Asian city futures: research to help inform spatial form and health

This ‘Research for city practice’ article is aimed at city leaders, communities, and the professions involved in city policy and practice as well as researchers across many disciplines. It comprises ’City Know-Hows’ summary for each main research paper, allowing researchers to explain new knowledge and key messages arising from their work. The full special issue also contains a case study, where you will find evaluations of an intervention, and a commentary piece, supporting the conversations we need to help develop and mobilize important and innovative thinking. It is imperative that human health and environmental impacts become core foci of urban policies around the world. Changing our current trajectory will require concerted action. Cities & Health aims to be part of that change; it is dedicated to supporting the flow of knowledge, in all directions, to help make this happen. In order to strengthen communities of interest, we would like to include many and varied voices, including those from practitioners, communities, politicians and policy-makers and researchers who are supporting health and health equity in everyday urban lives. Whether you are a just starting out on your journey, or an old hand, we would love to hear from you!info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

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

Narrating the impacts of climate change for urban health governance in Guangzhou, China

Global anthropogenic climate change imposes high risks on environmental sustainability and public health. The paper starts by illustrating the climate change impacts on health in Guangzhou, a rapidly expanding urban hub in China. Next, this paper investigates the institutional narratives of the climate-health nexus in Guangzhou by analysing relevant policies and work plans. Finally, the paper identifies knowledge gaps to which the paper proposes ways to improve urban health governance. The methodology includes a literature review on the health impacts of climate change, in-depth interviews with the environment and health policymakers in Guangzhou, and a policy archive review. Despite the scientific evidence of positive linkages between climate change impacts on health in Guangzhou, institutional narratives and policy responses on this linkage appear to be lacking, insufficient, or delayed. The outcomes of our narrative analysis point to the possibility that this could be due to the top-down tradition of urban governance, a lack of effective interdepartmental and cross-sectoral collaboration mechanisms, and the overall lack of institutional support for implementing the ‘Health in All Policies’ framework. The paper suggests health policymaking in Guangzhou to narrate climate change impacts more openly, scientifically to the public, and to address urgent health risks more systematically.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

COVID-19 Shows Us the Need to Plan Urban Green Spaces More Systemically for Urban Health and Wellbeing

significance of urban green spaces has been highlighted by the complex socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 on a global scale. 1. Sustainable urban development needs to go beyond segmented actions and to take a more systemic approach to urban planning, particularly that of green spaces. 2. Urban green spaces are particularly invaluable for those who cannot afford a spacious living environment, such as migrant workers and other vulnerable groups. 3. Urban green spaces should be treated as an invaluable common-pool resource for common health and wellbeing, i.e. one’s use of green spaces should not reduce the availability of them for others, yet it is impossible and inadequate to exclude any residents from using green spaces regardless of their socio-economic status. 4. Policymakers should establish universal access to urban green space as the basic principle of urban planning, integrate climate modelling and public health monitoring into green space planning, and incorporate all societal actors in urban green space governance from planning to building to use and further to maintenance, for enhancing both social and environmental sustainability.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Addressing the nexus challenge of climate change, human health, and urban sustainability

This meeting report summarises the core discussion points and essential outcomes of the Lisbon Expert Meeting, which took place at the Portuguese Academy of Sciences during 19-20 September 2018. The Lisbon Expert Meeting was an in-depth inquiry of 15 internationally-known scientists and policy experts on the complex interconnection of uncertain climate change impacts, urban health, and well-being problems and sustainable development, as well as on adaptation strategies and challenges. The meeting report contains three parts: 1) general framing of contexts, 2) review of climate change-health policies, and 3) systems sciences unraveling the nexus between climate change and health, and proposed sciencepolicy pathways. Among these parts, we further organised Part 3 according to the four thematic components discussed at the meeting by the form of panel presentations and Q&A. The first thematic part presents the nexus challenge of climate change impacts on health and the implications on urban sustainability. The second thematic part introduces integrated approaches to urban health provision and management. The third thematic part proposes a “health-centered” science-policy interface. Lastly, the fourth thematic part explores ways to better coordinate the implementation of health policies within the context of global climate change impacts. In this report, we also propose policy recommendations following each thematic discussion.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A City Case Study in Portugal

Funding Information: Funding: This research was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) grant number PTDC/CTA‐AMB/6629/2020, and the scholarship PD/BD/128452/2017 and by PO Regional do Norte grant number RHAQ/CoLAB‐NORTE‐06‐3559‐FSE‐000023. The APC was funded by CEiiA. Funding Information: Acknowledgments: We would like to acknowledge the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) for sponsoring the project PTDC/CTA‐AMB/6629/2020 and the scholarship PD/BD/128452/2017, both were critical support for this research. We appreciate the two anonymous reviewers who provided us highly insightful and supportive comments to improve this manuscript. Funding Information: This research was funded by Funda??o para a Ci?ncia e a Tecnologia (FCT) grant number PTDC/CTA-AMB/6629/2020, and the scholarship PD/BD/128452/2017 and by PO Regional do Norte grant number RHAQ/CoLAB-NORTE-06-3559-FSE-000023. The APC was funded by CEiiA. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Debates on carbon costs and carbon pricing to accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are emerging as cities develop local policies and programs to achieve carbon neu-trality. This paper focuses on how cities formulate economic instruments and adopt carbon pricing experiments to support their climate objectives. Extensive literature is available on science-policy-making interface Integrated Assessment Models (IAM) and on the two mainstream approaches of carbon cost formulation—Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) and Marginal Abatement Cost (MAC). Although, the literature on how governments develop climate policy instruments, particularly towards a local carbon cost, is recent. We start by reviewing these essential concepts and tools for carbon cost formulation. We then critically review a set of local carbon pricing experiments, totaling fourteen international cities, and confirm a great demand for scientifically robust, verifiable, and transferable carbon cost methodologies at the local level. We thus propose an approach to assess the short-term technology cost of CO2 emission reduction in the mobility sector in Matosinhos municipality, Portugal. Our approach shows that a carbon cost methodology at the local level with robust, verifiable, and transferable results is possible. We advocate for a methodological advance to estimate versatile CO2 prices suitable for local conditions.publishersversionpublishe

Xiamen Call for Action: Building the Brain of the City- Universal Principles of Urban Health

The question of how to achieve healthy, sustainable urban futures demands a singular emphasis. The scale and rate of change of modern urbanisation is unprecedented—so much so that it threatens the health gains of the past century. Urbanisation is the greatest ecological shift in human history, and in modern times has attained dimensions never seen before. We have mere decades to enact the greatest transformational change the planet has ever seen, if we are to safeguard a sustainable future. Indeed, the scope, scale, and ambition of transformative efforts need to accelerate dramatically, if humanity is to achieve sustainability before being overwhelmed by global change.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

BianQue: Balancing the Questioning and Suggestion Ability of Health LLMs with Multi-turn Health Conversations Polished by ChatGPT

Large language models (LLMs) have performed well in providing general and extensive health suggestions in single-turn conversations, exemplified by systems such as ChatGPT, ChatGLM, ChatDoctor, DoctorGLM, and etc. However, the limited information provided by users during single turn results in inadequate personalization and targeting of the generated suggestions, which requires users to independently select the useful part. It is mainly caused by the missing ability to engage in multi-turn questioning. In real-world medical consultations, doctors usually employ a series of iterative inquiries to comprehend the patient's condition thoroughly, enabling them to provide effective and personalized suggestions subsequently, which can be defined as chain of questioning (CoQ) for LLMs. To improve the CoQ of LLMs, we propose BianQue, a ChatGLM-based LLM finetuned with the self-constructed health conversation dataset BianQueCorpus that is consist of multiple turns of questioning and health suggestions polished by ChatGPT. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed BianQue can simultaneously balance the capabilities of both questioning and health suggestions, which will help promote the research and application of LLMs in the field of proactive health

Shaking table testing and numerical modeling of continuous welded ballast track on bridges under longitudinal seismic loading

In order to confirm the validity of the ideal elasto-plastic resistance model applied to the ballast track under seismic loading, this paper studies the seismic response of continuous welded ballast track on bridges through the shaking table test and presents a process of updating the model based on the test results. The results indicate that the track constraint can improve the low order natural frequency of bridges significantly, and reduce the displacement response of the bridge. When ballast beds are effectively in a dynamic reciprocating state while under seismic loading, a structural change between the granules will occur, wherein some will flow and redistribute. The dynamic hysteretic change of the ballast longitudinal resistance is complex and quite different from that of the ideal elasto-plastic hysteretic route, and the ballast longitudinal resistance performance degenerates. If ballast longitudinal resistance is assumed to be ideal elastic-plastic resistance, the actual beam displacement response will be underestimated and the calculated rail seismic force will be greater than the test result. Moreover, the equivalent stiffness coefficient Ke and damping coefficient Ce of the ballast dynamic resistance characteristics could be obtained by model updating, and the simulation results coincide well with the test results

High sulfur loading and shuttle inhibition of advanced sulfur cathode enabled by graphene network skin and N, P, F-doped mesoporous carbon interfaces for ultra-stable lithium sulfur battery

Achieving high loading of active sulfur yet rational regulating the shuttle effect of lithium polysulfide (LiPS) is of great significance in pursuit of high-performance lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery. Herein, we develop a free-standing graphene-nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and fluorine (F) co-doped mesoporous carbon-sulfur (G-NPFMC-S) film, which was used as a binder-free cathode in Li-S battery. The developed mesoporous carbon (MC) achieved a high specific surface area of 921 m2·g–1 with a uniform pore size distribution of 15 nm. The inserted graphene network inside G-NPFMC-S cathode can effectively improve its electrical conductivity and simultaneously restrict the shuttle of LiPS. A high sulfur loading of 86% was achieved due to the excellent porous structures of graphene-NPFMC (G-NPFMC) composite. When implemented as a freestanding cathode in Li-S battery, this G-NPFMC-S achieved a high specific capacity (1,356 mAh·g–1), favorable rate capability, and long-term cycling stability up to 500 cycles with a minimum capacity fading rate of 0.025% per cycle, outperforming the corresponding performances of NPFMC-sulfur (NPFMC-S) and MC-sulfur (MC-S). These promising results can be ascribed to the featured structures that formed inside G-NPFMC-S film, as that highly porous NPFMC can provide sufficient storage space for the loading of sulfur, while, the N, P, F-doped carbonic interface and the inserted graphene network help hinder the shuttle of LiPS via chemical adsorption and physical barrier effect. This proposed unique structure can provide a bright prospect in that high mass loading of active sulfur and restriction the shuttle of LiPS can be simultaneously achieved for Li-S battery