Evidence-based neighborhood greening and concomitant improvement of urban heat environment in the context of a world heritage site - Malacca, Malaysia

Malacca, located on the west coast of the central part of the Malaysian Peninsula, has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At present, the urban heat environmental condition is feared to gradually worsen in the future. By applying a new design that modifies the heat environment by creating organically linked neighborhood green spaces, which encourage pedestrian use, will assist in efforts to conserve and improve the town as a sustainable heritage site. In this research, areas with future greening potential are first extracted based on field surveys and the results of overlaid site appraisals that, by using computer simulations, account for pedestrian thermal comfort, visibility of the historical landscape, and movement. Based on the identified and extracted areas with greening potential, three neighborhood greening scenarios are established: case 1 is based on the existing conditions, case 2 is based on following existing conservation plans, and case 3 is based on maximizing green areas by implementing the proposed pedestrian walkway. A microclimate simulation was done for each scenario and the results are compared specifically from the viewpoint of where and how much each scenario contributes to mitigating the urban heat environment, focusing on changes in physiologically equivalent temperature distribution and numerical changes. From the results, we conclude that the streetscape conservation oriented neighborhood greening approaches proposed herein should improve the urban heat environment in such historical towns in tropical regions

Mangroves degradation: a local perspective on its awareness

Mangroves in Malaysia reside on the coastlines, and the largest areas of mangrove are in the Northern Sabah. Over the past decades, mangrove species have been reported to be disappearing from the globe. It is due to several natural processes that have been inserted to fill the needs of the increased population. These include illegal logging, agriculture activities and urbanisation. In this regards, awareness of the local residents about the problem of mangrove depletion is important to inhibit the problem to prolong further.Therefore, this research was conducted to determine the degree of awareness of local residents on the importance of mangroves in managing environmental quality. Consequently, a questionnaire survey was conducted on 103 respondents to examine their awareness on the subject of mangrove degradation.The respondents were selected randomly among local residents of Kuala Selangor district.It is found that only twenty percent of the total number of respondents are totallyaware of the issue and acted upon it; either taking part in the endeavours made by the government as well as those with the nongovernmental bodies or practicing mangroves replanting at their backyard

Climate-Led Urban Landscape Planning: A Simulation Data-driven Analytics, Design and Decision-Making Process for Ipoh, Malaysia

芝浦工業大

Cultivating historical heritage area vitality using urban morphology approach based on big data and machine learning

The conservation of historical heritage can bring social benefits to cities by promoting community economic development and societal creativity. In the early stages of historical heritage conservation, the focus was on the museum-style concept for individual structures. At present, heritage area vitality is often adopted as a general conservation method to increase the vibrancy of such areas. However, it remains unclear whether urban morphological elements suitable for urban areas can be applied to heritage areas. This study uses ridge regression and LightGBM with multi-source big geospatial data to explore whether urban morphological elements that affect the vitality of heritage and urban areas are consistent or have different spatial distributions and daily variations. From a sample of 12 Chinese cities, our analysis shows the following results. First, factors affecting urban vitality differ from those influencing heritage areas. Second, factors influencing urban and heritage areas' vitality have diurnal variations and differ across cities. The overarching contribution of this study is to propose a quantitative and replicable framework for heritage adaptation, combining urban morphology and vitality measures derived from big geospatial data. This study also extends the understanding of forms of heritage areas and provides theoretical support for heritage conservation, urban construction, and economic development

A Review of Urban Neighborhood Scholarship

No abstract available

Interrelationships between land use land cover (LULC) and human thermal comfort (HTC): A comparative analysis of different spatial settings

A few studies on outdoor human thermal comfort (HTC) have been conducted in the tropical region in a hot and humid climate; however, there is a paucity of discussions on how exactly different spatial settings influence HTC. Thus, this paper aims to examine how land use land cover (LULC) affects HTC on the basis of the simulation of Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET) indices via ENVI-met and Rayman. The results reveal that people living in the urban area have a higher tendency to experience strong heat stress (25% of the areas with PMV ranging from 3.4 to 3.9 and 2% of the areas, where PMV reached 4.1), followed by the rural area (43% of the areas with PMV ranging from 2.1 to 2.4), and the suburban area (more than 50% of the areas with PMV values less than 2.4). Surprisingly, a concrete LULC in the suburb area exhibits a higher air temperature than an asphalt surface at 4 p.m., due to the large area of high albedo that increases the reflection of solar radiation, subsequently contributing to warming up the airmass. Similarly, sandy, and loamy LULC tend to emit more heat during nighttime, while the heat is absorbed slowly during daytime, and it is then slowly released during nighttime after 6 p.m. Spatial settings that promote heat stress in the urban area are mainly contributed by an LULC of asphalt, concrete, sandy, and loamy areas. Meanwhile, people in the suburban and rural areas are less likely to experience heat stress, due to agricultural plantations and lowland forest that provide shade, except for the barren lands-loamy areas. The result also indicates that tree-covered areas near the river in the suburban area afforded the best thermal experience with PMV of 2.1 and PET of 30.7. From the LULC comparison, it is pivotal to consider tree species (canopy density), surface material (albedo), sky-view factor, wind direction, and speed toward designing a more comfortable and sustainable environment

The GHG emission reduction toolkit : a case study of Blacktown City, Australia

This PhD thesis is in line with Australia’s national policy of a 26-28% reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions to 2005 levels. According to a review of its climate change policy in 2017, the Australian Government is committed to tackling climate change, while maintaining a strong economy, providing affordable energy and security for industries. This requires new initiatives in existing technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or the emergence of new technologies altogether. Whatever the strategy, the final goal is to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. This national target is now disseminated among different sectors and governmental bodies in Australia, requesting them to submit their action plans against climate change. This includes all Australian City Councils and incorporates Blacktown City Council as the Case Study for this study. As part of the Blacktown City Council’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this research study is the result of collaboration between the Council and Western Sydney University. The authorities of both sides have signed a research collaboration agreement, ample evidence of a local university tackling local problems. This research agreement is unique as it opens a door for other local Councils to collaborate with universities. Blacktown City Council, on the other side of this agreement, can improve its body of knowledge through a comprehensive investigation of greenhouse gas mitigation using its available tools. Therefore, this research study developed a toolkit to help reduce the Council’s GHG Emission

Holistic Policy Model for Normalization Efforts The Citarum River

This research can be classified on the type of descriptive study using survey method, which is seeking data from research sites related to the aspects to be studied. Aspects of the role of social institutions, including the excavation of reference / guidelines in the community: act to meet all the necessities of life; maintaining the integrity of disintegration; and held a social control system. The process of strengthening social institutions are expected through the implementation of an organized pattern of social relations in the community, including: enculturation; socialization; instutionalisasi and internalization. Further aspects of the strengthening of the economic system, the point is empowerment (empowerment). Members of the public can actualize themselves in the management of the surrounding environment and can meet their needs independently without dependence on others. The final result of the strengthening of the economic system is the participation of thecommunity created the overall sustainability of the lives of an environmentally friendly manner. Strategic step taken is to give special attention to improving the economy, through the expansion of community access to development resources to create opportunities to participate in the development process to be able to cope with the conditions of underdevelopment and strengthen the competitive position of its economy. The research plan is divided into two (2) phases, namely social mapping to identify the socio‐economic institutions that live in the local community. The second phase, strengthening socio‐economic institutions in accordance with the conditions and characteristics of the people both as subject and object of development is environmentally friendly. The results are expected to provide input to economic strengthening of social institutions more focused and in accordance with the conditions and characteristics of the portrait of his people as one of the basic input in formulating a holistic model of environmental policy for the Citarum River normalization efforts. Keywords: Environmental Policy, Social Institution Strengthening Economic, Citarum River Normalizatio