Identifying factors influencing urban spatial growth for the George Town conurbation

Urban growth, which caused spatial land use and land cover changes has affected various physical environment, social, and economic activities. Thus, in order to understand the dynamic process of urban spatial growth, researchers throughout the world have implemented diverse approaches, where spatial models have been developed to predict and simulate future urban growth. Those models were developed based on the driving forces that stimulate urban spatial growth. Therefore, in ensuring reliable models to be developed will be able to forecast future changes and their potential environmental effects, the driving forces must be identified. The objective of this paper is to identify possible driving forces that promote urban spatial growth of the George Town Conurbation. The study was conducted based on reviewing recent publications in journals and an on-line survey. An on-line survey was generated and distributed to academicians and urban planners to identify factors influencing urban spatial growth and their weights. The findings indicated that distance to public amenities, cheap housing price, and distance to the workplace are among factors that are important determinants of urban development. The results provide valuable insights in modelling urban growth in future research

Multicriteria Analysis of Hungarian Journey Planners

For planning and realization of travel chains journey planners can be used, but these often offer only partial solutions, especially considering the domestic operators. In order to reveal the improvement opportunities of the journey planners an evaluation method was developed. Using the method the journey planners can be compared in a quantitative way and ranked by functional, operational and visualization features. Journey planners of bus transport operators (Volán) in Hungary were analyzed and evaluated, some top features were also highlighted. The evaluation was performed taking the preferences of certain user groups into consideration, thus the values and ranking varied. The novelty of the paper is the application of our general evaluation method for Hungarian operators and the ranking among them, which provides input for development measures. The spatial properties of the journey planners were also represented in order to highlight the geographical differences

Street art as a way to enhance the vitality of Uurban public spaces

Street art is a unique artistic behavior that takes place in the urban public space. Its uniqueness is not only manifested in the form of immediacy, participation, and mobility, but also has a great value to enhance space dynamism, increase human interaction, and shaping the spirit of place. In most Chinese cities, street art is often equated with "fraud", which not only hampers the development of street art, but also hinders the promotion of vitality of public space, for a livable and lively city, the public space should not be merely a purely physical space, but should be the sum of the spirit of the place and the vitality of the space. The research question of this paper is: how to reduce the external negative effects of street art and actively shape and regenerate the vitality of urban public space? Research based on literature review and the summary, first of all, review and define the concept of "street art", and carries on the classification, it is believed that street art can change from "urban problem" to "urban landscape", then, the relationship between "street art" and "urban public space vitality" is discussed, performance analysis found a busker behavior can not only enhance the vitality of the public space (one-way intervention), also can attract audience participation, through the interaction with the audience to arouse public space activity (two-way intervention). And then from the perspectives of government, NGO and ordinary citizens, multi-dimensional detailed analysis the art management experience on the streets of Taipei, found that through the government management, system design, the multi-agent organization and the public participation to cultivate a variety of means such as, the urban public space of street art promotion activity provides effective guarantee system and management, and reduce the street art of the outer space of the city has negative effects. Based on this, the paper puts forward the spatial layout pattern of “centralized and decentralized complementarity”, the behavioral restraint mechanism of “rigidity and elasticity”, and the multi-agent intervention management of “organization and self-organization”,“Planning for Positive Public Opinion and Strict Enforcement of Law Enforcement” and other planning strategies. This paper argues that, by using the experience of management of Taipei street artists, from space, organization, policy formulation, implementation and operation aspects improve mainland China the level of city governance, with a view to providing references for the regeneration and shaping of the vitality of urban public space in China, and to provide a useful reference for the management of street artists

Playing for the Future: Using Codesign Games to Explore Alternative Sanitation Systems in London

Public participation is viewed as a best practice in planning, and yet most people who participate in it (planners included) often feel that it is a cynical box-ticking exercise. Citizen participation rates are usually low, implying that they may feel this way too. There are two good reasons for this feeling: On the one hand, public consultation often only occurs when it is a mandatory exercise required by government for development approval; on the other, when public consultation occurs it is after much time and effort has been invested by professionals to develop a scheme therefore change is made reluctantly or not at all. These factors create a reactionary and adversarial atmosphere during consultation. These structural limitations mean that there is no time to find alignment of interests between project developers and the public, or to develop trust and collaborations. This article explores how codesign games as a form of public participation can be done at an early stage of project development to contribute to finding alignment of interests and collaborations between project developers and different public interests. The empirical case study is focussed on the possibilities for the retrofit of sustainable sanitation systems in London. Three future sanitation systems were developed by 14 workshop participants. They demonstrate new alignments of interests, from methods of collection and treatment, to new economies of reuse and production. It also established reasons why the current water-based sanitation systems are obdurate, and the work involved in keeping the status quo

Decadal Temperature Prediction via Chaotic Behavior Tracking

Decadal temperature prediction provides crucial information for quantifying the expected effects of future climate changes and thus informs strategic planning and decision-making in various domains. However, such long-term predictions are extremely challenging, due to the chaotic nature of temperature variations. Moreover, the usefulness of existing simulation-based and machine learning-based methods for this task is limited because initial simulation or prediction errors increase exponentially over time. To address this challenging task, we devise a novel prediction method involving an information tracking mechanism that aims to track and adapt to changes in temperature dynamics during the prediction phase by providing probabilistic feedback on the prediction error of the next step based on the current prediction. We integrate this information tracking mechanism, which can be considered as a model calibrator, into the objective function of our method to obtain the corrections needed to avoid error accumulation. Our results show the ability of our method to accurately predict global land-surface temperatures over a decadal range. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our results are meaningful in a real-world context: the temperatures predicted using our method are consistent with and can be used to explain the well-known teleconnections within and between different continents

Fostering Resilience and Adapting to Climate Change in the Canadian North— Implications for Infrastructure in the Proposed Canadian Northern Corridor

The Canadian Northern Corridor (CNC) has been proposed to overcome gaps in the northern transportation system that limit social and economic development in the Canadian North (Fellows et al. 2020). Intended to be a multimodal transportation right- of-way through Canada’s North, the CNC seeks to capitalize on shifting global markets and increased access to northern resources (Pearce et al. 2020; Fellows et al. 2020). However, transportation infrastructure has remained constrained across northern Canada. Significant challenges exist for northern infrastructure due to isolation, restricted access and extraordinary environmental conditions — all of which climate change is projected to radically intensify (Palko and Lemmen 2017; Pearce et al. 2020). Climate change drastically reduces the feasibility of expanding northern infrastructure. Significant increases in environmental risk threaten existing infrastructure and magnify maintenance costs. Adaptation in remote northern locations can be exceedingly difficult and costly (Palko and Lemmen 2017). Additional Arctic warming is guaranteed to have systemic effects and pose significant challenges for northern infrastructure: temperature and precipitation will continue to increase; permafrost thaw will be amplified through changes in seasonal snow cover and land ice; ice loss of mountain and polar glaciers is virtually certain; coastal impacts such as erosion and storm surges will be magnified by increasing sea level and extreme volatility; and Arctic sea ice extent will decline to the point of likely being practically ice free in September before 2050 (IPCC 2021). Determining how to facilitate long-term, effective climate change adaptation is critical to overcome these challenges. Adaptation planning seeks to anticipate and mitigate the risks that result from climate change. This is done through two methods: hard and soft adaptation. Hard adaptations provide a physical barrier to the source of risk, such as a sea wall. In contrast, soft adaptations reduce risk by adjusting human behaviour through a variety of methods, including regulating development out of high-risk areas through land use bylaws or development permits, and fostering environmental stewardship to bolster ecosystem services, such as wetland preservation to reduce flooding (Bonnett and Birchall 2020). However, common misunderstandings about which adaptation initiatives are effective often disable adaptation planning (Kehler and Birchall 2021). This often results in maladaptation — when adaptation measures result in unintended negative consequences that further increase risks. Hard infrastructure adaptations intended to reduce physical risk, despite typically being used as the foundation of adaptation planning, magnify the risk of maladaptation when used alone (Bonnett and Birchall 2020). Due to the capital-intensive nature of hard measures, both upfront and in long- term maintenance, and their predisposition to environmental degradation, the need to go beyond hard measures to address vulnerability is well understood (Bonnett and Birchall 2020; Kehler and Birchall 2021; Naylor et al. 2020). Adapting infrastructure to climate change in the Canadian North presents a formidable challenge. Limits and constraints to effective adaptation, such as lagging implementation, isolation, low population and limited tax base to fund local-level adaptation and infrastructure maintenance, result in significant challenges and limited capacity to overcome them (Bonnett and Birchall 2020; Birchall and Bonnett 2020; Birchall et al. 2021; Ford et al. 2015). While climate change is perceived to have the potential to increase access to the North — allowing trade, tourism and transport of much-needed goods and services to northern communities — in reality, existing and new construction will be progressively vulnerable to unprecedented climatic effects and the resulting infrastructure maintenance will grow increasingly costly. This increase in vulnerability and costs is likely to restrict the anticipated socioeconomic boons of expanded connectivity and resource development, potentially straining already vulnerable communities and Indigenous Peoples. Considerable uncertainty requires a planning approach to infrastructure adaptation that focuses on mitigating risks of climate change while also bolstering community resilience. Infrastructure expansion such as the CNC necessitates adaptation planning that includes fostering economic diversity and infrastructure resilience. Increased disaster risk due to climate change could push communities already overwhelmed by maintenance and adaptation to being unable to cope, resulting in vulnerabilities across northern Canada. Balancing hard adaptations with other forms of policy, such as soft adaptations intended to increase adaptive capacity and adaptation readiness, is critical to avoid maladaptation of infrastructure. Regardless of cost or feasibility, for infrastructure adaptation to be effective it must coincide with a reduction of socioeconomic stressors, and all decision making must be done through a localized, participatory and equitable process (IPCC 2014). Addressing adaptation and resilience for northern infrastructure requires exploring what is necessary to foster resilience, examining what avenues for adaptation are most effective and then maximizing the benefits of limited funding allocated toward these strategies. Effective adaptation strategies focus on the reduction of vulnerability through place- and context-specific approaches, using low-risk, high-benefit policy measures that are supported through significant intergovernmental co-operation, public engagement and integration of non-Western knowledge systems. By further understanding the pathways to achieve resilience, and through a holistic approach to adaptation, it is possible to balance the increased environmental risks of climate change with socioeconomic impacts, and to do so in a way that is economically sustainable long into the future

Toward the Integration of SDGs in Higher Planning Education: Insights from Integrated Urbanism Study Program in Belgrade

With the adoption of theUNAgenda 2030, UNESCO has put forward new recommendations to integrate Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into the teaching process. In particular, SDG 11—“Sustainable cities and communities”—is aimed at education in the field of urban planning. In parallel with this, the Guidelines of the European Council of Spatial Planners ECTP-CEU have set out the skills needed for the planning profession. The goal of this paper was to verify the compatibility of the curricula of the master’s study program in Integrated Urbanism at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, with the recommendations of the UN, UNESCO, and ECTP-CEU. A qualitative analysis of the structure and content of the course curricula was applied on three levels; curricula were compared to: (a) the expected skills in the planning profession, (b) the SDG 11 targets defined in UN Agenda 2030, and (c) the learning objectives, as formulated by UNESCO. The research results highlight several key aspects to improve the curricula, and include the concept of sustainability: (a) the structure of the course curricula, (b) interdisciplinarity, (c) partnerships with institutions and communities, (d) links with scientific research work, (e) practice orientation, (f) improving teachers’ competence levels, and (g) improving the accreditation process. These results can be used as guidelines to improve the curricula of the Integrated Urbanism study program in the next accreditation cycle, and also as a methodological approach to verify the compatibility and dimensions of higher planning education (HPE) in relation to the expected skills and global requirements of education for sustainable development (ESD)

A Review and Application of Aviation Forecasting for Airport Planners

Forecasting is a common method of predicting facility requirements at airports. Statistical methods used in forecasting are often simple and do not require advanced statistical analysis. However, while forecasting methodologies may be simple, the assumptions necessary for those methodologies to work correctly are not always properly addressed. For example, linear regression is often used as a method of generating aviation forecasts but is reliant on the correct selection of independent variables. In order for a forecaster to produce a reliable forecast, care must be taken to select appropriate variable and comply with any additional assumptions of the methodology they select. This paper seeks to further explore those assumptions and how they influence the methodology that best fits a given airport and its forecast