Transforming urban green space governance in China under ecological civilisation: an institutional analysis

Facing expeditious urbanisation and climate change impacts, how has China governed urban green spaces? This thesis establishes urban green spaces as an essential part of urban social ecological systems critical for overall stability, including climate resilience, health and wellbeing. This thesis turns to the common-pool resource theory to understand urban green space governance. The theoretical framework convenes that non-excludable but highly subtractable goods can be governed more sustainably in small scales and through collectively designed rules by actors that contain well-defined property rights, monitoring, and sanctions appropriate to respective levels and scales. The thesis selects three empirical cases and uses the Institutional Analysis Development framework to structure a case study-based qualitative content analysis and a Multi-Criteria Assessment informed by in-depth interviews and urban green space policies and plans. This research finds that land property rights are critical factors for participation in urban green space governance, and urban green spaces in China are still governed primarily as land resources. Conceptualising urban green spaces as common-pool resources reveals that they should contain property rights different from urban land resources for more sustainable governance. Besides, China's urban green space governance has gradually formalised ecological functions, including the potential to cope with climate change, into institutional arrangements in the past two decades and is mostly in line with the common characteristics of successful common-pool resource governance regimes. China's urban green space governance can be improved by striking a better equivalence between benefits and costs for all actors and broaden the extent of collective-choice arrangements. Furthermore, Guangzhou's urban green space governance attunes with the national environmental governance framework Ecological Civilisation through conducting both the means and ends of institutional change. Finally, despite substantial progress under Ecological Civilisation, three main institutional barriers remained in Guangzhou's urban green space governance: the lack of legal foundations for regular ecological status assessments, low awareness of local state actors on climate change impacts and the ecological potential of urban green spaces, and the lack of long-term commitment for a more ecosystem-based approach to urban green space governance. The findings indicate that urban green spaces as essential part of the complex urban social ecological system should not be governed simply as land resources. To attach importance to Urban Green Space Governance in China - Institutional Analysis 4 the ecosystem services and ecological values, it is necessary to define an exclusive and clear set of property rights for urban green spaces. The common-pool resource theory also tells us that institutional arrangements for long-term sustainable resource governance should enable individual and collective actors to participate in the process thoroughly and achieve the end goals, such as good health, wellbeing, and climate resilience. This research helps policymakers in Chinese cities understand why some urban green space governance in the past failed even with great technical planning expertise. Besides, it provides policymakers with practical suggestions on institutional arrangements helpful to promote urban green space governance and to achieve Ecological Civilisation. Finally, the researcher presents several recommendations for policymakers for better practices in the future and future research directions.Enfrentado pela urbanização acelerada e pelos impactos das alterações climáticas, como a China governou os espaços verdes urbanos? Os espaços verdes urbanos são um ponto de entrada em que as ações e os resultados são importantes para a saúde e o bem-estar de todos os cidadãos urbanos e a resiliência climática independentemente dos contextos sociais, econômicos e políticos. A China tem uma enorme responsabilidade e potencial devido às escalas da sua economia, a população e a pegada de carbono total e tem visto uma forte determinação política para agir nos desafios climáticos e ambientais enquanto as constantes necessidades de urbanização e desenvolvimento econômico. Então, como é que as cidades chinesas abordaram o planeamento e a governança dos espaços verdes urbanos? Que facilitações ou desafios institucionais enfrentaram ao planear espaços verdes urbanos? Como é que os governos locais conseguiram melhorar os espaços verdes urbanos e implementar mais Nature-based solutions? Quais são as boas práticas a serem partilhadas? Além disso, por quê alguns desafios persistiram, apesar do sistema de governo centralizado e a forte determinação política? Esta tese propõe-se a estudar três casos sobre o planeamento e a governança dos espaços verdes urbanos em Guangzhou, uma cidade costeira altamente populosa, compacta e vulnerável no sudeste da China. Os objetivos eram compreender as dinâmicas institucionais, os facilitadores e as barreiras subjacentes que podem infetar o planeamento e a governança dos espaços verdes urbanos, examinar a extensão e as abordagens para melhorar os espaços verdes urbanos, analisar os custos e benefícios levados em consideração e, compreender as barreiras institucionais relacionadas ao valores intrínsecos, o que é essencial para desenhar soluções mais genuinamente baseadas na Natureza e do ecossistema. Com base nos insights da revisão da literatura das teorias e práticas chinesas e ocidentais de planeamento urbano, e da governança urbana da perspectiva institucional, esta tese estabelece os espaços verdes urbanos como uma parte essencial dos sistemas socioecológicos urbanos (urban social-ecological systems, ou urban SES) essenciais para a estabilidade geral, incluindo a resiliência climática, a saúde e o bem-estar, e vira-se para a teoria de recursos comuns (common-pool resource), o qual foi desenvolvida pela cientista política norte-americana Elinor Ostrom, para compreender a governança dos espaços verdes urbanos. A estrutura teórica convoca que, os bens não excludentes, mas altamente subtraíveis, podem ser governados de forma mais sustentável em pequenas escalas e por meio de regras projetadas coletivamente Urban Green Space Governance in China - Institutional Analysis com os direitos de propriedade bem definidos, os mecanismos de monitorização e sanção apropriados aos respectivos níveis e escalas. Foi selecionado três casos empíricos de estudo e utilizado a ferramenta de Institutional Analysis Development (IAD) framework para estruturar uma análise de conteúdo qualitativo e uma Avaliação Multi-Critérios informadas pelas entrevistas em profundidade e políticas e planos de espaços verdes urbanos. Esta pesquisa mostra que os direitos de propriedade de solo são fatores críticos para a participação na governança dos espaços verdes urbanos na China, e os espaços verdes urbanos ainda são governados principalmente como recursos de solo urbano. A conceituação dos espaços verdes urbanos como recursos comuns (common-pool resources) revela que eles devem conter direitos de propriedade diferentes do que os recursos de solo urbano. Além disso, a governança dos espaços verdes urbanos da China formalizou gradualmente as funções ecológicas, incluindo o potencial para lidar com as alterações climáticas nas últimas duas décadas e está principalmente em linha com as características dos regimes de governança de bens comuns bem-sucedidos. A governança dos espaços verdes urbanos da China pode ser melhorada, alcançando uma melhor equivalência entre benefícios e custos para todos os atores e ampliando as práticas de escolha coletiva. Além disso, a governança dos espaços verdes urbanos de Guangzhou está em sintonia com a estrutura de governança ambiental nacional de Civilização Ecológica (Ecological Civilisation) por meio da condução ambos dos meios e dos fins da mudança institucional. Finalmente, apesar do progresso substancial sob a Civilização Ecológica, este estudo encontrou três barreiras institucionais principais remanescentes na governança dos espaços verdes urbanos em Guangzhou: a falta de fundamentos legais para avaliações regulares do estado ecológico, a baixa consciência dos atores locais do estado sobre os impactos das alterações climáticas e o potencial ecológico dos espaços verdes urbanos, e, a falta de compromisso de longo prazo na abordagem mais baseada no ecossistema. A falta de fundamentos legais para avaliações regulares do estado ecológico é uma barreira institucional que impede a coordenação institucional multinível. A baixa consciência dos atores locais do estado sobre os impactos das mudanças climáticas e o potencial ecológico dos espaços verdes urbanos é uma rigidez institucional que limita a interação horizontal dentro dos governos locais que requer soluções institucionais. A falta de compromisso de longo prazo para governar os espaços verdes urbanos com base no reconhecimento dos valores e potenciais ecológicos é uma outra rigidez institucional que implica objetivos conflitantes, tensões e compensações nas dimensões políticas. Os resultados indicam que os espaços verdes urbanos como uma parte essencial do sistema socioecológico urbano complexo, não devem ser governados simplesmente como recursos de solo urbano. Para atribuir mais importância aos serviços ecossistêmicos e aos valores ecológicos, é necessário definir um conjunto exclusivo e claro de direitos de propriedade para os espaços verdes urbanos. A teoria de recursos comuns também indica que os arranjos institucionais para a governança de recursos sustentáveis de longo prazo devem permitir que os atores individuais e coletivos participem do processo (means) e atinjam os objetivos finais (ends), como a saúde, o bem-estar, e a resiliência climática. Esta pesquisa tem potencial em ajudar os formuladores de políticas nas cidades chinesas a entender por que alguns casos de governança dos espaços verdes urbanos falharam no passado, mesmo com grande perícia técnica no planeamento. Além disso, tem fornecido aos formuladores de políticas sugestões práticas para melhorar a governança dos espaços verdes urbanos e para se aproximar mais aos ideais da Civilização Ecológica. Finalmente, foi apresentado várias direções para pesquisas futuras

Mangrove forests can be an effective coastal defence in the Pearl River Delta, China

Coastal vegetation can reduce extreme water levels during storm events, but the controlling factors and processes in complex estuary or delta systems are still unclear. This limits an effective implementation of nature-based coastal defences in delta mega-cities in low-lying coastal areas. Here we have numerically modelled how mangroves can offer coastal protection to the large coastal cities located in the Pearl River Delta (China), such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen, during strong typhoons, like Hato (2017). Water level attenuation by mangroves is effective during extreme water level conditions and differences in mangrove forests’ properties drive their coastal protection function. The local (within-wetland) attenuation of extreme water levels is more effective with wide vegetation patches and higher vegetation drag. Narrower vegetation patches can still provide non-local (upstream) water level attenuation if located in the upper estuary channels, but their design needs to avoid amplification of water levels in other delta areas

Beyond globalized visions : problematizing urban theory through spatial explorations of the Pearl River Delta

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Feature Papers of Water Resources Management, Policy and Governance

Water resource management includes the consideration of all disciplines of hydrology and water sources. Water supplies are allocated and diverted to cover the water needs of a range of agricultural, municipal, industrial, hydro-electrical, and ecological water uses. These water uses are, usually, very competitive, as the available water resources are limited and it is not possible to cover the total water needs in a basin, requiring the setting of water use priorities to best serve societal and ecological needs. To manage the water resources and waterworks may, sometimes, lead to confrontational deliberations and negotiations. As a result, water resource management is one of the world’s greatest challenges due to competition for limited resources, regional disparities in water supply and affluence, mounting global water demand, aquifer depletion, and pollution- and climate-change-induced water stress. Proper policy and governance for sustainable water resource management is essential and require new fresh ideas, innovation, and international cooperation. This book includes seven papers by invited renowned researchers and engineers to cover issues of water resource management, governance, and policy. These issues include the following topics: Integrated water resource management; Water resource systems and water availability; National and international water policy, institutional arrangements, and water law; Water conflict resolution, public participation, and decision making; Water resource management, policy and governance in socially and environmentally sensitive areas and regions

Sediment and Plant Dynamics in a Degrading Coastal Louisiana Landscape

Alterations to Louisiana’s river systems and local hydrology have resulted in reduced freshwater, sediment, and nutrient inputs into wetland landscapes, causing significant negative impacts on marsh productivity and stability. To combat these losses many restoration projects have been constructed or planned throughout coastal Louisiana. Typical goals of wetland restoration efforts are to conserve, create, or enhance wetland form, and to achieve wetland function that approaches natural conditions. Failure to adequately maintain wetland elevation and hydrology can have serious implications on sedimentation and vegetation processes, which significantly reduces the likelihood of reaching structural and functional targets. Measures of wetland condition have been used to monitor and assess project performance, resilience, and adaptive management needs. This study assessed the use of remotely sensed and in situ data, in addition to landscape metrics (i.e., marsh area, edge density, and aggregation index) and vegetative indices (i.e., vegetation cover, normalized difference vegetative index, and floristic quality index) to evaluate changes and trends in restored wetland condition, function, and resilience, and compare those to naturally occurring reference wetlands. Results show that restoration measures (i.e., hydrologic restoration, wetland restoration, and beneficial use of dredge material) significantly increased wetland function (i.e., vegetation productivity, carbon sequestration, floristic quality), stability (i.e., increased marsh area, reduced loss rates, and increased spatial integrity), and resilience to disturbance events. Though many structural and functional measures (i.e., vegetation and landscape indices) of restored wetlands rapidly achieved equivalency to reference wetlands (approximately 3 to 5 years after construction), others, like some fundamental soil functions (i.e., carbon accumulation) required several decades to reach equivalency. These results demonstrated the importance of river connectivity and sedimentation for wetland productivity and overall spatial integrity. These studies show remotely sensing data and applications can significantly supplement traditional methods and provide critical knowledge elements for more efficient inventorying and monitoring of wetland resources, forecasting of resource condition and stability, and formulating adaptive management strategies

HISTORY URBANISM RESILIENCE VOLUME 03:

The 17th conference (2016, Delft) of the International Planning History Society (IPHS) and its proceedings place presentations from different continents and on varied topics side by side, providing insight into state-of-the art research in the field of planning history and offering a glimpse of new approaches, themes, papers and books to come. VOLUME 03: Change and Responsive Plannin

State of the Art and Future Perspectives in Smart and Sustainable Urban Development

This book contributes to the conceptual and practical knowledge pools in order to improve the research and practice on smart and sustainable urban development by presenting an informed understanding of the subject to scholars, policymakers, and practitioners. This book presents contributions—in the form of research articles, literature reviews, case reports, and short communications—offering insights into the smart and sustainable urban development by conducting in-depth conceptual debates, detailed case study descriptions, thorough empirical investigations, systematic literature reviews, or forecasting analyses. This way, the book forms a repository of relevant information, material, and knowledge to support research, policymaking, practice, and the transferability of experiences to address urbanization and other planetary challenges

China Brand Homes: Business history and projects¿ analysis of China Vanke Co. Ltd., 1988-2016

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Between Flexibility and Reliability:

The aim of this research is to provide an outline to address questions with regard to the transformation of planning in China that has occurred after the 1980s. The research is using “planning evolution” as the main research skeleton. The starting point is to investigate to what extent Chinese urban planning has developed after the opening up and other reforms under the state-led and market-driven modes of Chinese reformation, and to investigate how the different modes and various actors have influenced urban planning, based on the investigation of the respective political and economic changes within the initial reformation in general, and planning in particular. In recent years, China has undeniably undergone a dramatic process of urban growth and transformation. Apart from its speed and scope, it is less recognized that these processes are confronting the Chinese planning institutions with new and unexpected demands almost on a daily basis. In reference to the increasing importance of private investments and developments within the Chinese urbanization process, a new balance between public planning and private developments, and between top-down and bottom-up approaches is required to be able to generate both a reliable and responsible framework for long-term urban development and a flexible system of implementation that meets the needs of changing conditions and new demands. Flexibility and reliability become the new demands for planning practice. Based on the theory of planning culture, planning traditions, concepts, systems and decision-making processes are always related to the cultural context and cultural background of the people and societies involved. Investigating the contemporary urban transformation and urban development processes in China can allow us to outline the new planning culture of contemporary China in relation to its historical roots and traditional characteristics in a long term framework. I argue that the changing role of urban planning is strongly embedded in the political, economic, and social domains and is a part of cultural innovation. The research opens a general debate on the circumstances of the contemporary Chinese transformation after the 1980s. After introducing the idea of planning culture and elaborating to what extent the idea of planning culture is applied in this research, I argue that the “soft” characteristics of planning emphasized by the idea of planning culture are crucial to understand Chinese planning evolution. The idea of planning culture is applied to build up the theoretical framework needed in order to approach the research subject: the contemporary Chinese transformation, based on a systematic structure. Overall, this research states the following. 1). The reversal of Chinese policies in 1978 and the opening up of the country to foreign investments and technology were taking up the job that had been left unfinished in 1949. The momentum is regarded as a part of the long-term evolution of Chinese modernization, for which the term of “critical-modernity” is introduced, situating the changes within the broader context of the globalization. It cannot be disconnected from the roots of Chinese history and tradition and as such is an alternative to Western paradigms. 2). The dissection of the specific Chinese historical evolution results in a sequence of layered modes of hybrid development. 3) Situating the political-economic momentum of the 80s in a longer time span and exploring it beyond the political status of the time by making the contextual linkage to the cultural and traditional consensus of Chinese history, it is seen as a “cultural turn” of Chinese society. 4). This study applies the idea of “planning culture”—to compare different periods in one country and to analyze the changes that have taken place with regard to both the planning system and the cultural context; and to approach urban planning transitions from political, social, and economic aspects by investigating the conditions, approaches, and results of current spatial planning in China. According to the application of the idea of planning culture as a systematic framework, the research comprises three major research themes: the transformation of society, the transformation of the planning system and the implementation of planning in practice. The Transformation of the Society comprises two parts. The first reviews the philosophical roots of the Chinese norm and value system and the second part introduces the contextual background of the emerged evolution of Chinese modernization. The purpose is on the one hand to anchor the contemporary Chinese transformation within the Chinese context, and on the other hand to argue that the transformation of contemporary China in the 1980s is a new turn that is part of the evolution of modernization. The Transformation of the Planning System offers the specific information about the transformation that took place in the 1980s, in particular in relation to the reforms initiated by the central government. The focus is in on the re-modification of the urban planning system after 1978; special attention is given to the political structure, planning organization, and plan forms. It is the analysis of the top–down system. The Implementation of Planning System in Practice zooms further in on the micro-scale of planning evolution by analyzing the planning implementation in practice in one of the fastest growing cities of the country: Shenzhen, located in the Pearl River Delta, which can be regarded as an almost newly constructed city with approximately 300.000 inhabitants in 1980 and reaching 10.47 million in 2011. During a relatively short period of development the degree of acceleration and the scope of an entirely unexpected growth forced local planning authorities to constantly readapt to changing conditions and new demands. In this framework, different planning documents and the process of decision-making are analyzed, with special attention to the coordination and fine-tuning between planning intervention and planning implementation. These three clusters of research themes serve to answer a series of research questions respectively. The main research question is: How does urban planning in contemporary China face the challenges of the emergent urban evolution within the current world society? This research argues that planning strategies have to be developed, on the one hand under the circumstances of inevitably increasing uncertainties in China society generating the flexibility for new and unexpected developments, and on the other hand to confront the unpredictability and uncertainty of initiatives from diverse public and private actors by generating and building up a reliable framework for sustainable long-term developments. Planning embodiment (ideology, aim, system etc.) must be understood and used not only for political-economical interventions but, furthermore, as a spatial agent in order to mediate the changing confrontations of socio– spatial demands embedded in the cultural domain, instead of being used only as a top–down dominating intervention tool. China enters a critical era of modernity, a society in which to retrieve the socio-spatial meaning for people is a much more powerful force than only focusing on economic success and political stability. This reflection shall be based on the revival of Chinese traditions and values and the re-evaluation of those values in a systematical manner. However, in comparison with drawing a concrete conclusion, this study’s intention is to inspire reflection, to provoke further debate and to disclose and dissect the context of Chinese planning culture. It is by the same consideration that I found the idea of planning culture a useful and valuable framework to access urban development and planning evolution in non-Occidental countries. The “soft” core of planning culture has the same essential cultural value everywhere, and for countries like China who share the similar hybridity of evolutional history, the processes of industrialization, urbanization, decolonization, Westernization, post-industrialization and globalization are affecting the country not in a linear–subsequent manner, but on different layers simultaneously and sometimes with contradicting demands. Being embedded in this unique Chinese political–socio–economic environment, urban planning is used by the state as a powerful instrument providing a vision for the country’s future in the transitional process between the rules of both extreme modes of top-down and bottom-up approaches, balanced by involving the governmental and public sectors simultaneously. I am convinced that the idea of planning culture can trigger a new wave of discourse leading to a completely new insight in and understanding of cultural differences, not only in an abstract sense for Chinese culture but also in general for everybody whose live is strongly influenced by planning decisions and whose daily activities are interactively incorporated in the socio-spatial domain. &nbsp