Prioritization of urban green infrastructures for sustainable urban planning in Ploiesti, Romania

Urban green infrastructures are increasingly being used as instruments for achieving a sustainable urban planning due to their multifunctionality represented by the numerous economic, social and environmental benefits. Selecting the most appropriate type of urban green infrastructure to be developed in a certain city is most of the times an important challenge for planners. In our analysis, we developed a model for a multi-criteria evaluation of the components of urban green infrastructures using structural, functional, administrative and economic criteria. We used as a case study the city of Ploiesti, an industrial city of Romania, focused on oil processing. Ploiesti is one of the main engines of the Romanian economy with a tradition of over 100 years of oil industrial activity being characterized by a significant expansion of the build-up areas (especially industrial and technological site) in the outskirts of the city and a decrease of urban green area per capita. Policies and strategies to increase the density of the existing urban green infrastructure and to sustainably manage the existing ones represent a challenge for local authorities and other local actors and stakeholders as the balance between economic development and the city’s livability has to generate a proper quality of life for its inhabitants. Our results can drive to a more efficient urban planning and the use of the correct and appropriate urban green infrastructures elements in improving the quality of life and the environment. The analysis can be used for sustainable planning of urban green infrastructures in other cities lacking a proper amount of green areas

Empirical analysis and modeling of Argos Doppler location errors in Romania

Background Advances in wildlife tracking technology have allowed researchers to understand the spatial ecology of many terrestrial and aquatic animal species. Argos Doppler is a technology that is widely used for wildlife tracking owing to the small size and low weight of the Argos transmitters. This allows them to be fitted to small-bodied species. The longer lifespan of the Argos units in comparison to units outfitted with miniaturized global positioning system (GPS) technology has also recommended their use. In practice, large Argos location errors often occur due to communication conditions such as transmitter settings, local environment, and the behavior of the tracked individual. Methods Considering the geographic specificity of errors and the lack of benchmark studies in Eastern Europe, the research objectives were: (1) to evaluate the accuracy of Argos Doppler technology under various environmental conditions in Romania, (2) to investigate the effectiveness of straightforward destructive filters for improving Argos Doppler data quality, and (3) to provide guidelines for processing Argos Doppler wildlife monitoring data. The errors associated with Argos locations in four geographic locations in Romania were assessed during static, low-speed and high-speed tests. The effectiveness of the Douglas Argos distance angle filter algorithm was then evaluated to ascertain its effect on the minimization of localization errors. Results Argos locations received in the tests had larger associated horizontal errors than those indicated by the operator of the Argos system, including under ideal reception conditions. Positional errors were similar to those obtained in other studies outside of Europe. The errors were anisotropic, with larger longitudinal errors for the vast majority of the data. Errors were mostly related to speed of the Argos transmitter at the time of reception, but other factors such as topographical conditions and orientation of antenna at the time of the transmission also contributed to receiving low-quality data. The Douglas Argos filter successfully excluded the largest errors while retaining a large amount of data when the threshold was set to the local scale (two km). Discussion Filter selection requires knowledge about the movement patterns and behavior of the species of interest, and the parametrization of the selected filter typically requires a trial and error approach. Selecting the proper filter reduces the errors while retaining a large amount of data. However, the post-processed data typically includes large positional errors; thus, we recommend incorporating Argos error metrics (e.g., error ellipse) or use complex modeling approaches when working with filtered data

HEALTHY LANDSCAPES: A REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH ON URBAN LANDSCAPES ASSOCIATED WITH HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Cities shelter more than two thirds of the world’s population, and health security in such environments became a challenge. The outbreak of the SARS-COV-2 pandemic revealed the urgency of assessing urban resilience towards major health crises. Major cities are acknowledged for decreasing the health status of their residents through complex drivers, and researchers from various domains have been addressing these issues for the past three decades. The aim of our study focused on highlighting the main methods and indicators used by scholars to assess the impact of urban landscapes on health, and to cluster urban landscapes based on their conclusions. We scoped the scientific literature published in the past 10 years, addressing the issue of health in relation with urban landscapes. We used statistical approaches, API algorithms, and social network analysis for generating and exposing our results. Most studies focused on perception analyses (mainly self-perceived health), literature reviews or environmental quality impacts on health. Green and blue features were considered therapeutic landscapes, while dense built-up spaces were described as harmful. Urban landscapes are acknowledged as enablers or disablers of health, thus planning strategies and regulations should consider the impacts generated by the design and structure of new urban fabrics

Can Church Gardens Represent a Valuable Recreation Alternative in Cities?

Urban green infrastructure is a key element in improving quality of life and creating an appropriate framework for sustainable, resilient and inclusive cities. Also, achieving a coherent spatial planning based on development of urban green infrastructure can be an useful solution to negative changes related to environmental quality, segregation and ecosystem services. We use church gardens in Bucharest as a case study to understand how these small green spaces can be integrated into urban planning. The paper aims to analyse the potential of church gardens as recreation areas at city level in Romania. The analysis focused on three major aspects – the spatial distribution of churches, the accessibility of green spaces located in church gardens (calculated both for adults and elderly people as most important groups accessing the gardens) and the characteristics of those gardens in terms of facilities, use and problems (based on a field survey filled for a 20% sample of the 287 churches in Bucharest). The results showed that the homogenous spatial distribution of churches with green gardens makes them accessible for residential areas located far from traditional green recreational areas. In Bucharest, the service areas of churches with green spaces cover 84% of the residential areas when accounting for the adult’s walking speed and 61% when accounting for elderly people. Green spaces in church gardens amount to over 25 ha in Bucharest, with an average of 1737 square meters per garden, representing a surface which could be designed to respond better to the population needs. The major challenges identified in the church gardens are (a) the use of green space for other purposes than recreations, such as storage space for construction materials (31.5%), waste (17.5%), temporal constructions (12.3%) or car parking (21%), and (b) quality of vegetation. Our study highlights that through their number and distribution church gardens can represent an alternative to large green areas if they are opened to the population and used for organising activities and events. Their importance and potential could be increased if designed for such purpose. Such analysis can be useful in the planning process of small urban green areas in order to integrate them into urban management process

Using GEOBIA and Vegetation Indices to Assess Small Urban Green Areas in Two Climatic Regions

The importance of small urban green areas has increased in the context of rapid urbanization and the densification of the urban tissue. The analysis of these areas through remote sensing has been limited due to the low spatial resolution of freely available satellite images. We propose a timeseries analysis on 3 m resolution Planet images, using GEOBIA and vegetation indices, with the aim of extracting and assessing the quality of small urban green areas in two different climatic and biogeographical regions: temperate (Bucharest, Romania) and mediterranean (Athens, Greece). Our results have shown high accuracy (over 91%) regarding the extraction of small urban green areas in both cities across all the analyzed images. The timeseries analysis showed consistency with respect to location for around 55% of the identified surfaces throughout the entire period. The vegetation indices registered higher values in the temperate region due to the vegetation characteristics and city plan of the two cities. For the same reasons, the increase in the vegetation density and quality, as a result of the distance from the city center, and the decrease in the density of built-up areas, is more obvious in Athens. The proposed method provides valuable insights into the distribution and quality of small urban green areas at the city level and can represent the basis for many analyses, which is currently limited by poor spatial resolution

Assessing the Effects of Phytoplankton Structure on Zooplankton Communities in Different Types of Urban Lakes

Urban lakes play important roles in microclimate regulation such as controlling run-off and groundwater recharge, as well as being a source of water supply and a habitat for a wide variety of flora and fauna. Bucharest has a wide variety of water resources where phytoplankton represent the dominant primary producer, the defining biological factor for zooplankton development. Our hypothesis was that as a result of anthropogenic pressures, phytoplankton in the urban aquatic ecosystems diminish the qualitative and quantitative capacity to maintain a good health condition with effects on the food web. By the structural features of the phytoplankton and zooplankton communities, the objectives were to determine the changes in diversity in different types of urban lakes, to explore the relationships between communities, and to determine the response of phytoplankton and zooplankton functional groups to the environmental factors. The ecological status assessed by Chlorophyll-a (µL−1) highlights that most of the investigated lakes were eutrophic and hypereutrophic. The phytoplankton were influenced by lake types, seasonal variations and nutrient input. The dominance of the Chlorophyceae, Cyanobacteria and Bacillariophyceae influenced the zooplankton’s development. The rotifers were the most represented in both species richness and abundance in zooplankton, followed by Copepoda young stages

Assessing the Effects of Phytoplankton Structure on Zooplankton Communities in Different Types of Urban Lakes

Urban lakes play important roles in microclimate regulation such as controlling run-off and groundwater recharge, as well as being a source of water supply and a habitat for a wide variety of flora and fauna. Bucharest has a wide variety of water resources where phytoplankton represent the dominant primary producer, the defining biological factor for zooplankton development. Our hypothesis was that as a result of anthropogenic pressures, phytoplankton in the urban aquatic ecosystems diminish the qualitative and quantitative capacity to maintain a good health condition with effects on the food web. By the structural features of the phytoplankton and zooplankton communities, the objectives were to determine the changes in diversity in different types of urban lakes, to explore the relationships between communities, and to determine the response of phytoplankton and zooplankton functional groups to the environmental factors. The ecological status assessed by Chlorophyll-a (µL−1) highlights that most of the investigated lakes were eutrophic and hypereutrophic. The phytoplankton were influenced by lake types, seasonal variations and nutrient input. The dominance of the Chlorophyceae, Cyanobacteria and Bacillariophyceae influenced the zooplankton’s development. The rotifers were the most represented in both species richness and abundance in zooplankton, followed by Copepoda young stages