Integrating Spatial Analysis and Regional Science to Guide Urban Planning

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Land Systems and Global Change".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 August 2024 | Viewed by 3129

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Geography and Regional Planning, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Interests: urban & regional planning; spatial analysis; sustainable development; climate change

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Guest Editor
Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics of the Foundation of Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion, Greece
Interests: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications; remote sensing methodologies and statistical analysis of spatial data in the areas of urban and regional analysis; environmental planning; water resources management

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Guest Editor
School of Architecture, Technical University of Crete, 73100 Chanai, Greece
Interests: urban and regional planning; sustainable urban mobility; smart cities

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Guest Editor
Department of Architecture, Escuela Politécnica Superior University, Nebrija, Spain
Interests: urban planning; urban sustainability; urban ecology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Currently, urban planning is assigned a crucial role in meeting a new and evolving combination of challenges, including climate change, increasing urbanization and globalization, and environmental degradation. Issues like urban sprawl, rural-to-urban interactions, climate resilience, and urban sustainability underline the need for innovative approaches on how to handle the environmental consequences of urban growth at a regional scale. Integrating spatial analysis methods into regional science theories is particularly important in order to manage the spatial complexity of urban development, and to better inform spatial planning decisions involving multiple interactions between different stakeholders.

The aim of this Special Issue is to explore the latest advances in the fields of spatial analysis and regional science, focused on integrated methodologies, strategies, and frameworks to guide urban planning decisions. To this end, we search for innovative approaches linking the regional to urban planning dimension from a spatial analysis perspective.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that link the following themes:

  • Advanced spatial analysis tools, including spatial optimization, suitability analysis, land use/land cover modeling, and simulation modelling;
  • Innovative geospatial methodologies for the examination of land use conflicts and land degradation due to urbanization;
  • Models and methods evaluating the environmental and climate-related parameters of urban areas to support regional sustainability;
  • Decision support systems and tools for urban areas, handling local to global connections on a regional scale;
  • Exploration of regional science tools and methods for guiding sustainable urban development.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Apostolos Lagarias
Dr. Poulicos Prastacos
Dr. Despina Dimelli
Dr. Alexandra Delgado-Jiménez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • spatial analysis
  • urban planning
  • regional science
  • spatial optimization
  • land use modelling
  • decision support systems
  • sustainable development
  • policy making
  • environmental management
  • climate change
  • local-global connections

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

34 pages, 15896 KiB  
Article
Optimization of Microclimate Conditions Considering Urban Morphology and Trees Using ENVI-Met: A Case Study of Cairo City
by Ahmed Yasser Abdelmejeed and Dietwald Gruehn
Land 2023, 12(12), 2145; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/land12122145 - 09 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1136
Abstract
This research aims to optimize the use of trees to enhance microclimate conditions, which has become necessary because of climate change and its impacts, especially for cities suffering from extreme heat stress, such as Cairo. It considers elements of urban morphology, such as [...] Read more.
This research aims to optimize the use of trees to enhance microclimate conditions, which has become necessary because of climate change and its impacts, especially for cities suffering from extreme heat stress, such as Cairo. It considers elements of urban morphology, such as the aspect ratio and orientation of canyons, which play an important role in changing microclimate conditions. It also considers both sides of each canyon because the urban shading is based on the orientation and the aspect ratio, which can provide good shade on one side of the canyon but leave the other side exposed to direct and indirect radiation, to ensure a complete assessment of how the use of trees can be optimized. As Cairo city is very large and has a variety of urban morphologies, a total of 144 theoretical cases have been tested for Cairo city using ENVI-met to cover the majority of the urban cases within the city (Stage 1). Then, the same tree scenarios used in the theoretical study are applied to an existing urban area in downtown Cairo with many urban morphology varieties to validate the results of the theoretical study (Stage 2). After testing all cases in both stages, it became very clear that the addition of trees cannot be the same for the different aspect ratios, orientations, and sides of the different canyons. For example, eastern roads should have more trees than other orientations for all aspect ratios, but the required number of trees is greater for the northern side than the southern side, as the southern side is partially shaded for a few hours of the day by buildings in moderate and deep canyons. Northern streets require a very limited number of trees, even in shallow canyons, on both sides. The correlation between the number of trees on each side for the different orientations and aspect ratios shows a strong negative relationship, but the correlation values change between the different sides and orientations. The results of applying trees to an existing urban area show almost the same results as the theoretical study’s results, with very slight differences occurring because of the irregularity of the existing study area. This proves that when adding trees, not only the aspect ratio and orientation but also the side of each canyon should be considered to ensure that pedestrians, in all cases, have better microclimate conditions and that the use of trees is optimized. Full article
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25 pages, 18530 KiB  
Article
Impervious Land Expansion as a Control Parameter for Climate-Resilient Planning on the Mediterranean Coast: Evidence from Greece
by Apostolos Lagarias
Land 2023, 12(10), 1844; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/land12101844 - 27 Sep 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1048
Abstract
Impervious land expansion is linked to ecosystem fragmentation and degradation, posing threats to nature conservation and multiplying climate change impacts. This is particularly true on the Mediterranean coast, where persistent urbanization is coupled with tourism development, further intensifying coastal erosion, flood risk, heat [...] Read more.
Impervious land expansion is linked to ecosystem fragmentation and degradation, posing threats to nature conservation and multiplying climate change impacts. This is particularly true on the Mediterranean coast, where persistent urbanization is coupled with tourism development, further intensifying coastal erosion, flood risk, heat stress and biodiversity loss, while decreasing carbon sequestration. In this research, high-resolution imperviousness data were analyzed through a geospatial methodology to detect patterns and processes in a heavily burdened Mediterranean coastal area, namely Greece. The methodology was structured on a set of GIS tools, analyzing the distribution of new impervious cover between 2006 and 2018, to evaluate pressures exerted on coastal territories and on the environmental protection network. The results revealed relatively slow rates of impervious land expansion at a nationwide scale, mostly attributed to the economic recession period in Greece. However, certain locations exhibited continuing artificialization of land even within Natura 2000 areas, while future pressures on coastal territories are expected to increase due to the restarting of construction activity and the continuing dynamic of the mass tourism sector. The conclusions imply that controlling for imperviousness is important in order to develop spatial planning policies for climate resilience, which should be decisively enforced in the Mediterranean to prevent a business-as-usual scenario. Full article
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