查看更多>>摘要：? 2021 Elsevier LtdUnderstanding the complex impacts of human settlement patterns on social and natural systems is critical for immediate and long-term policy decisions and ecosystem preservation. Land-use patterns can be conceptualized as a form of integrated natural-human system within urban regions. However, extant scholarship on urban development and sprawl often overlooks the institutional diversity which exists across countries and regions. Development and land-use are politically charged governance issues, and these studies have rarely examined the influences of local political institutions on land-use changes across countries and over time. To help build cumulative knowledge on such urban systems, this study examines landscape change in Poland, which has undergone significant institutional evolution since the fall of the Soviet Union. Drawing from the urban and social-ecological systems (SES) literatures, we estimate spatio-temporal models of the interactive effects of socio-economic and political variables on land-use intensity. Consistent with an SES approach, the analysis finds that characteristics of the institutional design of land-use regulation – local autonomy, the productivity of the resource, and the predictability of land-use dynamics – influence more-intensive landscape changes over the study period (2006–2018). Specifically, both the electoral stability of the mayor and wealth of the community have a positive interactive effect on the conversion of landscapes to more urban uses. Development is also influenced by spatial and temporal dependency, and the availability of European Union “cohesion” investments intended to address economic inequality and promote sustainable development. The findings advance our understanding of the complexity of urban land-use patterns and sustainability goals.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdDue to the increased coastal population growth and urbanization along with rising sea levels, more people and properties will be under increased flood risk globally. Urban growth prediction models are now used to simulate potential future urban growth scenarios but impacts of future flood risks due to sea level rise (SLR) on future development have not been studied well. Owing to its higher predictive accuracy, this study employs the Multi-layer perceptron (MLP) based Artificial Neural Network-Markov Chain (ANN-Markov) model to simulate three future urban growth scenarios (business as usual (BAU), planned growth (PG), and sustainable growth (SG)) in Miami Metropolitan Area (Miami MSA), and three SLR scenarios (1 ft, 2 ft, and 3 ft) were spatialized with the current high-risk flooding (HF) zone to delineate future flood risk areas. Then the flood risks of future urban development in each growth scenario were assessed at both regional (MSA) and local (County) scales. Results show that current land use plan (PG) slightly decreases flood risks at the regional scale but not always at the local scale compared to the without growth regulation scenario (BAU). Nevertheless, flood risks in the PG scenario are significantly higher compared to the without growth in the HF zone scenario (SG). Urban growth scenario predictions can help prepare for and understand the SLR impacts.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2021 Elsevier LtdAn urban intervention has to deal with a pre-existing context. It follows that the design phase must be preceded by a careful and in-depth preliminary analysis addressing historical, morphological, topographical, and geographical reasons. Besides, subjective requests prove to be decisive in the design process in the face of the heterogeneity and multiplicity of possible responses from the actors involved. The contribution aims to support Decision-Makers in the preliminary stages of the project, to provide a global vision of the multidimensionality of the urban context and the feedback of the different subjects that come into play. The main objective is to create an evaluation framework capable of supporting the decision-making process in urban transformation problems starting from the needs of the stakeholders. The approach integrates the analysis of the stakeholders with the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to compose an impact matrix based on the Community Impact Evaluation (CIE). The methodology has been tested to develop an open prison in the city of Barcelona (Spain). The framework made it possible to obtain an overall vision of the area's transformation process, consistent with the project's objectives, intending to support strategies definition valid from multiple points of view.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 The AuthorsThis study examines whether decentralized auctioning of public agricultural land results in higher land prices in comparison to auctioning via a centralized agency. Decentralization reforms in Ukraine, first, mandated local governments to manage communal land and later transferred agricultural land in their jurisdictions. We compare the resulting land prices of centrally and locally organized auctions and evaluate whether land-use concentration affected auction outcomes. Using unique datasets on land auctions from 2014 to 2020, we find that land plots auctioned locally by rural municipalities generate more competitive land rental outcomes with higher land rental prices. In addition, land concentration is found to negatively affect land rental prices and auction markups. Based on the results, we discuss policy implications for the management of public agricultural land in weak institutional settings.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 The AuthorsThe recently published EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 emphasizes nature's benefits to humans. In line with wider shifts in nature conservation discourses in many European countries, moving from nature's intrinsic value towards its instrumental values, the EU strategy strongly focuses on a ‘Natural capital’ view. In this context of a European wide search for business opportunities and societal engagement in nature conservation, this article investigates efforts from Dutch governments to strengthen the link between nature conservation and society. Over the past 10 years, policy responsibilities for nature conservation in the Netherlands have been decentralized from the national level to the twelve provinces, who have employed a variety of approaches to stimulate societal engagement in nature conservation. Through discourse analysis, we show how the previously hegemonic “Ecology First” discourse – a hierarchical mode of governance with a strong focus on intrinsic values – has transgressed towards a more flexible and adaptive “Partnership for Nature” discourse, with a strong focus on aligning with local stakeholders through network governance. In addition, we describe the emergence of three new discourses: a “Green Economy” discourse, capitalizing on ecosystem services to unleash new financial resources; a “Relational Nature” discourse with a strong focus on people's connections to nature; and a “Democratic Nature” discourse focusing on nature's intrinsic and relational values combined with a mosaic governance approach. While the EU Biodiversity Strategy focus on natural capital aligns very well with the Dutch Green Economy discourse, the EU strategy gives little attention to the relational and democratic dimensions of societal engagement. Based on our analysis, we show that changing modes of governance relate to changes in values of nature. Government's need for new conservation partners requires opening up for new values of nature. In addition, changing values of nature require a change in governance structures to allow new actors to participate and contribute. The increasing focus on natural capital and green economy at the European level may be a first step in such diversification. However, we argue that Europe needs to develop additional strategies beyond instrumental values, to allow for further diversification of values and include all stakeholders from society.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2021 The AuthorsThis article evaluates farmer learning in response to a nitrogen management policy adopted in California. California's policy features a mandatory information-based approach, particularly education and plan-writing, wherein farmers must report their farm management practices and nitrogen application rates to regional water quality districts. Using survey data from farmers across three regions in California's Central Valley, we employ a sequential ordered logistic regression to evaluate how this policy impacts farmer learning across two stages: a conceptual learning stage where farmers take in new information and re-think their farm management, and an applied learning stage where they report substantial change to behavior. Our findings show that behavioral drivers have different effects on learning across each stage. Early conceptual learning is driven by farmers’ awareness of agriculture's environmental impact, positive attitudes towards environmental stewardship, and positive perceptions of the nitrogen management regulators. Later stage applied learning is driven primarily by high levels of informational support. We also find that farm and farmer resource variables such as farmer income and education are negative predictors of both learning stages, indicating that lower-resourced farmers are beneficiaries of mandatory plan-writing. Results suggest that mandatory information-based tools can prompt learning among lower-resourced farmers who are often slow to engage in voluntary conservation programs. For improving learning outcomes, policies for conservation behavior should tailor support to these different stages of learning.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2021 Elsevier LtdChina's central government has been devoted to advancing its dualistic land administration system, such as by designating pilot areas to explore rural land circulation and marketization. Given the increasingly liberalized rural land development practices at localities, this paper aims to explore the variations between policy-making by the central government and implementation at the local scale in the context of interactive politics. A case study of Wujin District, located in the economically developed Yangtze River delta, was examined to unfold the local policy implementation process as intertwined with scalar politics, rural land politics, and the experimentation features of China's reform. Conducted qualitatively, crucial policy actors were interviewed across multiple administrative levels ranging from the province, prefecture, county, and township governments to village collectives. It was found that within China's hierarchical land administration, decentralized policy experimentation encouraged by the central government was compromised by the scalar politics and local governmental power structure when implemented on the ground (i.e., the city-county struggles and the resultant incomplete authorities of the primary policy actor). The findings highlight that central policy design and the autonomy of local governments during the policy-making process should be coordinated by embracing scalar complexity.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThere has been a growing debate in recent decades about the view of city and urban theory. The scope of this discussion has expanded with many different claims about the variable structure of the city and urban society, the boundaries of the urban scale, the nature of the city and urban problems. Jane Jacobs, one of the focal points of these discussions, has offered a different perspective with the approach of urbanism and the principles shaping the city's reconstruction: More important than how cities look is how they work. Therefore, human interactions which create a vibrant environment in cities should be considered to understand the dynamics of cities. Located in the central part of Turkey, the city of Kayseri is a rapidly growing industrial city with approximately 1.4 million population. Despite the fact that the city has a long history, the traditional urban pattern has been largely destroyed via planning decisions and the vast majority of the housing stock in the city has been renewed in the last 40–50 years. This paper examines the city of Kayseri using Jane Jacobs’ criteria for what makes a city livable and vibrant. We re-mapped 87 neighborhoods of the city that constitute a continuous urban macroform by using the Kernel Density tool with ArcGIS software, evaluated the “urban vitality” of each neighborhood, and compared outputs with our observations to understand the relevance of Jacobs’ views in different contexts. The main findings of the study reveal that not only historical and commercial centers within the city but also several transformed and newly built areas have high urban character values according to Jacobs’ criteria. However, the degree of vitality (high, moderate, low, or non-urban), which is measured, may differ from the urban vitality, which is observed by the “naked eyes” in some neighborhoods of the city.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdKerala State in India has a unique Rural-Urban Continuum (RUC) settlement pattern where it is difficult to distinguish between urban from rural. However, like all the Indian States, the RUC settlements of Kerala are also divided into rural and urban, and this dichotomous classification forms the basis of spatial planning, governance, and management. The current situation has resulted in the spread of urban characterized settlements towards the environmentally fragile areas of the state. Despite several discussions regarding the RUC nature of settlements, details about the spatial characteristics of Kerala are missing in the literature. Accordingly, the paper explores the RUC settlement pattern of Kerala in two parts. The first part assesses the RUC pattern based on the existing Indian census definition. The result reveals that the urban and rural definitions do not hold validity in Kerala. The second part explores the settlements based on the topographic distribution, followed by a detailed analysis of the spatiotemporal dynamics of the built areas in three levels of detailing. The study reveals a spread of built-up areas across diverse topography and variation among the built-up areas of different urban areas. While the lowland regions indicated a dominance and clustering of built-up patches, in the midlands and towards the highland study areas, the built-up areas are smaller and more fragmented with an affinity towards the transportation corridors. Therefore the study helped characterize the spread of reclassified settlements and the changes in built-up areas across diverse topography and emphasized the requirement to move away from dichotomous classification as followed in some developed countries. The study recommends an RUC code for Kerala and an Eco-sensitive Regional Planning approach for a better spatial planning process. A modified and refined planning framework is also proposed as a final output from the research.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdBiomass energy has huge potential in helping to achieve a renewable energy target to combat climate change. Many countries like Australia have huge potential for biomass energy supply from second generation biomass resources, however, the limited knowledge on the potential of these biomass resources could be a barrier to its uptake. This study developed a geographical information system based fuzzy multi criteria analysis (GIS based Fuzzy-MCA) to identify and prioritise the suitability of biomass energy plant sites for the sustainable use of biomass. The analysis was carried out in Queensland, Australia as a case study, demonstrating the potential of multiple biomass types for multiple products (thermal energy and bioelectricity supply). Using local sustainability constraints and criteria, the study identified potential biomass energy plant (57) sites in the East, South-East and North-West regions of the state where there are vacant lands and required infrastructure. Moreover, the high-resolution assessment of sustainably available biomass can have a significant impact on suitability of the location and the plant capacity. The potential biomass energy plants could generate electricity satisfying a substantial portion of Australian bioelectricity goals and mandates. The methodology could further be used in national-scale assessment, considering biomass incentive programs and government policies to maximise public benefit and private investment.
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