Search Results (7,721)

This study aims to identify the defining characteristics of pocket parks and evaluate their ecological and socio-economic significance by analyzing their contribution to sustainable development, in alignment with the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This research highlights the benefits of green spaces and pocket parks in relation to the three core pillars of sustainability, mapping them directly onto specific SDG Targets and indicators. This framework informs the creation of a streamlined, early design indicators toolkit. The toolkit’s practical utility is then evaluated and validated through its application to four real-world case studies, where the performance of pocket parks is assessed regarding their contributions to urban sustainability. The selected case studies represent diverse morphological typologies and operational attributes. To embed sustainability benefits into the active planning process, their spatial design criteria were cross-examined to identify structural interconnections, which were subsequently translated into a parametric model. Each design parameter is analyzed with emphasis on the relationships among spatial elements rather than on their absolute metric values. The study develops a procedural design sequence that, when applied to any site boundary, generates the essential spatial characteristics defining a pocket park. The results demonstrate that this parametric approach establishes the adaptability and effectiveness of pocket parks as versatile urban green spaces, regardless of available plot size or geometric configuration. Full article

To advance sustainable development, China has introduced low-carbon city pilots (LCCP) and new energy demonstration city pilots (NEDC) as important institutional innovations. Using 2006–2023 panel data for 274 Chinese cities, we treat the dual-pilot policy of LCCP and NEDC as a quasi-natural experiment. We measure carbon emission performance (CEP) via a super-efficiency SBM-GML index incorporating social welfare and undesirable outputs, and use double machine learning (DML) to estimate the policy’s impact on CEP. We find the dual-pilot policy is associated with significantly improved urban CEP, with a stronger effect than either single pilot alone. Mechanism tests suggest the policy may contribute to improved CEP by promoting green technology innovation, industrial structure upgrading, and energy efficiency. Heterogeneity test results demonstrate that the dual-pilot policy yields more pronounced impacts in cities characterized by higher economic development, weaker path dependence, and more stringent environmental governance. Additionally, negative cross-regional spatial spillovers are identified. Different from the existing literature, this study integrates social welfare dimensions into CEP’s measurement framework and further validates that the dual-pilot policy generates more outstanding efficiency benefits compared with separate LCCP and NEDC pilots Full article

The rapid growth of the low-altitude economy and urban air mobility (UAM) is reshaping urban transport and infrastructure systems. However, current planning practices still tend to treat green spaces, stormwater facilities, and drone infrastructure as separate subsystems. This paper proposes a Garden Hydrology UAV collaborative infrastructure framework for resilient urban low-altitude logistics and inspection. Pocket parks and sponge city facilities (rain gardens, detention basins) are redesigned as multi-functional UAV bases that integrate take-off/landing and charging with stormwater retention and recreation. A SWMM-based hydrological model provides time-varying inundation and storage states, which are mapped into dynamic node availability constraints for UAV operations, using EPA SWMM 5.2. A multi-objective optimization model is formulated to minimize logistics operation cost, hydrological risk exposure and noise impact on sensitive receptors, while respecting airspace and battery constraints. A stylized 4 km² high-density district is used to evaluate three scenarios: depot-only operations, garden–UAV integration without hydrological coupling, and the full collaborative framework with SWMM-based node availability and high-precision navigation. Simulation results show that the integrated design reduces makespan by up to 19.7%, energy use by 22.3%, and hydrological risk exposure by 63.4%, while lowering noise exposure by 21.3%, relative to the baseline. The study suggests that garden and sponge city infrastructures can become key physical supports of smart low-altitude networks under the low-altitude economy. Full article

Individual tree classification has a long history of diverse development, with recent trends focusing on the adoption of machine learning and deep learning approaches. It is a simple and powerful approach that allows the model to auto-pilot while reducing the need for physical characteristic understanding. Over more than a decade of research, we have focused on establishing a direct representation of individual trees that bridges 2D top-down imagery and true 3D models. In this study, we investigated the fundamental question of the influence of the input data on these ML/DL models. In 2024, we introduced a novel data transformation method, the Pseudo Tree Crown (PTC), which provides a pseudo-3D pixel-value perspective that enhances the informational richness of images and significantly improves classification performance. Our original implementation was successfully tested on urban and deciduous trees in 2024 and was later extended to Canadian natural conifer species under snow conditions in 2025. However, the original PTC relied on the green band, limiting its applicability to green-leaf species. In this study, we analyzed and compared the performance of different data variations and transformations, such as the Green–Red Vegetation Index (GRVI) and principal component analysis (PCA), as direct input and used their PTC forms. Classifications were conducted using Random Forest (RF), ResNet50, YOLOv10 and Segment Anything (SA). The results confirmed the effectiveness of the PTC, which consistently improves the classification accuracy by at least 5% without introducing additional computational time or complexity. Furthermore, PTC exhibits robust, consistent behavior across all data forms, demonstrating its strong resilience and reliability. Full article

Urban agriculture and farming (UAF) initiatives are recognised for their potential to enhance urban resilience, support local food systems, and deliver ecosystem services. However, current scholarship remains fragmented, treating UAF initiatives as isolated green interventions, rather than integrated components of urban fabric. This study examines how landscape-based approaches (LbAs) and systems thinking (ST) have been applied concurrently to analyse and design these initiatives. We argue that LbA is necessary to provide the spatial logic for physical integration, while ST provides the functional logic for metabolic efficiency. This systematic literature review screened 92 records across Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar, resulting in a refined corpus of 12 peer-reviewed articles published between 2015 and 2025. This reflects the nascent state of an interdisciplinary approach at this intersection. Utilising VOSviewer and Atlas.ti, the study identified four thematic clusters: urban green infrastructure, urban food systems, landscape planning, and socio-ecological systems. A cross-comparative analysis of these clusters and their underlying methodologies led to a new theoretical dual-lens systemic landscape framework to evaluate the sustainability outcomes of UAF. The findings reveal limited integration of spatial analysis with systems thinking across scales. This review contributes a novel multi-scale methodology that emphasises the need for integrated spatial and systemic interdependencies to achieve truly resilient urban food systems. Full article

How people perceive their urban environment is often more closely related to well-being than the environment’s objective characteristics. Yet the cognitive antecedents of environmental perception remain underexplored. This study examined whether residents’ awareness of Shenzhen’s national Forest City designation is associated with subjective well-being (SWB) through perceived naturalness. A cross-sectional survey of 308 Shenzhen residents measured Forest City recognition, perceived naturalness, life satisfaction, and positive and negative affect. Residents who recognized the Forest City designation reported higher perceived naturalness, life satisfaction, positive affect, and overall SWB than those with lower recognition; the two groups did not differ in negative affect or affect balance. Structural equation modeling indicated that the association between recognition and SWB operated indirectly through perceived naturalness, with the direct path nonsignificant and the model accounting for 71% of the variance in SWB. Multiple regression confirmed that Forest City recognition was the strongest predictor of perceived naturalness after controlling for sociodemographic and behavioral covariates. These findings suggest that policy-related knowledge may serve as a cognitive antecedent of environmental perception and that the well-being outcomes of urban greening may depend partly on whether residents are aware of their city’s green identity. The results are relevant to SDG 3 and SDG 11, indicating that inclusive sustainability communication may help distribute well-being benefits equitably across urban populations. Full article

As urban heat stress intensifies under rapid urbanization and climate change, urban parks are increasingly recognized as critical cooling infrastructure. However, conventional urban park planning has often emphasized the quantitative provision or spatially balanced distribution of parks, with limited attention to whether vulnerable populations can access parks with stronger cooling performance under spatial and mobility constraints. This issue is particularly important in aging societies, where older adults face greater heat vulnerability and more restricted walking mobility. This study proposes a decision-support framework that integrates park cooling performance, accessibility, and spatial equity assessment for age-sensitive urban green space planning. Using Seongnam City, South Korea, as a case study, park-level cooling performance was estimated using the InVEST Urban Cooling Model and incorporated into a Gaussian Two-Step Floating Catchment Area model. Focusing on older adults, with the working-age population as a comparative reference, the study assessed cooling-weighted park accessibility across multiple spatial scales. The results show that older adults experience lower and more unequal accessibility than the working-age population. In the Northern Living Zone, older-adult accessibility was only 35.2% of the Central Living Zone value, and 59.5% of older adults were exposed to low-accessibility hotspots. The framework provides practical evidence for prioritizing park provision, cooling-function enhancement, and heat-resilient pedestrian improvements. Full article

Rapid urban expansion is reshaping large metropolitan regions into polycentric systems in which multiple centers interact through transport, infrastructure, land-use, economic and ecological networks. Urban heat island (UHI) research has traditionally relied on single-city or core–periphery models; these remain useful for explaining heat contrasts within individual cities, but are insufficient for explaining how thermal loads form, propagate and accumulate across interconnected metropolitan regions. This study combines bibliometric analysis and a PRISMA-guided systematic review to synthesize research on UHI processes in polycentric cities, mega-urban regions and metropolitan systems. The bibliometric corpus comprises 468 Scopus-indexed records published in 2020–2025, while 35 full-text studies were retained for qualitative synthesis. The results show strong publication growth from 54 records in 2020 to 124 in 2025, an annual growth rate of 18.09%, and an interdisciplinary evidence base led by environmental science, social science, Earth-system science and engineering. Three spatial patterns recur across the core studies: multi-core hotspots, corridor-based heat propagation and peripheral thermal expansion. The review contributes a network-based interpretation of UHI as a nested metropolitan process in which node morphology, functional hierarchy, transport connectivity, blue–green infrastructure (BGI) and governance coordination jointly shape heat intensity, footprint and exposure. Rather than displacing single-city or core–periphery interpretations, the proposed framework extends them by positioning local heat analysis as one layer within a larger multiscale heat-governance architecture. Full article

As smart city approaches increasingly extend to public open spaces, understanding what urban park users expect from digital park applications has become a critical issue for sustainable urban management. This study examines park users’ expectations of smart park applications through an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design. In the first phase (Study I), semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 purposively selected participants representing four user groups—parents with children, sport-oriented users, older adults, and general adults—in urban parks in Eskişehir, Türkiye. Thematic analysis identified eight user expectation themes, which were subsequently operationalized into a seven-factor quantitative structure. In the second phase (Study II), a seven-factor scale derived from the qualitative findings was administered to 374 participants. Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated a good overall model fit, and the scale exhibited strong reliability and convergent validity. One-way ANOVA revealed significant between-group differences in six of the seven dimensions, with sport-oriented users consistently reporting higher expectations than older adults. Safety and Activity Diversity was the only dimension showing no significant group differences, indicating a universal expectation across all user profiles. Multiple regression analysis showed that Independent Functionality was the strongest predictor of use intention, followed by Centrality and Communal Function and Safety. Integration of both phases through a joint display revealed that expectations are both universal and user profile-specific, underscoring the need for user-sensitive smart park design. By linking digital park services to user expectations, well-being-oriented park design, and the sustainable use of urban green spaces, these findings contribute to the literatures on smart cities, urban green spaces, and well-being, providing an empirically informed and user-centred framework for digital park applications that may inform efforts toward healthier, more inclusive, and more sustainable urban public spaces in line with SDGs 3 and 11. Full article

Due to global change and the associated increase in climate hazards, the study of ecosystem services and their potential to reduce disaster risk has gained relevance in recent years. However, access to ecosystem services is not evenly distributed, leading to environmental injustice. Currently, there is no commonly accepted approach to simultaneously integrate ecosystem services and environmental justice into the risk assessment equation (risk = hazard × exposure × vulnerability). In this study, a framework was developed that integrates ecosystem service assessment into the vulnerability component using InVEST models, which was applied to the case study of Valencia, Spain. The approach applied here not only allowed visualising risk reduction through ecosystem services but also identified a robust synergy between heatwave and flood mitigation as well as mismatches between socioeconomic vulnerability and ecosystem service provision, with foreign residents being at a disadvantage in Valencia. The practical application of this framework in urban planning was shown by comparing the results of the risk assessment of the existing land use conditions with three hypothetical future scenarios. The results support the current municipal ambitions of urban greening in Valencia, while highlighting the need to consider socioeconomic vulnerability in decision-making. Full article

This study investigates the spatial association network structure of Green Transportation Development (GTD) in China to support coordinated regional development. Based on panel data from 30 major Chinese cities over the period 2011–2020, an entropy weighting method is used to evaluate urban GTD levels, while social network analysis (SNA) and the Quadratic Assignment Procedure (QAP) are employed to identify the spatial network topology, clustering patterns, and driving factors of GTD. The results show that GTD exhibits significant intercity spatial associations. The overall network structure is relatively stable and exhibits a loose hierarchical pattern, with network density fluctuating between 0.232 and 0.277. Shanghai, Yinchuan, and Nanjing play prominent roles in the core–periphery structure. Block modelling further classifies the network into four functional groups: “net spillover,” “bilateral spillover,” “net benefit,” and “broker” blocks. In 2020, the network contained 214 association ties, of which 176 were inter-block ties, indicating evident cross-block spillover effects but relatively weak intra-block communication. The QAP regression results further reveal that geographical distance inhibits network formation, whereas differences in economic development and transport-related employment promote intercity GTD associations; differences in technological innovation exert a negative effect. These findings suggest that policymakers should reduce administrative barriers, formulate differentiated GTD policies, strengthen regional linkages, and promote intercity cooperation based on complementary advantages to improve the overall performance of GTD. Full article

This study investigates the association between urban greenness and sales in commercial alleys. We focus on 1090 commercial alleys in Seoul, South Korea, defined as neighborhood-scale open commercial streets or districts composed of small retail, service, cafe, and restaurant businesses, and combine spatially explicit measures of greenness with data on weekend sales to assess how variation in vegetation is associated with local economic performance. Greenness is measured by the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) derived from remote sensing imagery. We employ a set of global and spatially explicit models, including Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR), Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR), and a Python Geographical Random Forest (PyGRF, v0.0.12), to capture both overall and location-specific relationships. The results show that higher levels of greenness are significantly associated with higher weekend sales, with spatial heterogeneity observed across different areas of the city. The green investment efficiency index (GIEI) results further identify clusters of high investment efficiency in areas characterized by strong greenness–sales associations and relatively limited existing greenness. High GIEI values were concentrated in areas near natural amenities and dense residential neighborhoods, indicating potential priority locations for targeted greening interventions. By linking objective measures of greenness to observed sales at the scale of everyday commercial environments, this study contributes to a better understanding of how urban greenness is associated with consumer behavior and local economic activity. The findings provide practical implications for identifying areas where greening strategies may be considered as part of broader efforts to support more resilient and sustainable neighborhood commercial areas, while recognizing that the observed relationships are associative rather than causal. Full article

Rapid urbanization in semi-arid cities intensifies heat exposure, air pollution, and land-surface degradation, yet these stressors are often assessed separately. This study develops a scale-aware Urban Environmental Stress (UES) framework for Jaipur, India, using multi-sensor Earth observation data. The framework explicitly addresses indicator redundancy, weighting bias, short time-series interpretation, and temporal comparability. The final primary UES surface uses twelve retained stress-oriented indicators on a 500 m common analysis grid, excludes NDBI because it is algebraically redundant with NDMI when both are computed from the same NIR/SWIR bands, and applies equal weights so that built fraction does not dominate the composite. Entropy weighting is reported only as a sensitivity diagnostic. The resulting UES map identifies high relative stress in Jaipur’s dense urban core and transport-industrial corridors, with lower stress along the Aravalli flank and peri-urban green or water-adjacent areas. The framework is presented as a relative spatial prioritization tool rather than an absolute physical time series; temporal claims are limited to independently reported land-cover and individual-indicator trajectories unless fixed multi-year normalization and fixed weights are applied. Full article

Urban and rural green spaces can accumulate potentially toxic elements in topsoil and support wild mushrooms that concentrate metals. This study quantified Cd, Cu, and Zn in topsoil and naturally growing wild mushrooms from Leicestershire, UK, and evaluated spatial patterns, species- and tissue-specific accumulation, apparent soil-to-fungus transfer, and a screening dietary exposure scenario. Samples were acid-digested and analysed by ICP-MS; left-censored data were treated using R/NADA, and apparent bioconcentration factors (BCFs) were calculated from matched quadrant-level medians. Urban topsoils showed higher median Cu and Zn than rural topsoils, whereas Cd medians were similar; the SW quadrant had the highest topsoil medians for all three metals. Mushroom patterns were more heterogeneous: SW had the highest median Cd (3.15 mg kg⁻¹ dw), while NW had the highest median Cu and Zn, particularly Zn (301.29 mg kg⁻¹ dw). Agaricus bitorquis caps showed the highest median Cd and Cu among retained taxa, whereas Mycena citrinomarginata showed the highest median Zn. Cd showed the strongest apparent transfer, with a pooled urban BCF of 4.66. Median Cd concentrations were below the approximate dry-weight equivalent of the European maximum level for wild fungi, although some A. bitorquis caps exceeded it. Occasional adult-consumption estimates remained below selected health-based guidance values. Wild mushrooms provide useful complementary biomonitors of biologically expressed metal availability in public green spaces. Full article

Environmental sustainability has become an increasingly important concern within education systems worldwide, yet many initiatives remain centred on knowledge transmission rather than the everyday practices through which environmental responsibility is learned. This study examines Indonesian nature schools (Sekolah Alam), defined here as alternative schools that integrate the national curriculum with outdoor, experiential, character-based, and community-oriented environmental learning. Using a qualitative multi-case study of three schools in an urban and peri-urban Indonesian context, we interviewed 24 stakeholders, including principals, vice principals, teachers, and parents, to examine how ecological responsibility is understood, enacted, and perceived across school communities. Thematic analysis identified six interrelated dimensions: green education philosophy, experiential learning, ecological character formation, institutional support, community engagement, and perceived behavioural outcomes. The findings suggest that ecological responsibility is not produced by a single lesson or programme, but is perceived by stakeholders as emerging through mutually reinforcing institutional, pedagogical, and social practices. School leaders establish enabling conditions, teachers translate environmental values into daily experiential learning, and parents report reinforcing these practices in household contexts. The study contributes a socio-institutional framework for understanding environmental education as an embedded school cultures, while also acknowledging that claims about behavioural change are based on stakeholder perceptions rather than direct observation of students. Full article