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Land allocation and pricing substantially impact carbon emissions, yet their nonlinear effects remain understudied. This research employs ensemble machine learning models to examine the complex relationships between land conveyance and per capita carbon emissions across 104 major Chinese cities from 2009 to 2017. The results reveal that keeping industrial land allocations below 35% helps reduce emissions, whereas higher ratios increase emissions. Allocating over 8% and 33% to business and public land respectively also lowers emissions. Land prices demonstrate heterogeneity – a higher residential land price promotes efficiency only when its relative price level to the comprehensive land price is below 1.1. The findings highlight customised policies balancing development and emissions reduction, based on local conditions and development stages, can forge sustainable pathways. Overall, the nonlinear modelling quantifies nuanced emissions responses to land allocation thresholds and strategic pricing incentives. By considering these complex mechanisms, urban planners can devise tailored strategies that simultaneously nurture growth and curb emissions. The novel method and evidence-based insights contribute to planning support systems and sustainable policy-making. • Estimating land conveyance's nonlinear effects on emissions by ensemble learning. • Allocation and price of land display nonlinear relationships on carbon emissions. • Land use within suitable ratios and pricing incentives promotes carbon reductions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The multiple benefits of adopting distributed, green stormwater technologies in the local environment are increasingly recognised, particularly in relation to water quality, flood mitigation, amenity and aesthetics. To advance the integration of these systems into everyday decision-making practices, Planning Support Systems (PSS) are considered vital. Despite several PSS available to support planners and key decision-makers, their uptake remains constrained; a phenomenon known as the 'implementation gap'. While scholars have hypothesised why the adoption of PSS is limited, there remains little empirical investigation regarding the reasons why. This paper tests the hypotheses underlying the implementation gap in relation to water sensitive urban design (WSUD) planning. Drawing on the tacit experience of 24 key urban water planning professionals in the front-runner city of Melbourne, Australia, in-depth semi-structured interviews were undertaken to unpack the contemporary planning processes used and reveal characteristics leading to success and failure of PSS application. Data analysis revealed WSUD planning professionals regard the adoption of PSS as a significant step towards improving contemporary decision-making practices, which are regarded as opportunistic rather than strategic. PSS use was widespread, though the type, intensity and sophistication of use varied among interview participants. Confirming the hypotheses from planning literature, practitioners suggested PSS need to be user-friendly and align closely to planning practice. Additionally, however, it was found that it is crucial for PSS to meet industry conventions. Suggested improvements to current PSS included incorporating socio-economic factors alongside biophysical and planning factors, hence the role for GIS-based suitability analysis tools. Overall, this study provides current and future PSS-developers with critical insights regarding the type, function and characteristics of an 'ideal' PSS aimed at enhancing the usefulness and uptake of PSS, and thus improve planning that supports expediting green infrastructure implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era of smart cities, planning support systems (PSS) offer the potential to harness the power of urban big data and support land-use and transport planning. PSS encapsulate data-driven modelling approaches for envisioning alternative future cities scenarios. They are widely available but have limited adoption in the planning profession (Russo, Lanzilotti, Costabile, & Pettit, 2017). Research has identified issues preventing their mainstream adoption to be, among others, the gap between PSS supply and demand (Geertman, 2016), their difficulty of use, a need for greater understanding of PSS capabilities and a lack of awareness of their applications (Russo et al., 2017; Vonk, Geertman, & Schot, 2005). To address this, a review of five PSS is conducted in the context of four vignettes applied in Australia and applicable internationally. A critical review has been undertaken, demonstrating how these PSS provide an evidence basis to understand, model and manage growing cities. The results suggest that PSS can assist in undertaking key tasks associated with the planning process. In addition to supporting planning and decision making, PSS can potentially enable better co-ordination between city, state and federal planning and infrastructure agencies, thus promoting a multi-scaled approach that improves local and national data sharing, modelling, reporting and scenario planning. The research demonstrates that PSS can assist in navigating the complexities of rapid multi-faceted urban growth to achieve better-informed planning outcomes. The paper concludes by outlining ways PSS address limitations of the past and can begin to address anticipated future challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the outcomes of a Geodesign approach to training undergraduates and graduate students in environmental design and related professions. The focus of this paper is on the role of Geodesign in generalist environmental design training. This paper is organized in three parts. First, it describes a conceptual framework for Geodesign that seats it within a context of theory and practice. Second, we present a case study of the University of Colorado Geodesign program, including, at the time under review in this case, undergraduate and masters programs in architecture, landscape architecture and planning. Third, we reflect back both on the conceptual framework and the experience of the University of Colorado. In this research we developed an instrument with which to evaluate final class projects, and assess learning outcomes of beginning and advanced studios, special topics classes and Geodesign modules. While a number of Geodesign programs are underway relatively little has been written about Geodesign pedagogy. This paper explores issues and opportunities in Geodesign education based on the University of Colorado case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing urban populations, combined with environmental challenges, have placed significant pressure on urban planning to supply housing while addressing policy issues such as sustainability, affordability, and liveability. The interrelated nature of these issues, combined with the requirement of evidence-based planning, has made decision-making so complex that urban planners need to combine expertise on energy, water, carbon emissions, transport and economic development along with other bodies of knowledge necessary to make well-informed decisions. This paper presents two geospatial software systems that can assist in the mediation of complexity, by allowing users to assess a variety of planning metrics without expert knowledge in those disciplines. Using Envision and Envision Scenario Planner (ESP), both products of the Greening the Greyfields research project funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information (CRCSI) in Australia, we demonstrate a workflow for identifying potential redevelopment precincts and designing and assessing possible redevelopment scenarios to optimise planning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metaplanning can be considered as a necessary step for improving collaboration, transparency and accountability in sustainable and democratic spatial decision-making processes. This paper reports current findings on the operational implementation of the metaplanning concept developed by the authors relying on Business Process Management methods and techniques. Three solutions are presented which implement spatial planning process workflows thanks to the development of original spatial data and processing services connectors to a Business Process Management suite. These results can be considered as a first step towards the development of 2 nd generation Planning Support Systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• NBS co-planning needs an integrated assessment of site and solution suitability. • An NBS planning support system (NBS-PSS) is developed and tested in a Dutch city. • NBS-PSS provides an integrated multiscale hierarchical approach for co-planning. • NBS-PSS helps to maximize NBS benefits, while considering local contexts. Cities are increasingly adopting Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) to address multiple societal challenges effectively. Successful adoption of NBS and realization of their multifunctionality requires a holistic and collaborative planning approach that incorporates stakeholders across scales and disciplines. However, such an approach is usually not aligned with the mainstream sectoral planning process in cities. Planning support systems (PSS) play an essential role in the transition to collaborative planning. Current systems used for NBS planning tend to be highly specialized, focusing on a few ecosystem services and a single scale. As a response, the NBS-PSS is introduced. This system's novel multiscale hierarchical framework helps stakeholders to prioritize sites and solutions in an integrative manner. The NBS-PSS provides the flexibility needed for NBS planning and allows users to interact and iterate over different planning process stages. The system has been tested in the city of Eindhoven with a group of experts. Accordingly, the system appears to have a high capacity to facilitate collaboration and motivate stakeholders to engage in the planning process, given the rapid responses and easy-to-understand process and data representation. Moreover, the NBS-PSS was found to be a helpful tool for enhancing the awareness of opportunities for NBS in urban settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper describes a support tool that incorporates environmental aspects in local spatial planning processes. The tool aims to support the work of local authorities and urban planning offices, especially with regard to identifying options in the early phases of the planning process. The tool has been developed and implemented in a Geographical Information System (GIS) and evaluated for a case study in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The results show the importance of communicative aspects for these kinds of tools, especially for tools that aim to stimulate several disciplines in working together. The results also show that geo-information tools can easily become too complex, and turn out to be ‘black boxes’ for participants in the planning process. Therefore, it is important to keep these tools as simple as possible, and to make clear how the results of the planning process will benefit from their use. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: As small island developing states work towards economically and environmentally sustainable development, they lack many of the financial, technical, and information management resources available in larger, more developed countries. The ability to acquire geographic information and integrate it into decision-making processes is particularly difficult. Yap, a member of the Federated States of Micronesia, exemplifies many small island developing states in its effort to develop an informational infrastructure. This paper describes the early steps of on-going work by Yapese scientists, governmental agencies, and non-governmental organizations, and Queens University of Charlotte to start a successful GIS program. It is intended that this program will contribute to a future planning support system. Early application of Yap''s GIS has resulted in a dramatic reduction in area of an invasive grass (Imperata cylindrica) and increased knowledge and use of GIS by Yapese decision-makers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• We use game theory in urban land use planning. • We consider the urban spatial units as parcel to model the dynamics of urban environment more realistic. • We use Genetic Algorithm as a sub class of evolutionary algorithms to evaluate the results of game theory. • Results show acceptable level of improvement in objective functions. Spatial urban land-use planning is a complex process, through which we aim to allocate suitable land-uses while taking into consideration multiple and conflicting objectives and constraints under certain spatial contexts. Landowners should be modeled as players that are able to interact with each other so as to seek their best land-uses while considering multiple objectives and constraints simultaneously. Game theory provides a tool for land-use planners to model and analyze such interactions. In this paper, spatial urban land-use planning is considered as a game to model local competitions between landowners, whose players (i.e. landowners) of which play to pick the most suitable land-use for themselves. The game is defined based on the objectives of consistency, dependency, suitability, compactness of land-uses, and land-use per capita demand. In this paper, three different scenarios are designed for the players. In the first scenario, the players are greedy and only accept the most compatible land-use. In the second scenario, conversely, the players are fully collaborative and care about other players' payoff. In the third scenario, the players are first greedy, but when they cannot achieve an agreement with other players, they change their attitude to become gradually collaborative for reaching the Nash equilibrium (NE). Furthermore, the dissatisfaction index (DI), which represents the number of unsatisfied landowners with their current land-use, is defined to compare the different scenarios. The proposed model is tested in a district located in District 7 in Tehran (the capital city of Iran) with 2710 parcels. Results of the first scenario showed that, at the beginning of the game, 50 % of the landowners were not satisfied with their current land-uses, but after 50 iterations, about 100 landowners were dissatisfied with their land-use and this scenario was not able to reach the NE. Results of the second scenario indicated that, in order to reach an optimized layout, 325 parcels needed to be changed. Also, after reaching the NE in this scenario, values of the objective functions did not significantly improve. So, lowering the expectations of the players would not lead to appropriate results. The outcomes of the third scenario provided appropriate results, which could be achieved when the expectation levels of the players could be changed during the game. Furthermore, the NE was obtained among the players and the objective functions improved by 20 % on average in comparison with the other scenarios. Moreover, results of the scenarios were compared with the optimized layout obtained by a genetic algorithm (GA) using different parameter values. Results of the comparison also revealed that the urban layouts produced by game theory improved the objective function values obtained by the GA in about 10 % and improved the GA's running time in more than 85 %, on average in this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Geodesign incorporates local cultural values in indigenous land use planning processes. • We introduced the application of Geodesign for land use planning in an American Indian Community in the Navajo Nation. • Geodesign can integrate both Western and Indigenous planning traditions. • We should promote the use of Geodesign for indigenous communities. • An evaluation framework using qualitative data is suitable for assessing indigenous experiences in land use planning. Indigenous planning scholars have called for a planning framework that prioritizes Indigenous and community values and traditions while incorporating western planning techniques. Geodesign, an interdisciplinary planning method that uses systems thinking, geospatial technologies, and community participation to address environmental, social, and governance issues throughout the planning process, offers a framework that meets the needs of Indigenous planners and communities. In this paper, we demonstrate that the Geodesign framework enables American Indian community members to be intrinsically involved in the planning process and empowers them to contribute local knowledge and perspectives for community-based decision making and land use plans. We show how the the Geodesign planning framework was utilized to develop and update a community-based land use plan for the Navajo Nation's Dilkon community and discuss the framework's strengths, limitations, and opportunities for planning. The case study illustrates how the Dilkon community was able to use the Geodesign framework to overcome planning barriers and advance a community plan that is consensus driven, supported by geospatial technologies, and takes into account Indigenous values and traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]