An alternative model for evaluating the balance of carrying capacity between functional urban infrastructures

Urban infrastructures commonly include four types of functional infrastructures: traditional infrastructures, greenspace infrastructures, water infrastructures, and connective infrastructures. They work as an integrated system for supporting sustainable urban development. It is therefore important for having a proper method to help understand whether there is a balance between functional urban infrastructures' carrying capacities (FUICC). This paper introduces an alternative model named FUICC Catastrophe Model (FCM) to evaluate the balance of carrying capacity between various urban infrastructures. The development of the model FCM adopts Mean-Variance Analysis (MVA) technique and Catastrophe Progression Method (CPM) collectively. The application of FCM is demonstrated by using the empirical data collected from 35 cities in China. The research findings suggest that: 1) the difference in carrying capacity of each functional infrastructure between the sample cities is significant; 2) the difference in the degree of balance between FUICC is also significant between the sample cities; 3) the sample cities are classified into four categories, namely, acceptably balanced, less balanced, poorly balanced, and unbalanced. 4) the balance performance between FUICC among Chinese cities is characterized with polarization; 5) the balance performance of carrying capacity between functional urban infrastructures is generally poor in China, 40% of the sample cities achieving acceptable performance.     

Transformation effect of resource-based cities based on PSM-DID model: An empirical analysis from China

Promoting sustainable development in resource-based cities is required to accelerate transformative economic development, which also can promote harmonious development and accelerate progress of industrialization while playing a critical role in China's urbanization. However, the role of regional sustainable development plans within resource-based cities is unclear. This paper selected 87 resource-based cities as the treated group, matching propensity scores of city characteristics on a total of 253 cities in China from 2008 to 2018. The paper used the difference-in-differences method to evaluate the impact of the implementation of the “National Plan for Resource-based City Sustainable Development (2013-2020)”, measuring six years before and five years post-planning implementation. We found: (1) The implementation of the plan has promoted economic, social, and ecological transformation by 19.6%, 55.4% and 74.5% respectively (p < 0.01), but there appeared to be no additional effects on sustainable utilization of resources. (2) Among driving factors, market development affected all forms of transformation the most. (3) The impact of this transformation varied by stages of urban development according to the full life cycle of the resource-based city and its local resources. Specifically, the transformation effect of the growing type city in economic, social, ecological and resource transformation was the strongest among that of all type stages.     

Assessment of urban sustainability efficiency based on general data envelopment analysis: a case study of two cities in western and eastern China

Sustainable urban development focuses on enhancing urban well-being, while also balancing the demands of urban social and economic development, natural resource consumption, and environmental pollution. This work used general data envelopment analysis to assess the urban sustainability efficiency (USE) and sustainability potential (SP) in Lanzhou and Xiamen, two cities that are characteristic of urban areas in western and eastern China. The assessment indicator system included important natural and urban welfare factors as input and output indices, respectively. The results showed that overall urban sustainability efficiency increased in Lanzhou and Xiamen from 1985 to 2010, but that the sustainability of natural resources clearly decreased. The urban sustainability efficiency of Xiamen was higher than that of Lanzhou, and the sustainability potential of Xiamen was lower than that of Lanzhou; this indicates that Xiamen performed better in terms of urban sustainable development. The urban sustainability efficiency in Xiamen has increased with increasing urban population, and the rate and scale of economic development have been higher than in Lanzhou. The assessment and analysis performed in this study show that cities with different natural resources and development characteristics have different forms, patterns, and trajectories of sustainable development.     

Effect of national-level spatial distribution of cities on national transport CO2 emissions

Most research regarding the relationship between cities and transportation carbon emission is focused on intra-city travel, and it has been found that compact patterns tend to emit less carbon. Yet, little is known about the impact of national-level spatial distribution of cities and inter-city transportation on transportation CO₂ emissions. Further, most studies regarding the impact of urbanization on CO₂ emission directly examine the relationship between urbanization rate and CO₂ emission with little consideration of the national spatial pattern of urbanization. This study hypothesizes that the national-level spatial distribution of cities – in a dispersed or polarized pattern – affects national transport CO₂ emissions due to the varying intensity of inter-city transportation. This study uses the Gridded Population of the World v3 and v4 from Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) of NASA to examine the national-level spatial distribution of urban agglomerations. It applies the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) model. The analysis shows that, among 60–90% of urbanized countries, spatially dispersed urbanized countries (e.g., countries with many medium-sized cities scattered over the territory) show a lower national transportation CO₂ emission than spatially polarized urbanized countries (e.g., there are only a few large cities). The urban system elasticity of transportation CO₂ emissions is 0.4 or 0.6. That is, if the degree of polarization decreases by 1%, national transportation CO₂ emissions decrease by approximately 0.4–0.6%. This effect is similar to the effect of GDP per capita of around 0.5%. Because it is particularly difficult to disperse people and economic activities across a country once spatial polarization is set, this study's findings have the most significant implications for urbanizing countries. If urbanizing countries adopt national urban policy and territorial plans to form dispersed cities, it could reduce transportation carbon emissions and promote sustainable development. For already urbanized countries, national urban policy development is recommended to promote spatially dispersed rather than polarized national urban systems.     

Economic perspective-based analysis on urban infrastructures carrying capacity — A China study

Urban Infrastructure Economic Capacity (UIEC) is one of the most important capacities of urban infrastructure carrying capacity, which is an essential determinant of sustainable urban development. However, it appears that UIEC is not properly investigated during the urban development process, for which establishing an appropriate method is imperative to examine whether the urban infrastructure has achieved ideal economic capacity. This paper introduces an instrumental approach named UIEC model to investigate urban infrastructure economic capacity. The UIEC model adopts Coupling-Coordination Degree Model, Mean-Variance Analysis Method, Support-Pressure Model, and Super-efficiency Slack-based-measure Window model jointly. By employing the UIEC model, the economic capacity of urban infrastructure carrying capacity is appreciated by investigating the economic carrying efficiency of urban infrastructures. A China study is conducted during 2008–2017 for demonstrating the application of the introduced UIEC model. The research findings suggest that: 1) Economic location and self-governance authority have significant impact on UIEC; 2) the overall economic carrying efficiency of urban infrastructure in surveyed cities is decreasing; 3) there lies in an exponential relationship between economic carrying efficiency of urban infrastructure and GDP value in surveyed cities. High utilization efficiency of urban infrastructures is an essential prerequisite for carrying large volume of urban economic development.     

Sustainability principles in strategic environmental assessment: A framework for analysis and examples from Italian urban planning

This paper presents a framework for analysing the degree of consideration of sustainability principles in Strategic environmental assessment (SEA), and demonstrates its application to a sample of SEA of Italian urban plans. The framework is based on Gibson's (2006) sustainability principles, which are linked to a number of guidance criteria and eventually to review questions, resulting from an extensive literature review. A total of 71 questions are included in the framework, which gives particular emphasis to key concepts, such as intragenerational and intergenerational equity. The framework was applied to review the Environmental Report of the urban plans of 15 major Italian cities. The results of this review show that, even if sustainability is commonly considered as a pivotal concept, there is still work to be done in order to effectively integrate sustainability principles into SEA. In particular, most of the attention is given to mitigation and compensation measures, rather than to actual attempts to propose more sustainable planning decisions in the first place. Concerning the proposed framework of analysis, further research is required to clarify equity concerns and particularly to identify suitable indicators for operationalizing the concepts of intra/inter-generational equity in decision-making.     

Certification systems for sustainable neighbourhoods: What do they really certify?

Certification systems for sustainable neighbourhoods started to emerge around a decade ago. This study analysed the content, structure, weighting and indicators of two established certification systems for sustainable urban development – BREEAM Communities and LEED for Neighborhood Development. Several limitations of these systems were identified: both have a bias for procedure and feature indicators over indicators that assess actual performance; performance demands are set according to a relative understanding of sustainable development; the focus is on internal sustainability, while upstream and downstream impacts of construction are disregarded; the number and distribution of mandatory issues do not cover essential sustainability aspects; and the disproportionately large number of non-mandatory issues makes benchmarking difficult and signals that sustainability aspects are exchangeable. Altogether, this means that an area can be certified without being sustainable. Moreover, the lack of continuous development of certification requirements in the systems means that they risk exerting a conservative effect on urban development, rather than pushing it forward.     

Land use patterns and urbanization in the holy city of Varanasi, India: a scenario

Rapid urbanization and increasing land use changes due to population and economic growth in selected landscapes is being witnessed of late in India and other developing countries. The cities are expanding in all directions resulting in large-scale urban sprawl and changes in urban land use. The spatial pattern of such changes is clearly noticed on the urban fringes or city peripheral rural areas than in the city center. In fact, this is reflected in changing urban land use patterns. There is an urgent need to accurately describe land use changes for planning and sustainable management. In the recent times, remote sensing is gaining importance as vital tool in the analysis and integration of spatial data. This study intends to estimate land use pattern in a planned and unplanned urban setup and also to analyze the impact of change in land use pattern in the Varanasi urban environment. The results indicate that the planned urban setup had a higher tree cover to that of unplanned area in the Varanasi City, although a considerable disparity existed within the planned urban setups. The results emphasize the need to critically review concepts of urban planning and give more consideration to the preservation and management of urban tree cover/greenspace.     

Towards sustainable settlement growth: A new multi-criteria assessment for implementing environmental targets into strategic urban planning

For nearly one decade, the German political and research-agenda has been to a large extent determined by the ongoing question of how to limit the expansion of settlement areas around cities in order to preserve natural resources, make settlement growth more sustainable and to strengthen the re-use of existing inner-urban areas (see a.o. Kötter et al. 2009a, 2010; Schetke et al. 2009, 2010b). What is already under discussion within the international literature are the recommendations of the German Council for Sustainability to quantitatively reduce the daily greenfield consumption from the current rate of over 100 ha per day to a rate of 30 ha per day in 2020 and to bring urban infill development up to a ratio of 3:1 with greenfield development (German Council for Sustainability, 2004).). This paper addresses the added value beyond those abstract political targets and presents an innovative, multi-criteria assessment (MCA) of greenfield and infill sites to evaluate their sustainability and resource efficiency. MCA development and its incorporation into a Decision Support System (DSS) were accomplished by utilising a stakeholder-driven approach. The resulting tool can be applied in preparing and revising land-use plans. The paper presents the concept and the development process of the MCA-DSS. Test runs with planners prove that the evaluation of potential housing sites using individually weighted environmental indicators helps to identify those strategies of housing development that accord most closely with sustainability goals. The tests further show that the development of greenfield sites generally exhibits less sustainability than that of infill sites.     

Impacts of urban growth on forest cover in Istanbul (1987–2007)

This article reports findings of a study that examined the impacts of urban growth on forest cover in Istanbul between 1987 and 2007. Four Landsat images from 1987, 1990, 2000, and 2007 were classified with maximum likelihood supervised classification method by using ERDAS IMAGINE 9.1. Forest and urban areas were given highest importance in the classification, while other land-use characteristics, like agriculture and bare soil, were grouped into a third class as others. The study revealed that rapid increase in population and accompanying unplanned urban growth in Istanbul resulted in significant changes in land use after 1987. Urban areas have expanded 87.9% from 1987 to 2007, while forest areas declined 5.4% in the same period. One of the most significant results of the study was that total forest areas in Istanbul have increased 0.3% between 2000 and 2007. This suggests that progress has been made in Istanbul not only in having sustainable urban growth, but also in preserving, restoring, and even expanding forest areas, especially after the year 2000.     

Urban Development and Air Quality in San Luis City, Argentina

Some factors such as the high population growth, along with insufficient housing, health and sanitary services, obsolete industrial technology and the lack of environmental management programs, give rise to contamination in Latin-American cities. Owing to the urban characteristics of San Luis, a detailed analysis of air quality was planned as part of a more comprehensive study, in order to make an environmental diagnosis of the city after the demographical and economic upgrowth over the last 15 years. It has been concluded that air pollution levels in San Luis are higher than those expected for a medium-size city. The reported high levels were attributed to important industrial activity, responsible not only for the direct of polluting gases to the atmosphere but also as the principal cause of the urban expansion. The levels of CO and SO₂ (ppm) found in the city can be considered as high. Some weeks during the sampling measure values were appreciably higher than the maximum tolerance levels established. The urban area under study was separated into five defined areas, which allowed to make comparisons in order to identify specific contamination problems. The slopes corresponding to the plot polluting substances concentration vs. wind speed were lower than the expected values. Because of the urban area characteristics, different micrometeorological effects facilitating a low air exchange can be generated, and consequently increasing the contamination levels. Thus, it is correct to conclude that the degradation processes are not occurring in a single environmental plane. Accordingly, air contamination rate in San Luis city could be considered as evidence of other upper-scale regional environmental degradation processes.     

Three dimensional monitoring of urban development by means of ortho-rectified aerial photographs and high-resolution satellite images

Nowadays, cities are developing and changing rapidly due to the increases in the population and immigration. Rapid changing brings obligation to control the cities by planning. The satellite images and the aerial photographs enable us to track the urban development and provide the opportunity to get the current data about urban. With the help of these images, cities may have interrogated dynamic structures. This study is composed of three steps. In the first step, orthophoto images have been generated in order to track urban developments by using the aerial photographs and the satellite images. In this step, the panchromatic (PAN), the multi spectral (MS) and the pan-sharpened image of IKONOS satellite have been used as input satellite data and the accuracy of orthophoto images has been investigated in detail, in terms of digital elevation model (DEM), control points, input images and their properties. In the second step, a 3D city model with database has been generated with the help of orthophoto images and the vector layouts. And in the last step, up to date urban information obtained from 3D city model. This study shows that it is possible to detect the unlicensed buildings and the areas which are going to be nationalized and it also shows that it is easy to document the existing alterations in the cities with the help of current development plans and orthophoto images. And since accessing updated data is very essential to control development and monitor the temporal alterations in urban areas, in this study it is proven that the orthophoto images generated by using aerial photos and satellite images are very reliable to use in obtaining topographical information, in change detection and in city planning. When digital orthophoto images used with GIS, they provide quick decision control mechanisms and quick data collection. Besides, they help to find efficient solutions in a short time in the planning applications.     

乌鲁木齐市城市环境综合整治定量考核初步研究

城市环境综合整治定量考核是中国为保护和改善城市环境质量而实行的一种行政性管理制度。该项制度目前采用20项指标,综合衡量一个城市的环境质量等级,并进行城市间的相互比较。乌鲁木齐市自1989年参加城考以来,成绩一直不理想,特别是环境空气质量得分不理想。本文采用通常方案和减排方案对2008年城考结果进行预测。结果表明,只有采取减排方案,才能改变乌鲁木齐市在全国城考中排名落后的状况。     

Municipal solid waste generation in growing urban areas in Africa: current practices and relation to socioeconomic factors in Jimma, Ethiopia

As one of cities in the developing countries, a rapid population growth and industrial activities pose many environmental challenges for Jimma city, Ethiopia. One aspect of urban growth posing a threat on sustainable development is poor solid waste management, which results in environmental pollution. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the quantity, composition, sources of waste generated, their current disposal practices, and to recommend appropriate management technologies. The total waste generated daily in Jimma city was ca. 88,000 kg, and the average per capita generation rate was 0.55?±?0.17 kg/capita/day. Eighty-seven percent of the waste was produced by households and 13% by institutions, and a negligible fraction (0.1%) was generated by street sweepings. During the rainy season, 40% more waste was generated than in the dry season because of the increased availability of agricultural food product. Further analysis showed that biodegradable organic waste constitutes 54% by weight with an average moisture content of 60% that falls within the required limits for composting. The nonbiodegradable components constitute 46% of which 30% of it was nonrecyclable material. Only 25% of the community uses municipal containers for disposal at the selected landfill site. Fifty-one percent of the households disposed their waste in individually chosen spots, whereas 22% burned their waste. Finally 2% of households use private waste collectors. The socioeconomic analysis showed that higher family income and educational status is associated more with private or municipal waste collection and less with the application of backyard or open dumping. These insights into generated waste and management practice in Jimma city allow making suggestions for improved collection, treatment, and disposal methods. A primary conclusion is that the biodegradable waste is a major fraction having suitable properties for recycling. As such an economic benefit can be obtained from this waste while avoiding the need for disposal.     

Framework for integration of urban planning,strategic environmental assessment and ecological planning for urban sustainability within the context of China

Sustainable development or sustainability has been highlighted as an essential principle in urban master planning, with increasing recognition that uncontrollable urbanization may well give rise to various issues such as overexploitation of natural resources, ecosystem destruction, environmental pollution and large-scale climate change. Thus, it is deemed necessary to modify the existing urban and regional administrative system so as to cope with the challenges urban planning is being confronted with and realize the purpose of urban sustainability. This paper contributed to proposing a mechanism which helps to make urban planning with full consideration of issues with respect to sustainable development. We suggested that the integration of urban planning, SEA and ecological planning be a multi-win strategy to offset deficiency of each mentioned political tool being individually applied. We also proposed a framework where SEA and ecological planning are fully incorporated into urban planning, which forms a two-way constraint mechanism to ascertain environmental quality of urban planning, although in practice, planning and SEA processes may conditionally be unified. Moreover, as shown in the case study, the integration of the three political tools may be constrained due to slow changes in the contextual factors, in particular the political and cultural dimensions. Currently within the context of China, there may be three major elements which facilitate integration of the three political tools, which are (1) regulatory requirement of PEIA on urban planning, (2) the promotion or strong administrative support from government on eco-district building, and (3) the willingness of urban planners to collaborate with SEA experts or ecologists.     

Framework for integration of urban planning, strategic environmental assessment and ecological planning for urban sustainability within the context of China

Sustainable development or sustainability has been highlighted as an essential principle in urban master planning, with increasing recognition that uncontrollable urbanization may well give rise to various issues such as overexploitation of natural resources, ecosystem destruction, environmental pollution and large-scale climate change. Thus, it is deemed necessary to modify the existing urban and regional administrative system so as to cope with the challenges urban planning is being confronted with and realize the purpose of urban sustainability. This paper contributed to proposing a mechanism which helps to make urban planning with full consideration of issues with respect to sustainable development. We suggested that the integration of urban planning, SEA and ecological planning be a multi-win strategy to offset deficiency of each mentioned political tool being individually applied. We also proposed a framework where SEA and ecological planning are fully incorporated into urban planning, which forms a two-way constraint mechanism to ascertain environmental quality of urban planning, although in practice, planning and SEA processes may conditionally be unified. Moreover, as shown in the case study, the integration of the three political tools may be constrained due to slow changes in the contextual factors, in particular the political and cultural dimensions. Currently within the context of China, there may be three major elements which facilitate integration of the three political tools, which are (1) regulatory requirement of PEIA on urban planning, (2) the promotion or strong administrative support from government on eco-district building, and (3) the willingness of urban planners to collaborate with SEA experts or ecologists.     

The effects of meteorological parameters in ambient noise modelling studies in Delhi

The acoustic environment in urban areas has gained prominence in recent times due to rapid industrial and commercial development in metropolitan cities. Various attempts have been made to predict and model the trends in urban ambient noise levels using different statistical and dynamic models. The present study makes an attempt to examine the role of meteorological parameters affecting the ambient noise levels in Delhi. The results show significant improvement in overall noise scenario of Delhi since the introduction of compressed natural gas vehicles in public transport of Delhi. The noise level is significantly reduced by high vegetation cover as well as by low relative humidity over Delhi. The regression models developed for the present study clearly show the significant contribution of meteorological parameters in governing the ambient noise levels in Delhi.     

辽宁省三城市大气颗粒物来源解析研究

针对辽宁省的沈阳、抚顺、葫芦岛三个城市的大气颗粒物来源,应用CMB化学质量平衡模型和二重源解析技术进行了定性和定量解析。识别各源类及其成分谱的特征,分析、比较大气颗粒物的时空分布特征,并计算三城市各源类在不同季节对城市大气颗粒物污染的贡献率,得到辽宁省城市大气颗粒物来源和季节分布特征的一般规律,说明城市扬尘、土壤风沙尘和煤烟尘是城市颗粒物的主要来源,应作为颗粒物污染治理的重点,而抚顺市特有的钢铁尘,葫芦岛市特有的锌尘等源类的污染也不容忽视。