Search

Changes in urban residential density represent an important issue in terms of land consumption, the conservation of ecosystems, air quality and related human health problems, as well as the consequential challenges for urban and regional planning. It is the decline of residential densities, in particular, that has often been used as the very definition of sprawl, describing a phenomenon that has been extensively studied in the United States and in Western Europe. Whilst these studies provide valuable insights into urbanization processes, only a handful of them have reflected the uneven dynamics of simultaneous urban growth and shrinkage, using residential density changes as a key indicator to uncover the underlying dynamics. This paper introduces a contrasting analysis of recent developments in both de- and re-concentration, defined as decreasing or increasing residential densities, respectively. Using a large sample of European cities, it detects differences in density changes between successional population growth/decline. The paper shows that dedensification, found in some large cities globally, is not a universal phenomenon in growing urban areas; neither the increasing disproportion between a declining demand for and an increasing supply of residential areas nor actual concentration processes in cities were found. Thus, the paper provides a new, very detailed perspective on (de)densification in both shrinking and growing cities and how they specifically contribute to current land take in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourist satisfaction has always been a crucial research issue in the tourism economy. This paper utilizes the Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) to analyze the impact of urban tourism satisfaction on urban macroeconomics from a macro perspective, using quarterly data on tourist satisfaction in 35 large and medium-sized cities along with major urban macroeconomic variables. This study is quite distinct from previous research that focused on constructing a tourist satisfaction index and analyzing the influence factors of tourism satisfaction from the perspective of the micro-level internal composition of tourism. The empirical results show: Firstly, in respect of the impact of urban tourists' satisfaction on the GDP income of cities, the SDM and the SDM with a lagged first-order dependent variable (SDM_dlag) show that the short-term and long-term indirect effects of log-tourist satisfaction are significantly positive, indicating that city satisfaction has a significant positive spatial spillover effect on GDP growth in other cities; Secondly, in respect of the influence of urban tourist satisfaction on the cost of urban life in the SDM, the long-term direct and indirect effects of logarithmic satisfaction are significantly positive, implying, in the long run, that tourist satisfaction has a positive intraregional spillover effect and spatial spillover effect on urban living costs; Finally, the SDM_dlag for the regression of urban tourist satisfaction on the cost of urban daily life shows that the short-run direct and indirect effects of city tourist satisfaction are significantly negative, indicating that tourist satisfaction has intra-regional and spatial spillover effects, and its rise will reduce the cost of living expenses in local and other cities in the short term. Overall, we have further elucidated the role of different levels of urban tourist satisfaction in city macroeconomics from the spatial dimension, thereby enriching the existing research on tourist satisfaction to some certain extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“The Belt and Road” initiative has been expected to facilitate interactions among numerous city centers. This initiative would generate a number of centers, both economic and political, which would facilitate greater interaction. To explore how information flows are merged and the specific opportunities that may be offered, Chinese cities along “the Belt and Road” are selected for a case study. Furthermore, urban networks in cyberspace have been characterized by their infrastructure orientation, which implies that there is a relative dearth of studies focusing on the investigation of urban hierarchies by capturing information flows between Chinese cities along “the Belt and Road”. This paper employs Baidu, the main web search engine in China, to examine urban hierarchies. The results show that urban networks become more balanced, shifting from a polycentric to a homogenized pattern. Furthermore, cities in networks tend to have both a hierarchical system and a spatial concentration primarily in regions such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta region. Urban hierarchy based on web search activity does not follow the existing hierarchical system based on geospatial and economic development in all cases. Moreover, urban networks, under the framework of “the Belt and Road”, show several significant corridors and more opportunities for more cities, particularly western cities. Furthermore, factors that may influence web search activity are explored. The results show that web search activity is significantly influenced by the economic gap, geographical proximity and administrative rank of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulating ecosystem services provided by urban forests are of great importance for the quality of life among city dwellers. To reach a maximum contribution to well-being in cities, the urban regulating ecosystem services (URES) must match with the demands in terms of space and time. If we understand the matches or mismatches between the current urban dwellers’ desired quality conditions (demand) and the supply of URES by urban forests (UF) in the cities, this will facilitate integrating the concepts of ecosystem services in urban planning and management, but such an assessment has suffered from major knowledge limitations. Since it is complex and problematic to identify the direct demands for URES and the spatiotemporal patterns therein, improving the demand indicators can help to determine the actual requirements. In this paper, a methodological approach based on indicators is presented and demonstrated for two important URES: air quality improvement and global climate change mitigation provided by urban trees and shrubs. Four air quality standards and greenhouse gas reduction targets were used and compared to supplies of the URES in Tabriz, Iran. Our results show that the mean contribution of the URES supply to air quality standards and greenhouse gas reduction targets is modest. Hence, in Tabriz, there is a strong mismatch between demand and supply. Mismatches at the city scale will have to be reduced by both a reduction in pollutant emissions and an increased provisioning of URES supply through urban greenery. The presented assessment approach and the results for Tabriz make it explicit how different the demands and supplies of the two studied URES are, and we expect similar mismatches in many other cities. Therefore, our approach, relatively simple but still realistic and easy-to-apply, can raise awareness about, and the utility of, the ecosystem services concepts for urban planning and policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban change (urbanization) has dominated land change science for several decades. However, few studies have focused on what many scholars call the urban densification process (i.e., urban intensity expansion) despite its importance to both planning and subsequent impacts to the environment and local economies. This paper documents past urban densification patterns and uses this information to predict future densification trends in southeastern Wisconsin (SEWI) by using a rich dataset from the United States and by adapting the well-known Land Transformation Model (LTM) for this purpose. Urban densification is a significant and progressive process that often accompanies urbanization more generally. The increasing proportion of lower density areas, rather than higher density areas, was the main characteristic of the urban densification in SEWI from 2001 to 2011. We believe that improving urban land use efficiency to maintain rational densification are effective means toward a sustainable urban landscape. Multiple goodness-of-fit metrics demonstrated that the reconfigured LTM performed relatively well to simulate urban densification patterns in 2006 and 2011, enabling us to forecast densification to 2016 and 2021. The predicted future urban densification patterns are likely to be characterized by higher densities continue to increase at the expense of lower densities. We argue that detailed categories of urban density and specific relevant predictor variables are indispensable for densification prediction. Our study provides researchers working in land change science with important insights into urban densification process modeling. The outcome of this model can help planners to identify the current trajectory of urban development, enabling them to take informed action to promote planning objectives, which could benefit sustainable urbanization definitely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies indicated that industrialization and urbanization caused serious soil heavy metal pollution from industrialized age. However, fewer previous studies have conducted a combined analysis of the landscape pattern, urbanization, industrialization, and heavy metal pollution. This paper was aimed at exploring the relationships of heavy metals in the soil (Pb, Cu, Ni, As, Cd, Cr, Hg, and Zn) with landscape pattern, industrialisation, urbanisation in Taiyuan city using multivariate analysis. The multivariate analysis included correlation analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA), independent-sample T test, and principal component analysis (PCA). Geographic information system (GIS) was also applied to determine the spatial distribution of the heavy metals. The spatial distribution maps showed that the heavy metal pollution of the soil was more serious in the centre of the study area. The results of the multivariate analysis indicated that the correlations among heavy metals were significant, and industrialisation could significantly affect the concentrations of some heavy metals. Landscape diversity showed a significant negative correlation with the heavy metal concentrations. The PCA showed that a two-factor model for heavy metal pollution, industrialisation, and the landscape pattern could effectively demonstrate the relationships between these variables. The model explained 86.71% of the total variance of the data. Moreover, the first factor was mainly loaded with the comprehensive pollution index (P), and the second factor was primarily loaded with landscape diversity and dominance (H and D). An ordination of 80 samples could show the pollution pattern of all the samples. The results revealed that local industrialisation caused heavy metal pollution of the soil, but such pollution could respond negatively to the landscape pattern. The results of the study could provide a basis for agricultural, suburban, and urban planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last years, the new science of cities has been established as a fertile quantitative approach to systematically understand the urban phenomena. One of its main pillars is the proposition that urban systems display universal scaling behavior regarding socioeconomic, infrastructural and individual basic services variables. This paper discusses the extension of the universality proposition by testing it against a broad range of urban metrics in a developing country urban system. We present an exploration of the scaling exponents for over 60 variables for the Brazilian urban system. Estimating those exponents is challenging from the technical point of view because the Brazilian municipalities’ definition follows local political criteria and does not regard characteristics of the landscape, density, and basic utilities. As Brazilian municipalities can deviate significantly from urban settlements, urban-like municipalities were selected based on a systematic density cut-off procedure and the scaling exponents were estimated for this new subset of municipalities. To validate our findings we compared the results for overlaying variables with other studies based on alternative methods. It was found that the analyzed socioeconomic variables follow a superlinear scaling relationship with the population size, and most of the infrastructure and individual basic services variables follow expected sublinear and linear scaling, respectively. However, some infrastructural and individual basic services variables deviated from their expected regimes, challenging the universality hypothesis of urban scaling. We propose that these deviations are a product of top-down decisions/policies. Our analysis spreads over a time-range of 10 years, what is not enough to draw conclusive observations, nevertheless we found hints that the scaling exponent of these variables are evolving towards the expected scaling regime, indicating that the deviations might be temporally constrained and that the urban systems might eventually reach the expected scaling regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban agriculture has become a common form of urban land use in European cities linked to multiple environmental, social and economic benefits, as well as to diversified forms (from self-production allotments to high-tech companies). Social acceptance will determine the development of urban agriculture and specific knowledge on citizens’ perception is required in order to set the basis for policy-making and planning. The ecosystem services provided by urban agriculture can be determinant in this process. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the social acceptance and the perceived ecosystem services of urban agriculture in the city of Bologna (Italy), as an example of a Southern European city. In particular, we evaluated the preferences for urban land uses, for different typologies of urban agriculture and for the resulting products, the perceived provision of ecosystem services and the willingness to engage in new initiatives. A survey that investigated these topics (including open questions, closed questions and Likert-scale evaluation) was performed on the citizens of Bologna (n = 380) between October and November 2016. Results showed that urban agriculture is widely accepted by the inhabitants of Bologna, particularly regarding vegetable production. Although intensive farming systems were the least preferred forms to be implemented in Bologna, citizens highly accepted a large variety of urban agriculture goods, with preference for those obtained from plants as compared to animal products. The willingness-to-pay for urban food products was mostly the same as for conventional ones, although the participants recognised the social values, proximity and quality of the former. Socio-cultural ecosystem services were perceived as more valuable than environmental ones. Policy-making recommendations can be extracted from the results to facilitate the development of urban agriculture plans and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic congestion brings not only delay and inconvenience, but other associated national concerns, such as greenhouse gases, air pollutants, road safety issues and risks. Identification, measurement, tracking, and control of urban recurrent congestion are vital for building a livable and smart community. A considerable amount of works has made contributions to tackle the problem. Several methods, such as time-based approaches and level of service, can be effective for characterizing congestion on urban streets. However, studies with systemic perspectives have been minor in congestion quantification. Resilience, on the other hand, is an emerging concept that focuses on comprehensive systemic performance and characterizes the ability of a system to cope with disturbance and to recover its functionality. In this paper, we symbolized recurrent congestion as internal disturbance and proposed a modified metric inspired by the well-applied “R4” resilience-triangle framework. We constructed the metric with generic dimensions from both resilience engineering and transport science to quantify recurrent congestion based on spatial-temporal traffic patterns and made the comparison with other two approaches in freeway and signal-controlled arterial cases. Results showed that the metric can effectively capture congestion patterns in the study area and provides a quantitative benchmark for comparison. Also, it suggested not only a good comparative performance in measuring strength of proposed metric, but also its capability of considering the discharging process in congestion. The sensitivity tests showed that proposed metric possesses robustness against parameter perturbation in Robustness Range (RR), but the number of identified congestion patterns can be influenced by the existence of ϵ. In addition, the Elasticity Threshold (ET) and the spatial dimension of cell-based platform differ the congestion results significantly on both the detected number and intensity. By tackling this conventional problem with emerging concept, our metric provides a systemic alternative approach and enriches the toolbox for congestion assessment. Future work will be conducted on a larger scale with multiplex scenarios in various traffic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil sealing (loss of soil resources due to extensive land covering for the purpose of house building, road construction etc.) and subsequent soil landscape pattern changes constitute typical environmental problems in many places worldwide. Previous studies concentrated on soil sealing in urbanized regions, whereas rural areas have not been given sufficient attention. Accordingly, this paper studies soil landscape pattern dynamics (i.e., landscape pattern changes in response to rural anthropogenic activities) in the Tiaoxi watershed (Zhejiang province, eastern China), in which surface sealing is by far the predominant component of human forcing with respect to environmental change. A novel approach of quantifying the impacts of rural anthropogenic activities on soil resources is presented. Specifically, quantitative relationships were derived between five soil landscape pattern metrics (patch density, edge density, shape index, Shannon’s diversity index and aggregation index) and three rural anthropogenic activity indicators (anthropogenic activity intensity, distance to towns, and distance to roads) at two landscape block scales (3 and 5 km) between 1985 and 2010. The results showed that the Tiaoxi watershed experienced extensive rural settlement expansion and high rates of soil sealing. Soil landscapes became more fragmented, more irregular, more isolated, and less diverse. Relationships between soil landscape pattern changes and rural anthropogenic activities differed with the scale (spatial and temporal) and variable considered. In particular, the anthropogenic activity intensity was found to be the most important indicator explaining social development intensity, whereas the other two proximity indicators had a significant impact at certain temporal interval. In combination with scale effects, spatial dependency (correlation) was shown to play a key role that should be carefully taken into consideration in any relevant environmental study. Overall, the findings of this work suggest that soil sealing can be a critical human forcing issue with considerable consequences deserving serious attention by the experts, the public and the government alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of concepts exist regarding how urbanization can be described as a process. Understanding this process that affects billions of people and its future development in a spatial manner is imperative to address related issues such as human quality of life. In the focus of spatially explicit studies on urbanization is typically a city, a particular urban region, an agglomeration. However, gaps remain in spatially explicit global models. This paper addresses that issue by examining the spatial dynamics of urban areas over time, for a full coverage of the world. The presented model identifies past, present and potential future hotspots of urbanization as a function of an urban area's spatial variation and age, whose relation could be depicted both as a proxy and as a path of urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial distribution of income shapes the structure and organisation of cities and its understanding has broad societal implications. Despite an abundant literature, many issues remain unclear. In particular, all definitions of segregation are implicitely tied to a single indicator, usually rely on an ambiguous definition of income classes, without any consensus on how to define neighbourhoods and to deal with the polycentric organization of large cities. In this paper, we address all these questions within a unique conceptual framework. We avoid the challenge of providing a direct definition of segregation and instead start from a definition of what segregation is not. This naturally leads to the measure of representation that is able to identify locations where categories are over- or underrepresented. From there, we provide a new measure of exposure that discriminates between situations where categories co-locate or repel one another. We then use this feature to provide an unambiguous, parameter-free method to find meaningful breaks in the income distribution, thus defining classes. Applied to the 2014 American Community Survey, we find 3 emerging classes—low, middle and higher income—out of the original 16 income categories. The higher-income households are proportionally more present in larger cities, while lower-income households are not, invalidating the idea of an increased social polarisation. Finally, using the density—and not the distance to a center which is meaningless in polycentric cities—we find that the richer class is overrepresented in high density zones, especially for larger cities. This suggests that density is a relevant factor for understanding the income structure of cities and might explain some of the differences observed between US and European cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The paper examines whether out-of-pocket health care expenditure also has regional discrepancies, comparing to the equity between urban and rural areas, and across households. Method: Sampled data were derived from Urban Household Survey and Rural Household Survey data for 2011/2012 for Anhui Province, and 11049 households were included in this study. The study compared differences in out-of-pocket expenditure on health care between regions (urban vs. rural areas) and years (2011 vs. 2012) using two-sample t-test, and also investigated the degree of inequality using Lorenz and concentration curves. Result: Approximately 5% and 8% of total household consumption expenditure was spent on health care for urban and rural populations, respectively. In 2012, the wealthiest 20% of urban and rural population contributed 49.7% and 55.8% of urban and rural total health expenditure respectively, while the poorest 20% took only 4.7% and 4.4%. The concentration curve for out-of-pocket expenditure in 2012 fell below the corresponding concentration curve for 2011 for both urban and rural areas, and the difference between curves for rural areas was greater than that for urban areas. Conclusion: A substantial and increasing gap in health care expenditures existed between urban and rural areas in Anhui. The health care financing inequality merits ample attention, with need for policymaking to focus on improving the accessibility to essential health care services, particularly for rural and poor residents. This study may provide useful information on low income areas of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective and timely quantification of the spatiotemporal pattern of urban expansion in China is important for the assessment of its environmental effects. However, the dynamics of the most recent urban expansions in China since 2012 have not yet been adequately explained due to a lack of current information. In this paper, our objective was to quantify spatiotemporal patterns of urban expansion in China between 1992 and 2015. First, we extracted information on urban expansion in China between 1992 and 2015 by integrating nighttime light data, vegetation index data, and land surface temperature data. Then we analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns of urban expansion at the national and regional scales, as well as at that of urban agglomerations. We found that China experienced a rapid and large-scale process of urban expansion between 1992 and 2015, with urban land increasing from 1.22 × 104 km2 to 7.29 × 104 km2, increasing in size nearly fivefold and with an average annual growth rate of 8.10%, almost 2.5 times as rapid as the global average. We also found that urban land in China expanded mainly by occupying 3.31 × 104 km2 of cropland, which comprised 54.67% of the total area of expanded urban land. Among the three modes of growth—infilling, edge expansion, and leapfrog—edge expansion was the main cause of cropland loss. Cropland loss resulting from edge expansion of urban land totalled 2.51 × 104 km2, accounting for over 75% of total cropland loss. We suggest that effective future management with respect to edge expansion of urban land is needed to protect cropland in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific studies of society increasingly rely on digital traces produced by various aspects of human activity. In this paper, we exploit a relatively unexplored source of data–anonymized records of bank card transactions collected in Spain by a big European bank, and propose a new classification scheme of cities based on the economic behavior of their residents. First, we study how individual spending behavior is qualitatively and quantitatively affected by various factors such as customer’s age, gender, and size of his/her home city. We show that, similar to other socioeconomic urban quantities, individual spending activity exhibits a statistically significant superlinear scaling with city size. With respect to the general trends, we quantify the distinctive signature of each city in terms of residents’ spending behavior, independently from the effects of scale and demographic heterogeneity. Based on the comparison of city signatures, we build a novel classification of cities across Spain in three categories. That classification exhibits a substantial stability over different city definitions and connects with a meaningful socioeconomic interpretation. Furthermore, it corresponds with the ability of cities to attract foreign visitors, which is a particularly remarkable finding given that the classification was based exclusively on the behavioral patterns of city residents. This highlights the far-reaching applicability of the presented classification approach and its ability to discover patterns that go beyond the quantities directly involved in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon the Landsat satellite images of Nanjing from 1985, 1995, 2001, 2007, and 2013, this paper integrates the convex hull analysis and common edge analysis at double scales, and develops a comprehensive matrix analysis to distinguish the different types of urban land expansion. The results show that Nanjing experienced rapid urban expansion, dominated by a mix of residential and manufacturing land from 1985 to 2013, which in turn has promoted Nanjing’s shift from a compact mononuclear city to a polycentric one. Spatial patterns of three specific types of growth, namely infilling, extension, and enclave were quite different in four consecutive periods. These patterns result primarily from the existing topographic constraints, as well as government-oriented urban planning and policies. By intersecting the function maps, we also reveal the functional evolution of newly-developed urban land. Moreover, both self-enhancing and mutual promotion of the newly developed functions are surveyed over the last decade. Our study confirms that the integration of a multi-scale method and multi-perspective analysis, such as the spatiotemporal patterns and functional evolution, helps us to better understand the rapid urban growth in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban greenness is increasingly recognized as an essential constituent of the urban environment and can provide a range of services and enhance residents’ quality of life. Understanding the pattern of urban greenness and exploring its spatiotemporal dynamics would contribute valuable information for urban planning. In this paper, we investigated the pattern of urban greenness in Hangzhou, China, over the past two decades using time series Landsat-5 TM data obtained in 1990, 2002, and 2010. Multiple endmember spectral mixture analysis was used to derive vegetation cover fractions at the subpixel level. An RGB-vegetation fraction model, change intensity analysis and the concentric technique were integrated to reveal the detailed, spatial characteristics and the overall pattern of change in the vegetation cover fraction. Our results demonstrated the ability of multiple endmember spectral mixture analysis to accurately model the vegetation cover fraction in pixels despite the complex spectral confusion of different land cover types. The integration of multiple techniques revealed various changing patterns in urban greenness in this region. The overall vegetation cover has exhibited a drastic decrease over the past two decades, while no significant change occurred in the scenic spots that were studied. Meanwhile, a remarkable recovery of greenness was observed in the existing urban area. The increasing coverage of small green patches has played a vital role in the recovery of urban greenness. These changing patterns were more obvious during the period from 2002 to 2010 than from 1990 to 2002, and they revealed the combined effects of rapid urbanization and greening policies. This work demonstrates the usefulness of time series of vegetation cover fractions for conducting accurate and in-depth studies of the long-term trajectories of urban greenness to obtain meaningful information for sustainable urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informal urban green-space (IGS) such as vacant lots, brownfields and street or railway verges is receiving growing attention from urban scholars. Research has shown IGS can provide recreational space for residents and habitat for flora and fauna, yet we know little about the quantity, spatial distribution, vegetation structure or accessibility of IGS. We also lack a commonly accepted definition of IGS and a method that can be used for its rapid quantitative assessment. This paper advances a definition and typology of IGS that has potential for global application. Based on this definition, IGS land use percentage in central Brisbane, Australia and Sapporo, Japan was systematically surveyed in a 10×10 km grid containing 121 sampling sites of 2,500 m2 per city, drawing on data recorded in the field and aerial photography. Spatial distribution, vegetation structure and accessibility of IGS were also analyzed. We found approximately 6.3% of the surveyed urban area in Brisbane and 4.8% in Sapporo consisted of IGS, a non-significant difference. The street verge IGS type (80.4% of all IGS) dominated in Brisbane, while lots (42.2%) and gaps (19.2%) were the two largest IGS types in Sapporo. IGS was widely distributed throughout both survey areas. Vegetation structure showed higher tree cover in Brisbane, but higher herb cover in Sapporo. In both cities over 80% of IGS was accessible or partly accessible. The amount of IGS we found suggests it could play a more important role than previously assumed for residents' recreation and nature experience as well as for fauna and flora, because it substantially increased the amount of potentially available greenspace in addition to parks and conservation greenspace. We argue that IGS has potential for recreation and conservation, but poses some challenges to urban planning. To address these challenges, we propose some directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accumulation of anthropogenic litter (i.e. garbage; AL) and its ecosystem effects in marine environments are well documented. Rivers receive AL from terrestrial habitats and represent a major source of AL to marine environments, but AL is rarely studied within freshwater ecosystems. Our objectives were to 1) quantify AL density in urban freshwaters, 2) compare AL abundance among freshwater, terrestrial, and marine ecosystems, and 3) characterize the activity and composition of AL biofilms in freshwater habitats. We quantified AL from the Chicago River and Chicago's Lake Michigan shoreline, and found that AL abundance in Chicago freshwater ecosystems was comparable to previously reported data for marine and terrestrial ecosystems, although AL density and composition differed among habitats. To assess microbial interactions with AL, we incubated AL and natural substrates in 3 freshwater ecosystems, quantified biofilm metabolism as gross primary production (GPP) and community respiration (CR), and characterized biofilm bacterial community composition via high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA genes. The main driver of biofilm community composition was incubation location (e.g., river vs pond), but there were some significant differences in biofilm composition and metabolism among substrates. For example, biofilms on organic substrates (cardboard and leaves) had lower GPP than hard substrates (glass, plastic, aluminum and tiles). In addition, bacterial communities on organic substrates were distinct in composition from those on hard substrates, with higher relative abundances of bacteria associated with cellulose decomposition. Finally, we used our results to develop a conceptual diagram designed to unite the study of AL in terrestrial and freshwater environments with the well-established field of marine debris research. We suggest this broad perspective will be useful for future studies which synthesize AL sources, ecosystem effects, and fate across multiple ecosystem types, and will benefit management and reduction of global AL accumulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowhere has the scale and scope of urbanization been larger than in China over the last few decades. We analyze Chinese city development between the years 1996 and 2014 using data for the urbanized components of prefecture-level cities. We show that, despite much variability and fast economic and demographic change, China is undergoing transformations similar to the historical trajectory of other urban systems. We also show that the distinguishing signs of urban economies—superlinear scaling of agglomeration effects in economic productivity and economies of scale in land use—also characterize Chinese cities. We then analyze the structure of economic change in Chinese cities using a variety of metrics, characterizing employment, firms and households. Population size estimates remain a major challenge for Chinese cities, as official numbers are often reported based on the Hukou registration system. We use the information in the residuals to scaling relations for economic quantities to predict actual resident population and show that these estimates agree well with data for a subset of cities for which counts of total resident population exist. We conclude with a list of issues that must be better understood and measured to make sense of present urban development trajectories in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within urban landscape planning, debate continues around the relative merits of land-sharing (sprawl) and land-sparing (compaction) scenarios. Using three of the ten districts in Greater Manchester (UK) as a case-study, we present a landscape approach to mapping green infrastructure and variation in social-ecological-environmental conditions as a function of land sharing and sparing. We do so for the landscape as a whole and in a more focussed approach for areas of high and low urbanity. Results imply potential trade-offs between land-sharing-sparing scenarios relevant to characteristics critical to urban resilience such as landscape connectivity and diversity, air quality, surface temperature, and access to green space. These trade-offs are complex due to the parallel influence of patch attributes such as land-cover and size and imply that both ecological restoration and spatial planning have a role to play in reconciling tensions between land-sharing and sparing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Car traffic in urban systems has been studied intensely in past decades but models are either limited to a specific aspect of traffic or applied to a specific region. Despite the importance and urgency of the problem we have a poor theoretical understanding of the parameters controlling urban car use and congestion. Here, we combine economical and transport ingredients into a statistical physics approach and propose a generic model that predicts for different cities the share of car drivers, the CO2 emitted by cars and the average commuting time. We confirm these analytical predictions on 25 major urban areas in the world, and our results suggest that urban density is not the most relevant variable controlling car-related quantities but rather are the city’s area size and the density of public transport. Mitigating the traffic (and its effect such as CO2 emissions) can then be obtained by reducing the urbanized area size or, more realistically, by improving either the public transport density or its access. In particular, increasing the population density is a good idea only if it also increases the fraction of individuals having access to public transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Megacities are facing serious water pollution problems due to urbanization, rapid population growth and economic development. Water is an essential resource for human activities and socio-economic development and water quality in urban settings has important implications for human and environmental health. Urbanization and lack of sewerage has left the water in Jakarta, Indonesia in a heavily polluted condition. Rigorous assessment of urban water quality is necessary to understand the factors controlling water quality conditions. We use trend analysis to assess the current water quality conditions in Jakarta, focusing on Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Dissolved Oxygen (DO), and Total Suspended Solids (TSS). In most monitoring stations analyzed, BOD and TSS concentrations have decreased over time, but from large starting concentrations. DO in most monitoring stations has increased. Although Jakarta’s water quality has shown some improvement, it remains heavily impaired. The average value of BOD is low in upper stream stations compared to middle and lower stream stations. BOD and TSS trends of some water quality stations in middle and lower streams show increasing trends. Cluster analysis results suggest three groups for BOD and TSS, and four groups for DO. Understanding water quality conditions and factors that control water quality suggest strategies for improving water quality given current trends in climate, population growth and urban development. Results from this study suggest research directions and management strategies to address water quality challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypostomus subcarinatus Castelnau, 1855 is rediscovered in the Lagoa da Pampulha, an urban lake in the Rio das Velhas basin (Rio São Francisco system) in the state of Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil. Herein, H. subcarinatus is redescribed and diagnosed from its congeners based on characters such as blue-tan dorsal fin in live specimens, slender bicuspid teeth, dentaries angled more than 90 degrees, moderate keels along lateral series of plates, small roundish dark spots, one plate bordering supraoccipital, by having nuptial odontodes mainly on pectoral, dorsal and caudal-fin rays, and long anal-fin unbranched ray. The rediscovery of H. subcarinatus more than 160 years after its original description was an unexpected event, because the Lagoa da Pampulha is an artificial, silted and polluted urban lake. The lake is located in downtown Belo Horizonte, the third largest urban agglomeration in Brazil with a population exceeding 5.9 million inhabitants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid and extensive urbanization has adversely impacted humans and ecological entities in the recent decades through a decrease in surface permeability and the emergence of Urban Heat Islands (UHI). While detailed and continuous assessments of surface permeability and UHI are crucial for urban planning and management of landuse zones, they mostly involve time consuming and expensive field studies and single sensor derived large scale aerial and satellite imageries. We demonstrated the advantage of fusing imageries from multiple sensors for landuse and landcover (LULC) change assessments as well as for assessing surface permeability and temperature and UHI emergence in a fast growing city, i.e. Tirunelveli, Tamilnadu, India. IRS-LISSIII and Landsat-7 ETM+ imageries were fused for 2007 and 2017, and classified using a Rotation Forest (RF) algorithm. Surface permeability and temperature were then quantified using Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) and Land Surface Temperature (LST) index, respectively. Finally, we assessed the relationship between SAVI and LST for entire Tirunelveli as well as for each LULC zone, and also detected UHI emergence hot spots using a SAVI-LST combined metric. Our fused images exhibited higher classification accuracies, i.e. overall kappa coefficient values, than non-fused images. We observed an overall increase in the coverage of urban (dry, real estate plots and built-up) areas, while a decrease for vegetated (cropland and forest) areas in Tirunelveli between 2007 and 2017. The SAVI values indicated an extensive decrease in surface permeability for Tirunelveli overall and also for almost all LULC zones. The LST values showed an overall increase of surface temperature in Tirunelveli with the highest increase for urban built-up areas between 2007 and 2017. LST also exhibited a strong negative association with SAVI. Southeastern built-up areas in Tirunelveli were depicted as a potential UHI hotspot, with a caution for the Western riparian zone for UHI emergence in 2017. Our results provide important metrics for surface permeability, temperature and UHI monitoring, and inform urban and zonal planning authorities about the advantages of satellite image fusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of future population growth will take place in the world’s cities and towns. Yet, there is no well-established, consistent way to measure either urban land or people. Even census-based urban concepts and measures undergo frequent revision, impeding rigorous comparisons over time and place. This study presents a new spatial approach to derive consistent urban proxies for the US. It compares census-designated urban blocks with proxies for land-based classifications of built-up areas derived from time-series of the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) for 1990–2010. This comparison provides a new way to understand urban structure and its changes: Most land that is more than 50% built-up, and people living on such land, are officially classified as urban. However, 30% of the census-designated urban population and land is located in less built-up areas that can be characterized as mainly suburban and peri-urban in nature. Such insights are important starting points for a new urban research program: creating globally and temporally consistent proxies to guide modelling of urban change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate whether increasing cycling activity affects the emergence of new local businesses. Historical amenity data from OpenStreetMap is used to quantify change in shop and sustenance amenity counts. We apply an instrumental variable framework to investigate a causal relationship and to account for endogeneity in the model. Measures of cycling infrastructure serve as instruments. The impact is evaluated on the level of 4835 Lower Super Output Areas in Greater London. Our results indicate that an increase in cycling trips significantly contributes to the emergence of new local shops and businesses. Limitations regarding data quality, zero-inflation and residual spatial autocorrelation are discussed. While our findings correspond to previous investigations stating positive economic effects of cycling, we advance research in the field by providing a new dataset of unprecedented high granularity and size. Furthermore, this is the first study in cycling research looking at business amenities as a measure of economic activity. The insights from our analysis can enhance understandings of how cycling affects the development of local urban economies and may thus be used to assess and evaluate transport policies and investments. Beyond this, our study highlights the value of open data in city research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study a stochastic model of urban growth generating spatial distributions of population densities at an intermediate mesoscopic scale. The model is based on the antagonist interplay between the two opposite abstract processes of aggregation (preferential attachment) and diffusion (urban sprawl). Introducing indicators to quantify urban form, the model is first statistically validated and intensively explored to understand its complex behavior across the parameter space. We then compute real morphological indicators on local areas of size 50km covering all European Union, and show that the model can reproduce most of these existing urban morphologies. It implies that the morphological dimension of urban growth processes at this scale are sufficiently captured by the two abstract processes of aggregation and diffusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to estimate the migration effect of the overall samples and different flowing scales for the floating population from the perspective of personal wages. Although we used both the OLS and PSM methods to estimate the migration effect, we found that the PSM method was preferred in the study of migration as a result of the selection bias. The empirical results show that there is a significant difference in wage before and after migration. In fact, migration increased wages by 15.18% to 23.63% overall. Additionally, wages were increased by 44.96% to 59.20%, 23.06% to 26.18%, and 10.89% to 15.08% respectively for these three migration patterns: flowing into the three largest megacities, inter-provincial migration, and inter-city migration within a province, but for this pattern of inter-district migration within a city, the migration effect is not significant. We concluded that the floating population removing policies of the largest megacities maybe are effective because of the administrative power of their government. On the other hand, for these policies of non-largest megacities to attract labor and local employment and local urbanization near the floating population’s place of origin, they were not effective enough as a result of the lack of significant migration effect in these cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are arguably both the cause, and answer, to societies’ current sustainability issues. Urbanization is the interplay between a city’s physical growth and its socio-economic development, both of which consume a substantial amount of energy and resources. Knowledge of the underlying driver(s) of urban expansion facilitates not only academic research but, more importantly, bridges the gap between science, policy drafting, and practical urban management. An increasing number of researchers are recognizing the benefits of innovative remotely sensed datasets, such as nighttime lights data (NTL), as a proxy to map urbanization and subsequently examine the driving socio-economic variables in cities. We further these approaches, by taking a trans-pacific view, and examine how an array of socio-economic ind0icators of 25 culturally and economically important urban hubs relate to long term patterns in NTL for the past 21 years. We undertake a classic econometric approach—panel causality tests which allow analysis of the causal relationships between NTL and socio-economic development across the region. The panel causality test results show a contrasting effect of population and gross domestic product (GDP) on NTL in fast, and slowly, changing cities. Information derived from this study quantitatively chronicles urban activities in the pan-Pacific region and potentially offers data for studies that spatially track local progress of sustainable urban development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Underreporting is a quality concern in mortality statistics. The purpose of this study was to assess and adjust underreporting in the population-based cause-of-death statistics. The total population (96 million) in Shandong, China was divided into 262 subcounty level populations geographically and by residence type (urban/rural). For each subpopulation, the total number of deaths during the years 2011–2013 was determined using data from the Household Registration System (HRS), and was used as a reference to assess the underreporting rate (UR) in the cause-of-death data from the Shandong Death Registration System (SDRS). It was estimated that 454,615 deaths, or 21.5% (95% CI: 21.4–21.5%) were unreported. Underreporting was more pronounced in rural (22.1%) versus urban communities (20.0%), in economically underdeveloped regions (32% versus 16% in least disadvantaged areas), and in newly included sites with no prior experience in cause-of-death reporting (24% versus 17%). Geographic variation was large with a UR at the prefectural level ranging from 11.2% to 43.7%. A stratified analysis showed that UR was higher in rural populations in high-income regions, but in middle- and low-income regions, was higher in urban communities. An adjustment factor (AF) was calculated for each of the 262 subpopulations (ranging from 0.9 to 2.5 with an average of 1.27). The total morality rate was adjusted from 6.03 to 7.67 deaths per 1000 persons. Underreporting in the SDRS varies greatly between areas and populations and is related to residence type, prior experience and local economy. Correcting underreporting at a local level is needed especially for comparative analyses across geographical areas or populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like other developing countries, Nepal is currently going through epidemiological transition along with rising burden of Non-communicable Diseases. However, since 2013, no study investigated the prevalence and determinants of hypertension in Nepal involving nationally representative sample. Therefore, this study aimed to find out the current prevalence of hypertension in Nepal and its determinants using the latest nationally representative data obtained from Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) 2016. The NDHS 2016 collected data on hypertension from 13,304 men and women aged 18 years and above from 5,520 urban and 5,970 rural households covering seven administrative provinces and three ecological zones. Participants were considered as hypertensive when their systolic blood pressure was ≥140 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure was ≥90 mmHg and/or they reported taking antihypertensive medication. A total of 19.9% study participants were diagnosed as hypertensive of which majority were male (male-24.3%, female-16.9%), ever married (ever married-21.7%, unmarried-6.1%) and residents of urban area (urban-20.9%, rural-18.3%). Hypertension prevalence has shown growing trend with the increase of age. This prevalence was also higher among rich and overweight/obese individuals. In multivariable logistic regression analysis, older age, male gender, better education, residence at urban area and province 4 and 5 and being overweight/obese were found positive association with having hypertension. When the determinants of hypertension were stratified by sex of the participants, difference was observed in case of age group, education and place of residence. As one out of every five individuals in Nepal are hypertensive, public health initiatives are immediately required for prevention and control of hypertension to reduce mortality and morbidity associated with this progressive disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban extent data play an important role in urban management and urban studies, such as monitoring the process of urbanization and changes in the spatial configuration of urban areas. Traditional methods of extracting urban-extent information are primarily based on manual investigations and classifications using remote sensing images, and these methods have such problems as large costs in labor and time and low precision. This study proposes an improved, simplified and flexible method for extracting urban extents over multiple scales and the construction of spatiotemporal models using DMSP/OLS nighttime light (NTL) for practical situations. This method eliminates the regional temporal and spatial inconsistency of thresholding NTL in large-scale and multi-temporal scenes. Using this method, we have extracted the urban extents and calculated the corresponding areas on the county, municipal and provincial scales in China from 2000 to 2012. In addition, validation with the data of reference data shows that the overall accuracy (OA), Kappa and F1 Scores were 0.996, 0.793, and 0.782, respectively. We increased the spatial resolution of the urban extent to 500 m (approximately four times finer than the results of previous studies). Based on the urban extent dataset proposed above, we analyzed changes in urban extents over time and observed that urban sprawl has grown in all of the counties of China. We also identified three patterns of urban sprawl: Early Urban Growth, Constant Urban Growth and Recent Urban Growth. In addition, these trends of urban sprawl are consistent with the western, eastern and central cities of China, respectively, in terms of their spatial distribution, socioeconomic characteristics and historical background. Additionally, the urban extents display the spatial configurations of urban areas intuitively. The proposed urban extent dataset is available for download and can provide reference data and support for future studies of urbanization and urban planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization has been driven by various social, economic, and political factors around the world for centuries. Because urbanization continues unabated in many places, it is crucial to understand patterns of urbanization and their potential ecological and environmental impacts. Given this need, the objectives of our study were to quantify urban growth rates, growth modes, and resultant changes in the landscape pattern of urbanization in Hanoi, Vietnam from 1993 to 2010 and to evaluate the extent to which the process of urban growth in Hanoi conformed to the diffusion-coalescence theory. We analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns and dynamics of the built-up land in Hanoi using landscape expansion modes, spatial metrics, and a gradient approach. Urbanization was most pronounced in the periods of 2001–2006 and 2006–2010 at a distance of 10 to 35 km around the urban center. Over the 17 year period urban expansion in Hanoi was dominated by infilling and edge expansion growth modes. Our findings support the diffusion-coalescence theory of urbanization. The shift of the urban growth areas over time and the dynamic nature of the spatial metrics revealed important information about our understanding of the urban growth process and cycle. Furthermore, our findings can be used to evaluate urban planning policies and aid in urbanization issues in rapidly urbanizing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous investigations of geographic concentration of urban poverty indicate the contribution of a variety of factors, such as economic restructuring and class-based segregation, racial segregation, demographic structure, and public policy. However, the models used by most past research do not consider the possibility that poverty concentration may take different forms in different locations across a city, and most studies have been conducted in Western settings. We investigated the spatial patterning of neighborhood poverty and its correlates in Hong Kong, which is amongst cities with the highest GDP in the region, using the city-wide ordinary least square (OLS) regression model and the local-specific geographically weighted regression (GWR) model. We found substantial geographic variations in small-area poverty rates and identified several poverty clusters in the territory. Factors found to contribute to urban poverty in Western cities, such as socioeconomic factors, ethnicity, and public housing, were also mostly associated with local poverty rates in Hong Kong. Our results also suggest some heterogeneity in the associations of poverty with specific correlates (e.g. access to hospitals) that would be masked in the city-wide OLS model. Policy aimed to alleviate poverty should consider both city-wide and local-specific factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mankind’s quest for well-being results in continuous pressure to transform landscapes, with said transformation driven by land use changes, urbanization, production activity, and protective measures in addition to climate variability and other environmental drivers. The relationship between anthropogenic landscape changes and the provision of ecosystem services (ES) is a topic of increasing interest in Latin America. In Chile, land cover changes due to increased urbanization and forestry, and expansion of agricultural land, in addition to conservation initiatives as a part of land planning, have been intensive in the last few decades. In this study, the effects of anthropogenic landscape changes on the supply of ES were analyzed for the urban region of Santiago-Valparaiso (Chile) using a method based on expert consultation and land cover change assessment. A pool of experts scored the potential of specific land covers to provide certain ES. The results enabled calculation and mapping of changes in the potential of the landscape to supply ES. The aforementioned changes over a period of 15 years were evaluated. The results indicate a tenuous balance between positive and negative changes to the supply of ES derived from land cover changes. Understanding and reporting how these processes occur in urban regions contributes to the conservation of valuable landscapes through spatial planning tools, especially in areas close to housing developments and sensitive ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While urban systems demonstrate high spatial heterogeneity, many urban planning, economic and political decisions heavily rely on a deep understanding of local neighborhood contexts. We show that the structure of 311 Service Requests enables one possible way of building a unique signature of the local urban context, thus being able to serve as a low-cost decision support tool for urban stakeholders. Considering examples of New York City, Boston and Chicago, we demonstrate how 311 Service Requests recorded and categorized by type in each neighborhood can be utilized to generate a meaningful classification of locations across the city, based on distinctive socioeconomic profiles. Moreover, the 311-based classification of urban neighborhoods can present sufficient information to model various socioeconomic features. Finally, we show that these characteristics are capable of predicting future trends in comparative local real estate prices. We demonstrate 311 Service Requests data can be used to monitor and predict socioeconomic performance of urban neighborhoods, allowing urban stakeholders to quantify the impacts of their interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Characterising road networks has been the focus of a large body of research due to it being the main driver of activities in an urban ecosystem and the structuring factor in the dynamics of the city. One of these activities, and one with the largest economical impact in a city, is retail dynamics and its evolution. Therefore, the mathematical modeling of the location of retail activities and of the emergence of clustering in retail centers has as well generated a large number of works. Despite these two interwoven components strongly depending on one another and their fundamental importance in understanding cities, little work has been done in order to compare their local and global properties. Here we compare the road network’s hierarchical structure, unveiled through a percolation analysis of the network, with the retail location distribution defined by exploiting a gravity-based retail model. We interpret the great agreement in the city’s organizations as it emerges from both methodologies as new evidence of the interdependence of these two crucial dimensions of a city’s life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creating a win-win relationship between biodiversity and human well-being is one of the major current challenges for environmental policy. One way to approach this challenge is to identify sites with both high biodiversity and high human interest in urban areas. Here, we propose a new systematic approach to identify such sites by using land prices and biodiversity indexes for butterflies and birds from a nationwide perspective. As a result, we found sites that are valuable to humans and to other organisms, including national red-list species, and they are located in sites with cultural heritages and near seaside. By referencing the habitat features and landscape characteristics of these sites, we can establish high quality environments that provide a benefit to both humans and biodiversity in urban landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive evidence has revealed that street greenery, as a quality-of-life component, is important for oxygen production, pollutant absorption, and urban heat island effect mitigation. Determining how green our streets are has always been difficult given the time and money consumed using conventional methods. This study proposes an automatic method using an emerging online street-view service to address this issue. This method was used to analyze street greenery in the central areas (28.3 km2 each) of 245 major Chinese cities; this differs from previous studies, which have investigated small areas in a given city. Such a city-system-level study enabled us to detect potential universal laws governing street greenery as well as the impact factors. We collected over one million Tencent Street View pictures and calculated the green view index for each picture. We found the following rules: (1) longer streets in more economically developed and highly administrated cities tended to be greener; (2) cities in western China tend to have greener streets; and (3) the aggregated green view indices at the municipal level match with the approved National Garden Cities of China. These findings can prove useful for drafting more appropriate policies regarding planning and engineering practices for street greenery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of urban spatial interaction is closely linked to that of economic geography, urban planning, regional development, and so on. Currently, this topic is generating a great deal of interest among researchers who are striving to find accurate ways to measure urban spatial interaction. Classical spatial interaction models lack theoretical guidance and require complicated parameter-adjusting processes. The radiation model, however, as proposed by Simini et al. with rigorous formula derivation, can simulate directional urban spatial interaction. We applied the radiation model in China to simulate the directional migration number among 337 nationwide research units, comprising 4 municipalities and 333 prefecture-level cities. We then analyzed the overall situation in Chinese cities, the interaction intensity hierarchy, and the prime urban agglomerations from the perspective of migration. This was done to ascertain China’s urban spatial interaction and regional development from 2000 to 2010 to reveal ground realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban environmental measurements and observational statistics should reflect the properties generated over an adjacent area of adequate length where homogeneity is usually assumed. The determination of this characteristic source area that gives sufficient representation of the horizontal coverage of a sensing instrument or the fetch of transported quantities is of critical importance to guide the design and implementation of urban landscape planning strategies. In this study, we aim to unify two different methods for estimating source areas, viz. the statistical correlation method commonly used by geographers for landscape fragmentation and the mechanistic footprint model by meteorologists for atmospheric measurements. Good agreement was found in the intercomparison of the estimate of source areas by the two methods, based on 2-m air temperature measurement collected using a network of weather stations. The results can be extended to shed new lights on urban planning strategies, such as the use of urban vegetation for heat mitigation. In general, a sizable patch of landscape is required in order to play an effective role in regulating the local environment, proportional to the height at which stakeholders’ interest is mainly concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) were extirpated from most of the continental United States by widespread use of the pesticide DDT in the 1960s. Populations have rebounded with banning of the pesticide and successful implementation of captive breeding and hacking programs. An essentially new population of Midwestern peregrines now exists that is comprised almost entirely of urban-nesting birds. The new population is considered to be of mixed ancestry, occurs at relatively high densities, and has nest sites in close proximity, factors that could influence breeding behaviors including mate fidelity, nest-site fidelity, extra-pair paternity, and natal dispersal. We investigated these behaviors using a combination of field observations and DNA microsatellite genotyping. Data for eleven microsatellite DNA markers, including eight newly developed for the species, were analyzed from a total of 350 birds from nine Midwestern cities, representing 149 broods collected at 20 nest sites. To document breeding behavior, parentage was inferred by likelihood techniques when both parents were sampled and by parental genotype reconstruction when only one parent was sampled. In cases where neither parent was sampled, a sibship reconstruction approach was used. We found high mate fidelity and nest-site fidelity in urban peregrines; in 122 nesting attempts made by long-term breeders, only 12 (9.8%) mate changes and six (4.9%) nest-site changes occurred. Only one brood (of 35 tested) revealed extra-pair paternity and involved a male tending two offspring of a recently acquired mate. Natal dispersal patterns indicated that female peregrines dispersed on average 226 km, almost twice the distance of males (average 124 km). Despite the novel environment of cities, our results suggest that monogamous breeding, nest fidelity, and female natal dispersal are high in urban peregrines, not unlike other raptors living in non-urban habitats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimizing land-use allocation is important to regional sustainable development, as it promotes the social equality of public services, increases the economic benefits of land-use activities, and reduces the ecological risk of land-use planning. Most land-use optimization models allocate land-use using cell-level operations that fragment land-use patches. These models do not cooperate well with land-use planning knowledge, leading to irrational land-use patterns. This study focuses on building a heuristic land-use allocation model (PSOLA) using particle swarm optimization. The model allocates land-use with patch-level operations to avoid fragmentation. The patch-level operations include a patch-edge operator, a patch-size operator, and a patch-compactness operator that constrain the size and shape of land-use patches. The model is also integrated with knowledge-informed rules to provide auxiliary knowledge of land-use planning during optimization. The knowledge-informed rules consist of suitability, accessibility, land use policy, and stakeholders’ preference. To validate the PSOLA model, a case study was performed in Gaoqiao Town in Zhejiang Province, China. The results demonstrate that the PSOLA model outperforms a basic PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization) in the terms of the social, economic, ecological, and overall benefits by 3.60%, 7.10%, 1.53% and 4.06%, respectively, which confirms the effectiveness of our improvements. Furthermore, the model has an open architecture, enabling its extension as a generic tool to support decision making in land-use planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]