Estimating the Cooling Effect of Pocket Green Space in High Density Urban Areas in Shanghai, China

Recently, pocket green spaces (PGS), i.e., small green spaces, have attracted growing attention for their various ecological and social services. As a crucial part of urban green spaces in high-density urban areas, PGS facilitates recreation and relaxation for neighborhoods and thus improves the livability of cities at the local scale. However, whether and how the PGS cools the urban heat island effect is still unclear. This research was performed in the highly developed areas of the city of Shanghai during hot summer daytime. We applied a set of cooling effect indicators to estimate the cooling extent, cooling intensity, and cooling efficiency of PGS. We further examined whether and how landscape features within and surrounding the PGS influence its cooling effects. The results showed that 90% of PGS are cooler than their surroundings. Among the landscape features, the land surface temperature of PGS logarithmically decreased with its area, and the maximum local cool island intensity and maximum cooling area logarithmically increased with the area of PGS. The vegetation types and their composition within the PGS also influenced their surface temperature and the cooling effect. The PGS dominated by tree-shrub-grass showed the highest cooling efficiency. The surrounding landscape patterns, especially the patch density and the landscape shape index, influence the cooling effect of PGS at both class and landscape levels. These findings add new knowledge on factors influencing the cooling effect of PGS, and provide the biophysical theoretical basis for developing nature-based cooling strategies for urban landscape designers and planners.Peer Reviewe

Educating planners in Europe: A review of 21st century study programmes

A  Education for urban, regional and spatial planning has become a regular subject throughout most European nations; this can be attributed in part to European policies promoting planning and spatially balanced development, but also to the recognition that planning can support sustainability. Nevertheless, there is lingering and justifiable concern about the status, profile and recognition of planning as a profession in its own right with the result that planning and planning education remain contested territories in academia. Conceptions of planning differ between countries and over time. The array of different planning cultures and associated educational models and pedagogies that traditionally have coexisted in Europe mean that education for planning can be either very visible or leading a shadow existence being embedded in programmes of other disciplines. While planning education provision customarily has been shaped by changes in planning practice paradigms and the profession, in 21st century Europe the provision is also influenced by European integration policies, the Bologna process and powerful transformations affecting the higher education sector writ large. This review seeks to advance our understanding of the complex dynamics at work, which to date have been only partially explored in the literature, by taking stock of the current state-of-play of planning education provision in Europe. Aside from examining the factors influencing planning education in Europe, an inventory of planning education programmes available throughout the member states of the Council of Europe was developed to quantify the provision as a critical first step. Figures indicate a substantial increase in the number of programmes when compared to limited historical data. Data also suggest an underdeveloped provision for education in planning in about ten per cent of European countries. Country case studies with historically differing planning cultures and education provision, i.e., Spain, Portugal, Finland, Poland, Slovakia, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are used to compare and explore trends and developments (e.g., in respect to programme structure, curriculum content and focus, professional conceptions, specialisms) in detail. Findings demonstrate, both, an enduring power of national preferences and traditions but also some emerging commonalities. Overall a picture of increasing pluralism and diversity of education models transpires in the aftermath of Bologna which may contravene efforts to establish cross-national professional recognition and standards. Education for planning seems to embrace trends to provide increasingly international learning experiences and degrees while the provision of flexible recognised (online) degree programmes remains sparse. Recommendations for future actions and strategies to further develop and strengthen the field which is at present complex and little coordinated conclude the contribution

Common Functional Urban Areas Integrated Environmental Management Strategy (FUAIEMS)

Il concetto LUMAT di una strategia comune per la gestione integrata dello sviluppo delle FUA incluso il rapporto urbano / peri-urbano nelle aree urbane funzionali, con particolare attenzione alla componente di gestione ed uso del suolo, crea un quadro per lo sviluppo di strategie locali nei rispettivi FUA dei Paesi partner nel progetto LUMAT (Interreg CE). Nel cuore del concetto di strategia per le aree funzionali integrate comuni, la gestione crea una gestione integrativa ottimizzata dell'uso del suolo; la gestione della cooperazione (compreso un adeguato quadro istituzionale) del nucleo urbano e delle sue aree suburbane sembra essere lo strumento principale per affrontare le minacce nello sviluppo urbano / periurbano contemporaneo. Come base concettuale del processo di gestione dello sviluppo integrativo sostenibile dei FUA nel progetto LUMAT, si è considerato il concetto di servizi eco-sistemici, per descrivere i benefici degli ecosistemi come mezzi economici per il benessere umano, che offre un denominatore comune per l'armonizzazione dei diversi interessi nel aree urbane/peri-urbane e delle minacce basate sulla dicotomia tra nucleo e periferia, nonché sull'apparente dicotomia tra aspetti economici e sociali da un lato e lo sviluppo ambientale dall'altro. Il concetto LUMAT si basa, infatti, sullo sviluppo di una sinergia urbana integrata con il concetto dei servizi eco-sistemici, nonché sulla gestione della cooperazione del nucleo urbano e delle sue aree suburbane. Come concetto leader di gestione, è stato scelto proprio il concetto di governance policentrica multilivello, come concetto chiave per un efficiente quadro istituzionale interregionale nel campo della gestione e dell'uso sostenibile del suolo.The LUMAT concept of a common strategy for integrated FUA development management including the urban/peri-urban relationship in FUAs with the focus on the component of land and soil management creates a framework for the development of locally based strategies in the respective FUAs in the project LUMAT partners’ countries. In the core of the concept for common integrated functional areas strategy, management creates optimized integrative land-use management and management of cooperation (including proper institutional framework) of the city core and its suburban areas seems to be the core instrument to face the threats in current urban/peri-urban development. As conceptual basis of sustainable integrative FUA’s development management process in the LUMAT project us seen the concept of eco-system services to express the benefits from eco-systems for human wellbeing by economic means it offers a common denominator for the harmonization of different interests in the urban/peri-urban areas and threats based on the dichotomy between core and periphery as well as seeming dichotomy between economic and social on one hand and environmental development on the other hand. The LUMAT concept is based on integrated urban synergy with the concept of ecosystem services as well as management of cooperation of the city core and its suburban areas, including institutional framework. As a leading managerial concept, the concept of multilevel polycentric governance was chosen as a core concept for efficient institutional framework in the field of sustainable land use and soil management