic heterogeneity and highlight the epidemiological and evolutionary importance of ε4 in Angola. The findings underscore the need for integrating population genomics into public health strategies targeting NCD prevention, especially in rapidly urbanizing African contexts. Full article