Mapping Urban Green and Its Ecosystem Services at Microscale—A Methodological Approach for Climate Adaptation and Biodiversity

The current awareness of the high importance of urban green leads to a stronger need for tools to comprehensively represent urban green and its benefits. A common scientific approach is the development of urban ecosystem services (UES) based on remote sensing methods at the city or district level. Urban planning, however, requires fine-grained data that match local management practices. Hence, this study linked local biotope and tree mapping methods to the concept of ecosystem services. The methodology was tested in an inner-city district in SW Germany, comparing publicly accessible areas and non-accessible courtyards. The results provide area-specific [m2] information on the green inventory at the microscale, whereas derived stock and UES indicators form the basis for comparative analyses regarding climate adaptation and biodiversity. In the case study, there are ten times more micro-scale green spaces in private courtyards than in the public space, as well as twice as many trees. The approach transfers a scientific concept into municipal planning practice, enables the quantitative assessment of urban green at the microscale and illustrates the importance for green stock data in private areas to enhance decision support in urban development. Different aspects concerning data collection and data availability are critically discussed

Short Range Development Plan 1974-1979

A five year Short Range Development Plan was prepared simultaneously with and as the basis for Jacksonville\u27s Capital Outlay Program (COP). Background studies for the Plan included land use and structural surveys, population and dwelling unit projections, zoning change and site plan approval trends, land use assignment criteria, and environmental and capital improvement needs criteria. A land use plan adequate to serve projected growth was prepared. The Transportation Plan reflects the latest transportation studies for the City including proposals for a fixed guide way, express bus and local bus systems. All additional community facility and utility needs for projected 1980 growth were identified, and together with Transportation proposals, became the nucleus of the capital improvements and priorities recommended in the COP. All of the planning work was assisted and reviewed periodically by two ongoing committees. A Citizens Advisory Committee was established in each of six planning subareas consisting of civic group representatives and interested citizens. A second review committee, the Technical Coordinating Committee, consisted of representatives of City departments and agencies. Implementation of the program recommendations would be primarily via the Capital Outlay Program. Other implementation recommendations had to do with revised codes and ordinances, an official map, special future studies and other measures

Sprawl and Distance Travelled: Evidence from European Metropolitan Areas

The fact that populations tend to agglomerate in urban areas during a time when world population is increasing and cities are exerting an ever greater pull on migrants makes city growth management one of the most challenging issues the world needs to confront. The urban phenomenon which has been called ‘sprawl’ for over a century has been identified as causing various key problems e.g., loss of resource land, amplifying dependencies on the automobile, generating air pollution, and so on. However, there is controversy, even amongst scholars, surrounding the advantages and disadvantages of this phenomenon since there is no common agreement principally on the definition and characteristics of sprawl. This research was sparked by the idea that measurement is a significant step to gaining knowledge of the fundamental structures and processes at work in city systems which generate sprawl. The main purpose of this study was to create an aggregate sprawl index using distance travelled made by private motorised vehicles as a proxy for sprawl, and taking European metropolitan areas as case studies. With respect to independent variables, quantitative characteristics of land-use patterns in relation to sprawl were developed across eight operational dimensions primarily using concepts from landscape ecology. Twenty-three indicators according to these dimensions were reviewed. Then, numerical data on land area, perimeter and distance were extracted from the land cover maps of various European metropolises, and used in calculating the aforementioned indicators principally using MATLAB© scripting. In identifying the most suitable indicators for each operational dimension of sprawl, various criteria were applied, including stability tests of these indicators. Finally, multiple linear regression analysis was employed to model sprawl. As a result, a linear regression model of urban sprawl for these metropolitan areas was formed using a single independent variable, the eta squared index (ETA), which is characterised by a mixture of land uses, thus introducing the concept of ‘exposure’. This model is capable of explaining 32.5 percent of the total variation of the degree of sprawl with respect to private motorised vehicle distance travelled. Complemented by the model’s effect size index which is also measured by Cohen’s f2 statistic (with a value of 0.48) gives some confidence in the variables that have been identified in this study and which form the basis of the exposure index

Segregation, Education and Space - a Case Study of Malmö

This dissertation takes its point of departure in two questions about segregation and its implications for architectural research. The first question is whether examining segregation in terms of education is a fruitful tool for analyzing segregation in general. In answering that question, the dissertation describes how educational segregation relates to segregation by income, ethnicity and age. This first question is analyzed with the aid of the theoretical framework created by Pierre Bourdieu, especially in his work Distinction – A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. This dissertation concludes that education differs from other social variables in describing segregation and deserves to be analyzed on its own merits. The second question is whether, how, and in what ways segregation relates to spatiality. In answering that question, the dissertation examines whether segregation is better described using spatial variables such as building age or ownership structure than through typo-morphological classification. This dissertation concludes that typo-morphological classification gives different starting points for analyzing segregation than other spatial variables. This dissertation analyzes both questions through an empirical case study of the city of Malmö, using descriptive municipality statistics and geographical data (GIS). The data is then sorted into social variables (education, income, ethnicity, mobility,age, employment, political inclination) and spatial variables (property area, room units, centrality, building age, ownership relations). This dissertation makes extensive use of the statistical methods linear regression analysis and correspondence diagrams in order to answer the questions

Selected Papers from the First International Symposium on Future ICT (Future-ICT 2019) in Conjunction with 4th International Symposium on Mobile Internet Security (MobiSec 2019)

The International Symposium on Future ICT (Future-ICT 2019) in conjunction with the 4th International Symposium on Mobile Internet Security (MobiSec 2019) was held on 17–19 October 2019 in Taichung, Taiwan. The symposium provided academic and industry professionals an opportunity to discuss the latest issues and progress in advancing smart applications based on future ICT and its relative security. The symposium aimed to publish high-quality papers strictly related to the various theories and practical applications concerning advanced smart applications, future ICT, and related communications and networks. It was expected that the symposium and its publications would be a trigger for further related research and technology improvements in this field

Implementing Nature-based Solutions and Green Infrastructure for Cities, Citizens and Rivers - The SEE-URBAN-WATER Project

Cities and their rivers are undergoing significant transformations owing to the impact of multiples challenges at a time such as rapid population growth, infrastructure development, and climate change. The consequences are evident in increased flood risks, groundwater pollution, accelerated soil erosion, drinking water scarcity, green space depletion, and biodiversity loss. In light of this, interest in novel concepts such as Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) is growing, extending beyond academia to influence micro-, meso-, and macro-urban scales. Motivated by the potential of NbS to deliver social, ecological, and societal benefits, the SEE-URBAN-WATER (SUW) research group aimed to provide a robust knowledge and methodological basis for achieving socio-ecological transformation through the inter- and transdisciplinary planning, design, and implementation of NbS and Green Infrastructures in highly urbanized areas susceptible to environmental and climate risks. From 2018 to 2023, SUW, funded within the framework of the Research for Sustainability program (known by its German acronym FONA) by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (abbreviated to BMBF in German), produced numerous master’s and doctoral theses, methodological frameworks, scientific publications, and technical guidelines. Nevertheless, this book goes beyond being a mere compendium of these outcomes; it clearly illustrates the systematic inter- and transdisciplinary evolution and interconnection of ideas for building more socially and environmentally resilient cities

Towards consistent mapping of urban structure - global human settlement layer and local climate zones

Although more than half of the Earth's population live in urban areas, we know remarkably little about most cities and what we do know is incomplete (lack of coverage) and inconsistent (varying definitions and scale). While there have been considerable advances in the derivation of a global urban mask using satellite information, the complexity of urban structures, the heterogeneity of materials, and the multiplicity of spectral properties have impeded the derivation of universal urban structural types (UST). Further, the variety of UST typologies severely limits the comparability of such studies and although a common and generic description of urban structures is an essential requirement for the universal mapping of urban structures, such a standard scheme is still lacking. More recently, there have been two developments in urban mapping that have the potential for providing a standard approach: the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) scheme (used by the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools project) and the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) methodology by JRC. In this paper the LCZ scheme and the GHSL LABEL product were compared for selected cities. The comparison between both datasets revealed a good agreement at city and coarse scale, while the contingency at pixel scale was limited due to the mismatch in grid resolution and typology. At a 1 km scale, built-up as well as open and compact classes showed very good agreement in terms of correlation coefficient and mean absolute distance, spatial pattern, and radial distribution as a function of distance from town, which indicates that a decomposition relevant for modelling applications could be derived from both. On the other hand, specific problems were found for both datasets, which are discussed along with their general advantages and disadvantages as a standard for UST classification in urban remote sensing

Quantifying folk perceptions of dialect boundaries. A case study from Tuscany (Italy)

This paper aims to understand the contribution of geographical information in the perception of linguistic variation. A total of 813 mental maps collected among young speakers from different cities in Tuscany have been analyzed via an open-access web dialectometric tool (Gabmap). In particular, the study seeks to verify the role of geographic distance and the place of residence of the respondents in modeling perceived variation. The relationship between dialect grouping as made by linguists and perceived taxonomies of sublinguistic areas is also investigated. Results show that geographical proximity between mapped areas significantly predicts the perception of dialect similarity. Our participants made their decisions looking at (1) a keen sense of spatial contiguity, and (2) the synchronic presence of linguistic differences between the Tuscan subregions. Moreover, classification uncertainty grows when the mapped areas are very close to, or very distant from, the participants’ places of residence. Methodological and linguistic perspectives of mental maps in folk linguistics are finally discussed

The geography of creativity in the Greater Tokyo Area: 2000-2010

Since Richard Florida’s theory of the creative class was first introduced, many related studies of creativity, have been undertaken regarding analyzing the key features and predictors of the knowledge economy. Though the notion of the creative class has been popular for nearly two decades, not many studies have analyzed creativity in Japan. The objective of this dissertation is to analyze the geographical patterns of the creative class in the Greater Tokyo Area (GTA) to better understand the key predictors that drive the spatial variation of the creative class. Based on data from the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, the spatial distribution of the creative class seemed highly uneven for the 138 cities and wards of the GTA with significant concentrations in Kawasaki, Tokyo and Yokohama. A stepwise regression analysis revealed that 68.9 percent of the spatial variation in the creative class by place of work could be best explained by the share of the labor pool in science research, professional and technical services, and also information and communication industries. On the other hand, 92.3 percent of distribution of creative class by place of residence could be explained by a more traditional human capital predictor, the percent of the population with a bachelor’s degree. Those parts of the GTA with disproportionate shares of technical skills and high shares of educated individuals seem to generate highly creative labor markets. Since a key component of the creative class differs markedly by place of work and place of residence, it seems geography is a major factor in explaining the distribution of creative class in the GTA