Search Results (1,516)

Monitoring whether metropolitan ecological spaces can sustain ecosystem functions while accommodating urbanization and economic activity is central to sustainability. Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) accounting supports this by translating ecosystem contributions into spatially explicit indicators for assessment and territorial governance. This study developed a multi-temporal, raster-based GEP framework on a common 30 m accounting grid for the Changsha–Zhuzhou–Xiangtan Urban Agglomeration Green Heart across six observation years from 2000 to 2023. It integrated six regulating services and a tourism-related cultural contribution with Sen’s slope, a supplementary Mann–Kendall test, spatial-consistency and sensitivity analyses, and Geodetector. Total accounted GEP declined by 9.14%. Climate regulation and water conservation remained dominant, while the tourism-related cultural contribution ranked third by 2023. Farmland and forest were the principal land-cover contributors. Positive Sen’s slopes predominated spatially but were mostly weak and non-significant, despite the aggregate decline. Land-cover change and vegetation productivity showed the highest explanatory power. Spatial consistency improved at 500 m, and sensitivity to the 2023 land-cover proxy was limited. Overall, the framework provides a spatial sustainability assessment tool for identifying ecological decline and supporting cross-jurisdictional conservation, ecological compensation, and sustainable territorial governance. Full article

As an important policy instrument for promoting regional integration, county-to-district reform plays a significant role in advancing coordinated regional development and optimizing the market-based allocation of factors. Using a balanced panel of 278 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2022, this study treats county-to-district reform as a quasi-natural experiment and employs a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) model to identify its effect on industrial land-factor misallocation. Industrial land-factor misallocation is measured by the deviation between the marginal product of industrial land and its market price, and mechanism tests are conducted to examine the roles of economic agglomeration, industrial agglomeration, and innovative talent agglomeration. This study finds that county-to-district reform alleviates industrial land factor misallocation, and this conclusion remains robust after a series of robustness checks. Mechanism tests show that the reform promotes economic agglomeration, industrial agglomeration, and innovative talent agglomeration, thereby improving industrial land allocation. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the mitigating effect of county-to-district reform on industrial land factor misallocation varies across cities with different characteristics. Further analysis shows that the reform increases industrial land transfer revenue and prices and improves the structure of land supply. This study deepens the understanding of the relationship between administrative restructuring and land-factor allocation and provides policy implications for improving industrial land allocation through institutional reform. Full article

Traditional villages preserve regional cultural memory and distinctive rural landscapes while embodying the historical evolution of human–land relationships. This study examines the spatial distribution and influencing factors of 221 nationally listed traditional villages in central Shanxi using GIS-based spatial analysis, standard deviational ellipse analysis, river and road buffer analyses, and the optimal parameters-based geographical detector (OPGD). The villages are significantly clustered in a multi-core, locally contiguous pattern oriented along a northeast–southwest axis. Most are located at elevations of 500–1000 m. Village frequencies vary nonlinearly with distance from rivers and roads, suggesting trade-offs among water access, hazard avoidance, and transport connectivity. Temperature, population density, GDP, and elevation show relatively strong explanatory power, while the interaction between urbanization rate and population density has the highest explanatory power. By linking historical formation conditions with contemporary development pressures, this study proposes a cultural landscape network organized around high-density village clusters, water-system and historical transport corridors, and major mountain–basin landscape units, supported by differentiated conservation zoning and context-specific rural spatial governance. These findings provide region-specific evidence for living heritage conservation and sustainable rural governance. Full article

In the context of the global implementation of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), urban green development serves as a core practical pathway to advance SDG8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), and SDG15 (Life on Land). This study constructed a three-dimensional evaluation framework encompassing the green economy, green ecology, and green society, and utilized panel data from 282 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2009 to 2021. By integrating the CRITIC weighting method, spatial autocorrelation, the Standard Deviational Ellipse (SDE) approach, and the Dagum Gini decomposition, we systematically quantified multi-scale spatiotemporal evolution and disparity patterns at the national scale, as well as across four major economic zones and five core urban agglomerations. Nationwide, the composite green development index rose from 0.422 to 0.522 (+23.70%), while the overall Dagum Gini coefficient declined from 0.072 to 0.053 (−26.39%), with the spatial center of gravity gradually shifting toward the southwest. Eastern China persistently maintained the highest development level; Western China achieved the fastest cumulative growth (26.43%), and Northeastern China lagged behind with the lowest growth rate (20.10%). Among five major urban agglomerations, the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and Pearl River Delta (PRD) shared an identical average score of 0.582, whereas the Chengdu–Chongqing (CC) agglomeration recorded the highest growth of 33.07%. This research contributes multi-scale empirical evidence for localized SDG implementation in China and provides differentiated policy insights for cross-regional green transition governance. Full article

Clarifying ecosystem service interactions under urbanization facilitates integrated ecological governance. This study took the rapidly urbanizing Su-Xi-Chang agglomeration in the Yangtze River Delta as the research area and applied the InVEST model to evaluate spatiotemporal variations in carbon storage, soil retention, water yield, and habitat quality from 2000 to 2023. The coupling coordination degree model and self-organizing map model were adopted to analyze urbanization–ecosystem interactions and the evolution of ecosystem service bundles, while the GeoDetector model was used to identify key socio-ecological drivers. The results reveal significant spatiotemporal divergences among the four ecosystem services. Carbon storage and habitat quality declined, while water yield and soil retention increased. Carbon storage and soil retention hotspots were persistently concentrated in the Yixing–Liyang Mountainous Area. Pairwise correlations further show that the synergy between water yield and soil retention strengthened over time, whereas their trade-offs with habitat quality intensified. The coupling coordination between urbanization and ecosystem services remained at a primary level yet exhibited a clear trajectory from imbalance toward optimization after 2010. Four ecosystem service bundles were identified, among which the urban-function-dominated bundle expanded by 190.39% from 2000 to 2023, indicating progressive spatial lock-in of urban land use. Differentiated zoning and targeted restoration strategies are proposed to reconcile urban development and ecological conservation. This study offers scientific references for ecological spatial optimization and refined ecological management in the Yangtze River Delta. Full article

Conventional international rankings assess urban efficiency via context-blind metrics, a design that the literature suggests may structurally disadvantage Mediterranean centres and obscure the sustainable policy pathways mandated by the Sustainable Development Goals, most notably the governance of urban transitions under SDG 11. This paper proposes the Context-Weighted Liveability Index (CWLI), which introduces context-sensitive weights into the aggregation of standard smart city KPIs, bridging the global comparability of IMD-style indices with the Mediterranean-specific assessment logic of the ASCIMER framework. Weights derive from five geographic coefficients—climate, culture, economy, historical density, and demography—through a transparent weighted additive formulation with an explicit sensitivity matrix, whose robustness is verified through Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis over 5000 perturbed configurations spanning parameters, coefficients, measurements and benchmarks. Coefficients and KPIs are computed from open spatial data through a replicable GIS protocol (QGIS; OpenStreetMap, Copernicus land cover and land surface temperature, and ISTAT/ELSTAT census data at sub-municipal scale). Applied comparatively to Bologna and Athens, the framework shows that contextual weighting concentrates over 60% of the total weight on climate-sensitive indicators and yields, through the decomposition of contributions, a policy diagnosis that differs from the one suggested by reading an overall smart city rank in isolation: Athens’ largest contribution is digital and its liveability deficit territorial—a profile with direct consequences for sustainable urban transition and talent attraction. Implications for SDG 11 monitoring, equitable access to urban green space, and digital twin integration are discussed. Full article

Urban sustainability governance has long been dominated by growth-oriented metrics that measure aggregate improvement without establishing whether neighborhoods provide enough for all residents without continuous territorial expansion or resource-intensive redevelopment. Drawing on the post-growth planning, sufficiency theory, spatial justice, land governance, and the adaptive planning literature, this paper proposes a Spatial Sufficiency Multifunctionality Framework (SSMF). SSMF is a provisional conceptual framework requiring empirical validation and aiming to reorient neighborhood land assessment from growth optimization to sufficiency thresholds. The framework organizes planning around five interconnected dimensions: social sufficiency, economic resilience without growth dependence, ecological resilience, spatial governance and land-use sufficiency, and institutional and participatory capacity. Each is operationalized through illustrative indicators, thresholds, and linked governance instruments. SSMF asks whether per-capita land use remains within ecological capacities and whether access to services, green space, and affordable space is equitably distributed. The framework is developed through a systematic scoping review of the literature on urban sustainability, land governance, and post-growth planning, and provides a diagnostic logic and a menu of governance instruments. By shifting the evaluative focus from “more” to “enough, equity distributed within neighborhood capacities,” SSMF offers a provisional architecture for understanding post-growth principles at the neighborhood scale. Full article

Urban informality in amphibious territories represents a critical yet understudied dimension of contemporary urbanisation in the Global South. This article analyses the interrelations between spatial transformation, social equity, and environmental change in Las Flores, an informal settlement located between the Mallorquín Lagoon and the Magdalena River in Barranquilla, Colombia. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach combining GIS interpretation, participatory mapping, and in-depth interviews, the study examines how processes of informal territorialisation have reshaped both the physical landscape and the social fabric of this amphibious environment. Results indicate that the settlement has expanded progressively over the past two decades, occupying areas of the wetland previously covered by mangroves and natural vegetation. This expansion has been accompanied by environmental degradation, soil infilling, and declining water quality. Residents face persistent infrastructural deficits, limited access to education and healthcare, and increasing social fragmentation between the formal and informal sectors. Yet, the community also exhibits strong organisational capacity, adaptive livelihoods, and a deep sense of place that sustains local identity and resilience. These dynamics exemplify the paradox of amphibious life: coexistence with water as both a resource and a source of vulnerability. Building on these findings, the study develops an urban socio-ecological conceptualisation of Amphibious Justice, a framework for interpreting equity, recognition, and governance in hybrid territories where urbanisation and land–water dynamics intersect. The article proposes a framework of equitable amphibious urbanism that integrates environmental restoration, social inclusion, and participatory governance. The findings suggest that sustainability in such territories cannot be achieved through technocratic restoration or forced resettlement, but through co-produced strategies that recognise local knowledge, tenure security, and ecological stewardship. Ultimately, the case of Las Flores offers insights into how cities in the Global South can pursue just and adaptive coexistence with water amid growing climate and urban pressures. Full article

Land-use transformation driven by large-scale water conservancy projects profoundly reshapes regional ecosystem structures and the supply capacity of ecosystem services, yet targeted quantitative assessments linking land-use evolution to ecosystem service values (ESV) in the Xiaolangdi Reservoir resettlement zone remain insufficient, restricting scientific ecological management and territorial spatial governance for reservoir-affected counties and districts. This study draws on the latest ecosystem service valuation theories proposed by domestic and international scholars and applies the value equivalence method to quantify variations in land-use pattern changes and ESV across nine resettlement counties and districts (including the Sanmenxia urban area) affected by the Xiaolangdi Reservoir relocation project. Data collected included historical records (1995–2020), digital elevation models (DEM, 30 m resolution), and land-use information. By applying value equivalence theory and analyzing land-use change impacts, the study calculated changes in ESV and conducted sensitivity analyses across different land types. The findings reveal significant impacts on surrounding counties following the reservoir’s completion. Data indicate that the expansion of water areas drove the total ESV to rise from US$3.3261 billion in 1995 to a peak of US$3.6557 billion in 2010, followed by a decline to US$3.6128 billion in 2020. The most pronounced changes occurred during the first five years post-reservoir filling (2000–2005), marked by elevated water sensitivity indices. This research clarifies the differentiated responses of ecosystem service functions to land-use changes across reservoir-affected counties, provides quantitative decision-making support for coordinated ecological restoration, cultivated land protection, and sustainable land management in the resettlement area of the Xiaolangdi Reservoir, and offers a replicable technical framework for ecosystem service valuation of large sediment-laden river reservoir regions worldwide. Full article

Urban well-being in China emerges from spatially uneven configurations of development intensity, environmental pressure, governance input, public-service capacity, land-use transformation, and urban–rural conditions. Using a balanced panel of 294 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2004 to 2023 (5880 city–year observations), this study combines spatial mapping, Local Moran’s I, Getis–Ord Gi*, and two-way fixed-effects (TWFE) models to examine how governance-related conditions and ecological and environmental pressure are associated with resident well-being. Prefecture-level cities are treated as urban–rural territorial governance units encompassing urban cores, peri-urban areas, and surrounding county-level jurisdictions. Spatial diagnostics reveal non-identical clustering of resource and environmental intensity (REI), government regulation and investment (GRI), ecological and environmental pressure (EEP), and resident well-being (RWB). REI is positively associated with EEP, and this association remains positive after excluding observations containing ordinary statistical completion. EEP is negatively associated with RWB in the full-sample TWFE and one-year-lagged specifications, but the association weakens in the 2014–2023 and restricted samples, indicating temporal and sample boundaries rather than a stable mediating mechanism. GRI shows contrasting cross-city and within-city patterns, consistent with a distinction between governance capacity and pressure-responsive adjustment. Dimension-level results further show that EEP is negatively associated with rural disposable income, whereas medical service capacity is positively associated with rural disposable income. Overall, the study provides a spatially grounded account of heterogeneous governance–environment–welfare relationships across Chinese prefecture-level territories. Full article

Point-of-interest (POI) data are widely used as urban big data to sense the functional organization of urban land and associated socioeconomic activities. Yet, POI-based studies often treat these records as temporally stable, even though different POI categories vary in turnover and responses to external shocks, affecting the comparability of urban sensing over time. Using POI datasets for Changzhou, China, from 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2025, this study examines category-specific changes before, during, and after the COVID-19 disruption. The results identify three patterns: government-driven POIs (government and residential) show high stability and retention; government–market hybrid POIs (financial and educational) exhibit moderate stability; and market-driven POIs (catering and shopping) have low stability. Across periods, change intensity is inversely related to stability. During the pandemic, turnover increased across all categories, retention declined markedly, and most replacements occurred within the same category, indicating functional continuity despite entity-level change. Although the overall spatial framework of urban functions remained broadly stable, new hotspots emerged during the pandemic and some persisted into the recovery period. These findings demonstrate that POI-based urban sensing is temporally contingent and that category-specific dynamics should be considered when interpreting urban land-use functions and supporting land-use planning under disruptive events. Full article

Urban low-carbon transition is increasingly shaped by the interaction between digital infrastructure, intelligent applications, land-space allocation, and regional governance. Existing studies have mainly examined whether the digital economy or smart-city development can reduce emissions, but less attention has been paid to the coordination between digitalization and intelligentization, the carbon cost of digital infrastructure, and the spatial consequences of local gains. This research defines digital–intelligent integration as the coupling coordination between digitalization and intelligentization subsystems. Using panel data for 39 prefecture-level cities in the Middle Reaches of the Yellow River Urban Agglomeration from 2013 to 2022, it applies Global Moran’s I, a spatial Durbin model, partial-derivative effect decomposition, alternative spatial weight matrices, alternative dependent variable tests, and multidimensional heterogeneity analysis. The own-city coefficient of digital–intelligent integration in the carbon-efficiency model is positive (0.0282, p < 0.05), whereas the spatial-equilibrium direct effect is statistically insignificant. These quantities are not short- and long-run estimates: the former is a conditional model coefficient, while the latter incorporates spatial feedback. The indirect effect on neighboring carbon efficiency is negative and remains negative under contiguity, economic-distance, and geo-economic nested matrices. Under an otherwise identical fixed-effects specification, digital–intelligent integration lowers local construction-land carbon intensity but raises neighboring intensity. The structural estimates further show that local conversion is weaker in industrially and energy-intensive cities. Digital–intelligent integration should therefore be interpreted as a governance capacity rather than a net-carbon technology; its regional effect depends on industrial lock-in, infrastructure-energy demand, and cross-city responsibility sharing. Full article

Optimizing construction and ecological land patterns enhances urban ecosystem services, with efficiency gains depending on accurately identifying focal local spaces of greatest potential. However, existing research has yet to comprehensively quantify the multi-dimensional characteristics of both land types or systematically identify such priority areas. To address this gap, this study reconstructs integrated indicators capturing the “scale, shape, and connectivity” of construction and ecological land. Using the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) framework and interpretable machine learning, this study identifies focal local spaces for ecosystem service improvement in Nanjing, China, and analyzes the nonlinear interactive effects of these indicators on services. Key findings are as follows: (1) Construction land exhibits high aggregation and morphological complexity, whereas ecological land shows strong connectivity and intact morphology, with marked spatial differentiation. (2) Mid-rise building zones are identified as the focal local spaces (R²: 0.52–0.80). (3) Within these zones, ecological land core areas positively drive carbon storage (22.5%) and soil conservation (24.5%), construction land area proportion enhances water yield (23.7%) and construction land core areas suppress habitat quality (24.3%). Synergistic effects exist between ecological land extent and core areas for carbon and soil services, whereas construction land extent and core areas jointly degrade habitat quality. (4) This study recommends enhancing ecological land structure and connectivity, regulating construction land intensity, and creating semi-natural transitional zones at their interfaces. The integrated indicators and LCZ-based diagnostic approach provide a practical basis for zonal optimization of urban ecosystem services and a methodological reference for improving spatial governance. Full article

The large-scale withdrawal of military forces from urban areas represents one of the most significant drivers of land-use change in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe. Based on a national database of former military sites in Hungary, this study investigates changes in the residential population and social environment of these sites resulting from brownfield regeneration. The research combines the analysis of occupational statistical data for the census years 2001, 2011, and 2022 with qualitative methods, including semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted across four case-study locations in three Hungarian second-tier cities. The findings reveal three active governance configurations producing distinct social trajectories: social exclusion under market dominance, social mix under sustained municipal involvement, and social upgrading including gentrification in a transitional model where the state eventually withdraws. Ultimately, the study concludes that the social outcomes of military brownfield regeneration are primarily shaped by the governance dynamic between municipal authorities and private market actors rather than site attributes alone. Consequently, early and sustained municipal engagement remains the key factor for achieving socially balanced regeneration outcomes. Full article

Brazil presents a distinctive convergence of continental-scale climatic diversity, extensive urbanization, large-scale biomass burning, rapid land-use change, persistent air-quality monitoring gaps, and deep social inequalities, producing highly heterogeneous and compound environmental health risks. In this context, treating air pollution and climate change as parallel environmental crises obscures their structural interconnections through shared emission sources, mutually reinforcing exposure pathways, and overlapping health and social consequences. In this narrative review, we critically synthesize scientific and institutional lines of evidence and argue that air pollution and climate risks can be more effectively addressed in Brazil through a single strategic agenda for science, public health, and governance. We first discuss why these challenges cannot be managed in isolation, emphasizing the effects of heat, drought, stagnation events, biomass burning, and extreme weather on pollutant formation, dispersion, and health burden. We then examine Brazil as a critical case where recent regulatory advances coexist with structural limitations in monitoring, data integration, and territorial coverage. Based on this diagnosis, we propose an integrated national agenda organized around five mutually reinforcing priorities: monitoring through hybrid networks; predictive science through climate-informed modeling and early warning; public health through the convergence of epidemiology, toxicology, and mechanistic research; equity-oriented research and action through the explicit incorporation of vulnerability, inequality, and climate justice; and policy appraisal through the assessment of disease burden, economic costs, mitigation co-benefits, and trade-offs. We further discuss the governance mechanisms needed to connect these priorities and translate evidence into coordinated action and adaptive public policies. We also argue that the Amazon should be approached not as an isolated ecological exception but as a central component of a broader Brazilian and Global South discussion on environmental health, land-use change, and climate justice. In this scenario, Brazil has the scientific capacity and regulatory momentum to become a reference in the integrated management of air pollution and climate risks, but this will depend on replacing fragmented approaches with a coordinated framework capable of linking exposure, mechanism, burden, inequality, and action. Full article