The role of science-policy interface in sustainable urban water transitions: Lessons from Rotterdam

This paper investigates the role of the science-policy interface in leveraging transitions to sustainable urban water management. The paper presents a case study of the Dutch city of Rotterdam, which is increasingly regarded as a global leader in adaptive and resilient urban water management. The analysis reveals that Rotterdam’s transition has occurred incrementally over the past 15 years, driven by policy entrepreneurs: largely municipal policy makers and policy practitioners. Strategic use of the science-policy interface (SPI) has facilitated the development of innovative solutions to achieve policy goals and created the enabling conditions necessary for transformative change. The Rotterdam case suggests that an effective SPI requires: (1) compelling water narrative; (2) cross-sectoral collaboration; (3) co-production of knowledge; (4) experiential evidence-based learning; (5) strategic use of trusted scientists; (6) fostering networks; and (7) generating business from science-based innovation. Rotterdam’s strategic approach to knowledge and innovation coupled with a new narrative around water sets it apart from many other cities and adds a new dimension to debates regarding enabling factors for advancing sustainable practices. These findings will be of interest to those engaged in urban water management policy and practice, environmental governance, and debates over transitions more broadly.     

绿色城市评价指标体系的构建与权重

在全球城市化的高速进程中，城市经济的增长与资源环境的矛盾日渐加剧，城市的"绿色"转型势在必行.对城市绿色发展程度进行评估，是建设绿色城市的重要内容.绿色城市评价指标体系能够反映绿色城市发展潜力及存在问题，而如何选择评价指标及指标权重的设置是开展绿色城市评价的首要科学问题.本文首先基于绿色城市发展理念与指标构建原则，从绿色生产、绿色生活、环境质量3个维度构建了10个二级指标、29个三级指标，并按照属性将基础指标分为正向、负向、特定向指标3类.然后，基于主体功能区与城市发展阶段，分别对不同类型城市设立权重系数，通过整合综合权重系数，实现了对不同类型城市的差异化评价，提升了评价结果的公正性.本研究建立的绿色城市评价指标体系充分结合了联合国可持续发展目标，可为绿色城市评价提供科学依据.     

Bridging the gap between ecosystem service assessments and land-use planning through Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA)

Land-use planning is an important determinant for green space policy in cities. It defines land covers and hence the structure and function of urban ecosystems and the benefits these provide to humans, such as air purification, urban cooling, runoff mitigation, and recreation. The ecosystem service approach has helped to attract policy attention to these benefits but the concept remains poorly implemented in urban policy and governance. To address this gap, we advance a framework to bridge ecosystem services into policy processes through Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) as decision support tool. The paper is organized in three main parts. First, we conduct a systematic literature review to assess state-of-the-art knowledge on ecosystem service assessments through MCDA. Next, we build on insights from the literature review to develop the ‘ecosystem services policy-cycle’, a conceptual framework that merges the ‘ecosystem service cascade’ and ‘policy cycle’ models to reinforce the link between ecosystem service assessments and practical applications in urban policy and governance. Next, we illustrate the applicability of the proposed framework along an example about conflicting interests on land use and green space planning following the closure of the Airport Tempelhof in Berlin, Germany. Our results highlight the scope of MCDA as a decision support tool for integrating ecosystem service assessments in green space governance. We discuss advantages and disadvantages of different methodological choices in the use of MCDA in ecosystem service assessments and note that a key strength of this tool in informing green space policies lies in its capacity to accommodate conflicting stakeholder perspectives and to address trade-offs between ecological, social and economic values.     

城市绿地降温效应研究进展与展望

全球变暖已是不争的事实,而且不可能完全被阻止。城市绿地作为城市结构中的自然生产力主体,在缓解城市热岛、调节城市气候和协助城市应对未来气候变化中扮演着极其重要的角色。如何优化城市绿地空间布局,从而实现城市绿地降温效应的最大化,更有效地应对城市气候变化,已经成为城市绿地布局规划与研究的热点与难点问题。论文从城市绿地降温效应实地观测、城市尺度城市绿地与城市热岛关系、城市绿地降温效应模型模拟和城市绿地降温效应的心理和社会意义4个角度,对国内外相关研究进行了评述,并在此基础上总结了目前城市绿地降温效应研究存在的主要问题,进而提出了该领域未来研究的方向,以期为深入研究城市绿地的降温效应、更好地规划和设计绿地提供重要的借鉴和参考。     

Designing a knowledge co-production operating space for urban environmental governance—Lessons from Rotterdam,Netherlands and Berlin,Germany

Challenges for a sustainable urban development are increasingly important in cities because urbanization and related land take come up with negative challenges for the environment and for city residents. Searching for successful solutions to environmental problems requires combined efforts of different scientific disciplines and an active dialogue between stakeholders from policy and society. In this paper, we present a comparative assessment of the way policy-science dialogues have achieved knowledge co-production about strategic urban environmental governance action using the cities of Berlin in Germany and Rotterdam in the Netherlands as case studies. The ecosystem services framework is applied as a lens for policy–science interaction and a ‘knowledge co-production operating space’ is introduced. We show how policy officers, urban planners, practitioners and scientists learned from each other, and highlight the impact of this knowledge co-production for governance practice. We found that the concerted collaboration and co-creation between researchers and policy officers have led to mutual learning and establishment of relationships and trust in both cities. Not only the policy-relevance of research and its policy uptake were achieved but also new insights for research blind spots were created. In our conclusions we reflect on co-production processes with two types of conditions that we introduced to be most influential in the way knowledge can be co-created. These are conditions that relate to the way knowledge co-production processes are set-up and, conditions that relate to the expected value or benefit that the co-produced knowledge will bring across society, policy and practice.     

The value of urban ecosystem services in New York City: A spatially explicit multicriteria analysis of landscape scale valuation scenarios

Mapping, modeling, and valuing urban ecosystem services are important for integrating the ecosystem services concept in urban planning and decision-making. However, decision-support tools able to consider multiple ecosystem services in the urban setting using complex and heterogeneous data are still in early development. Here, we use New York City (NYC) as a case study to evaluate and analyze how the value of multiple ecosystem services of urban green infrastructure shifts with shifting governance priorities. We first examined the spatial distribution of five ecosystem services – storm water absorption, carbon storage, air pollution removal, local climate regulation, and recreation – to create the first multiple ecosystem services evaluation of all green infrastructure in NYC. Then, combining an urban ecosystem services landscape approach with spatial multicriteria analysis weighting scenarios, we examine the distribution of these ecosystem services in the city. We contrast the current NYC policy preference – which is focused on heavy investment in stormwater absorption – with a valuation approach that also accounts for other ecosystem services. We find substantial differences in the spatial distribution of priority areas for green infrastructure for the valuation scenarios. Among the scenarios we examined for NYC, we find that a scenario in which only stormwater absorption is prioritized leads to the most unevenly distributed ES values. By contrast, we find least variation in ES values where stormwater absorption, local climate regulation, carbon storage, air pollution removal, and recreational potential are all weighted equally.We suggest that green infrastructure planning strategies should include all landscape components that contribute to the production of ecosystem services and consider how planning priority alternatives generate different ecosystem services values.     

Governing cities reflexively—The biocultural diversity concept as an alternative to ecosystem services

With the aim to embed ecology more forcefully into decision-making, the concept of Ecosystems Services (ES) has gained significant ground among policy-makers and researchers. The increasing recognition of the importance of urban green areas for the quality of life in growing cities has led proponents of ES approaches to argue for an uptake of the approach in urban environmental decision-making. However, the ES approach has been criticized for standing too much at a distance from local communities and their day-to-day practices and for insufficiently taking into account the potential trade-offs between different qualities or preferences. In this paper we argue that other concepts, doing other work, need to be added to the debate about futures of urban governance and research. Biocultural diversity is suggested as one such alternative concept. By its emphasis on diversity, biocultural diversity can account for the many ways in which people live with green areas in the urban landscape, acknowledges the different knowledges this involves, and can reveal conflicts and ambivalence that may be at stake. This sets up for a reflexive, transdisciplinary research process that questions and contextualizes knowledge and worldviews including those of researchers. A reflexive, transdisciplinary research, then, is a productive catalyst for forms of reflexive urban governance that recognise and respond to this diversity and provide platforms for contestation.     

The governance of private residential land in cities and spatial effects on tree cover

Trees in cities supply ecosystem services, including cooling, storm water quality management, habitat, visual screening and softening of built form. There is an expanding interdisciplinary field encompassing biodiversity, ecosystem services, and stewardship networks in cities. However most of this work focuses on public greenspace. While much work has been done to demonstrate that trees on private land are an important complement to the public urban forest, and to understand the social drivers of such, less is known about the governance of private greenspace in cities. Private land contributes to a significant component of a city’s tree cover, particularly in cities characterised by low-density residential suburbs. It is important to understand the mechanisms that govern private tree cover, given the pace and scale of urbanisation globally. We combined policy and spatial analysis to examine the influence of larger and denser forms of residential development on suburban tree cover and the scope of contemporary governance measures. We interrogated tree cover patterns in the rapidly densifying and consolidating city of Brisbane, Australia, to show that private residential tree cover is explained by dwelling density, housing age, terrain slope, high school education, and household income. Results show significantly (30%) less tree cover in low-density residential suburbs developed since the early 1990s. We develop five governance principles for reversing the decline of urban trees on private residential property that may be transferable to other rapidly developing cities in around the world.     

Ecosystem services provided by urban gardens in Barcelona,Spain: Insights for policy and planning

In many European cities, urban gardens are seen as increasingly important components of urban green space networks. We adopt an ecosystem services framework to assess contributions of urban gardens to the quality of of their users. First, we identify and characterize ecosystem services provided by urban gardens. Secondly, we assess the demographic and socioeconomic profile of its beneficiaries and the relative importance they attribute to different ecosystem services. Next we discuss the relevance of our results in relation to critical policy challenges, such as the promotion of societal cohesion and healthy lifestyles. Data were collected through 44 semi-structured interviews and a survey among 201 users of 27 urban gardens in Barcelona, Spain, as well as from consultation meetings with local planners. We identified 20 ecosystem services, ranging from food production over pollination to social cohesion and environmental learning. Among them, cultural ecosystem services (non-material benefits people derive from their interaction with nature) ​ stand out as the most widely perceived and as the most highly valued. The main beneficiaries of ecosystem services from urban gardens are elder, low-middle income, and migrant people. Our results about the societal importance of urban gardens ​were deemed highly relevant by the interviewed green space planners in Barcelona, who noted that our data can provide basis to support or expand existing gardening programs in the city. Our research further suggests that ecosystem services from urban gardens can play an important role in addressing several urban policy challenges in cities, such as promoting stewardship of urban ecosystems, providing opportunities for recreation and healthy lifestyles, and promoting social cohesion. We conclude that urban gardens and associated ecosystem services can play an important ​ in urban policies aimed at enhancing quality of life in cities, particularly if access to their benefits is expanded to larger segments of the population.     

生态美学与生态城市建设研究

现代城市日益成为“水泥森林”和PM2.5的“生产车间”,城市中的绿化植被不过是庞大的“水泥森林”中的零星点缀和PM2.5笼罩下的脆弱生机,只是划出一点空间给有限的自然生物一个及其有限的生存喘息,这种划出一块生态区域与真正的生态化城市相比具有相当大的距离.要将这种“划生态”转变为生态化,需要从生态美学思维的高度考虑城市园林与生态城市的关系.使城市掩映在自然生态之中,这才是对“水泥森林”、PM2.5和现代“城市病”的有效救治.     

Advancing urban ecosystem governance in Ljubljana

Extensive green areas generate a recognizable green identity of Ljubljana. Due to the challenges of climate change and urbanization the city's spatial policy highlights revitalization of degraded urban areas, preserving the quality and scope of the existing green network and the protection of multifunctional natural areas surrounding the city. Article describes the project of Rakova Jelša Park as a good example of these policies. With an NGO initiative a former degraded area with illegal dumping and non-indigenous vegetation was transformed into recreational park with increased biocultural diversity. Important lesson of the project is that opening up space for public use not only prevents degradation, but also improves the quality of urban ecosystems. One of the challenges for the city's future sustainable ecosystem development will be a more active cooperation with its citizens in the green infrastructure policy and later also a partial transfer of responsibility for green areas to them.     

大型城市紧凑度与能源效率的关系研究

采用超效率DEA和熵值法测算了2003—2014年29个大型城市的能源效率与紧凑度,进而通过象限图法对城市紧凑度与能源效率的关系进行分析。分析表明,我国大型城市能源效率普遍偏低但在缓慢提升;城市紧凑度与能源效率以低级协调为主。从区域看,二者关系的地区差异明显,东部以高级协调为主,中西部低级协调关系显著。城市规模越大,紧凑度和能源效率水平越高,且城市突出关系类型由低级协调变为高级协调。剔除紧凑度外其他可能影响能源效率的因素后的象限图再次印证提高紧凑度有利于改善城市能源效率的结论。为通过提升城市紧凑度来提高能源效率,需加大公共服务和基础设施投入,加强工业用地的集约使用,完善城市功能体系,实现经济、人文和生态的多功能复合利用。     

Renaturing cities using a regionally-focused biodiversity-led multifunctional benefits approach to urban green infrastructure

If a ‘Renaturing of Cities’ strategy is to maximise the ecosystem service provision of urban green infrastructure (UGI), then detailed consideration of a habitat services, biodiversity-led approach and multifunctionality are necessary rather than relying on the assumed benefits of UGI per se. The paper presents preliminary data from three case studies, two in England and one in Germany, that explore how multifunctionality can be achieved, the stakeholders required, the usefulness of an experimental approach for demonstrating transformation, and how this can be fed back into policy. We argue that incorporating locally contextualised biodiversity-led UGI design into the planning and policy spheres contributes to the functioning and resilience of the city and provides the adaptability to respond to locally contextualised challenges, such as overheating, flooding, air pollution, health and wellbeing as well as biodiversity loss. Framing our research to encompass both the science of biodiversity-led UGI and co-developing methods for incorporating a strategic approach to implementation of biodiversity-led UGI by planners and developers addresses a gap in current knowledge and begins to address barriers to UGI implementation. By combining scientific with policy learning and defined urban environmental targets with community needs, our research to date has begun to demonstrate how nature-based solutions to building resilience and adaptive governance can be strategically incorporated within cities through UGI.     

基于雨水的南方丘陵城市环境景观基础设施网络研究

针对雨水的南方丘陵城市环境景观基础设施网络问题,以雨水排泄和汇集为导向,以GIS为分析工具,计算出雨水汇集点和排泄路径的适宜性分析图,结合城市内现有环境,如公园、广场、废弃地、绿地等用地选择环境景观基础设施节点,根据现有城市用地布局、水系、道路系统,具体计算出这些环境景观设施廊道,构建一个多功能景观基础设施网络体系,在一定程度上缓解环境雨水内涝问题,同时又能改善城市景观环境,促进城市环境景观基础设施与城市环境基础设施的融合.     

Wasting collaboration potential: A study in urban green space governance in a post-transition country

Most accounts of urban green space governance originate in cities where such initiatives have been successful. Meanwhile, there is too little information on cities where such initiatives develop with more difficulty. In order to overcome the problems that such cities face, their situations need to be studied more carefully to facilitate peer comparisons. This article provides an account of urban green space governance in three cities in Poland (Krakow, Lodz, Poznan), where environmental protection is still quite far down on the list of political priorities. With the use of a social network analysis we looked at the extent of relationships between different stakeholders and the roles of different actors within the network. The results indicate that the network's collaboration potential is barely used and that cross-sectoral collaboration is especially deficient. In particular, public institutions hold a relatively strong position and downplay the role of other actors. More collaboration is necessary and the potential bridging role of NGOs should be used to a larger extent. However, this requires more openness and trust within the network.     

长三角城市群高质量绿色发展的均衡性特征及障碍因素

从绿色核心动力、环境基底、创新产业、发展绩效四个维度构建评价体系,运用CRITIC赋权、核密度估计、重心—标准差椭圆等方法,从均衡态、均衡度、均衡熵角度探讨长三角城市群高质量绿色发展的均衡状况,并分析其障碍因素。结果表明：（1）高质量绿色发展存在明显的空间差异,但未出现空间极化现象;总体格局呈西北—东南向,重心位于南北居中、东西偏东的位置。（2）高质量绿色发展总体水平较为均衡,但其中创新维度均衡度较低;城市内部均衡度存在明显的省域分化,沪苏浙城市明显优于安徽省内城市。均衡熵表明多数城市系统协调度有优势,具备一定发展潜力。（3）创新水平、环境质量、土地集约、现代产业等是高质量绿色发展普遍存在的障碍因素。坚持创新驱动,建设现代产业体系,加强国土空间治理是长三角城市群高质量绿色发展的紧迫任务。     

低碳经济下洛阳市生态城市规划研究

"十三五"时期是推动城市向协调、开放、绿色、环保发展的新时期,这对重工业发达的洛阳来说是一个承前启后的时期.近些年来,洛阳市在城市化进程中所产生的城市生态环境问题日益突出.为了适应新时期的发展,文章对当前洛阳市生态城市规划与已有城市规划体系间如何实现有机融合做出思考,指出洛阳市城市规划必须走低碳经济之路,强调在城乡规划,绿色公共交通网络建立,污水管道规划,绿地规划等四个方面树立生态环境标准从而有效实现洛阳市生态城市规划.     

中国低碳试点城市碳排放效率时空演变与影响因素

中国提出2030年前实现碳达峰、2060年前实现碳中和的战略目标,提高碳排放效率,推动绿色低碳发展是实现“双碳”目标的重要途径。运用包含非期望产出的Super-SBM模型,测度了2003—2018年中国68个低碳试点城市的碳排放效率并分析其时空演变特征,运用面板回归模型分析城市碳排放效率的影响因素,得出以下结论：（1）低碳试点城市碳排放效率在时间上整体呈上升趋势,效率值从0.169上升至0.423,年均增长率为6.31%,仍有一定的提升空间。（2）低碳试点城市碳排放效率的区域差异呈先缩小后逐渐扩大趋势,空间上呈现“东中西”递减分布格局;从城市等级规模来看呈现“超大城市>特大城市>大城市>中等城市>小城市”特征。（3）经济发展水平、产业结构、城镇化水平、绿色技术创新与试点城市碳排放效率呈显著正相关,外资强度与碳排放效率呈显著负相关,各影响因素对三大地区和不同规模城市的作用程度存在一定的差异性。从创新投入、产业结构和区域差异化等方面提出对策建议,对促进城市绿色低碳发展和生态文明建设具有一定的借鉴意义。     

海湾型城市滨水空间的战略区位及生态格局——以厦门市马銮湾新城为例

海湾型城市定位及其滨水空间的生态建设在城市发展中具有非常重要的意义,基于海湾资源的稀缺性,论文以厦门市马銮湾为例,在基于区位优势的城市发展定位的基础上,确定其战略目标、总体发展方向和城市功能定位,进而构建了马銮湾生态保育区、生态重建区和生态过渡区基本生态框架,在此基础上对生态重建区提出了滨水生态空间构建的初步建议。     

Incorporating stakeholder decision support needs into an integrated regional Earth system model

A new modeling effort exploring the opportunities, constraints, and interactions between mitigation and adaptation at regional scale is utilizing stakeholder engagement in an innovative approach to guide model development and demonstration, including uncertainty characterization, to effectively inform regional decision making. This project, the integrated Regional Earth System Model (iRESM), employs structured stakeholder interactions and literature reviews to identify the most relevant adaptation and mitigation alternatives and decision criteria for each regional application of the framework. The information is used to identify important model capabilities and to provide a focus for numerical experiments. This paper presents the stakeholder research results from the first iRESM pilot region. The pilot region includes the Great Lakes Basin in the Midwest portion of the United States as well as other contiguous states. This geographic area (14 states in total) permits cohesive modeling of hydrologic systems while also providing strong gradients in climate, demography, land cover/land use, and energy supply and demand. The results from the stakeholder research indicate that, for this region, iRESM should prioritize addressing adaptation alternatives in the water resources, urban infrastructure, and agriculture sectors, including water conservation, expanded water quality monitoring, altered reservoir releases, lowered water intakes, urban infrastructure upgrades, increased electric power reserves in urban areas, and land use management/crop selection changes. For mitigation in this region, the stakeholder research implies that iRESM should focus on policies affecting the penetration of renewable energy technologies, and the costs and effectiveness of energy efficiency, bioenergy production, wind energy, and carbon capture and sequestration.