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This paper aims to demonstrate the necessity of infrastructure planning in the big cities of Romania starting from a theoretical approach to the subject. Green space and green infrastructure have a close connection with topics like urban sprawl, climate change, or nature-based solutions. The present results are based on the research on Google Scholar of the publications that have appeared in recent years. Thus, most scientific papers mostly refer to urban green infrastructure in relation to the field of planning, public health, nature-based solutions and climate change and, in a lower extent, to GIS systems, pandemic and social equity. The conclusions show that an interdisciplinary approach is needed, and that a strategic and priority urban planning must evaluate ecosystem services offered by green infrastructure in order to sustain a healthy city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A green-blue infrastructure is essential for achieving the European Green Deal objectives and can be used to protect large cities and their metropolitan areas against urban sprawl. Green-blue infrastructure is an important research topic, because green-blue planning networks provide solutions for mitigating contemporary growing urban and climate challenges. Our study aims to create an innovative methodology for defining and analyzing the elements of green-blue infrastructure and their connectivity within Bucharest, Romania and its metropolitan area, to serve as a planning model. The methodology consists of merging European geodata sets with metropolitan and local data, using GIS tools, and analyzing the connectivity within the study area. All connections resulted from implementing the Linkage Mapper tool were operationalized, using high-resolution satellite images and correcting obtained connections, so that deviations from reality were minimized. The results consist of a conceptual model for planning the green-blue infrastructure within Bucharest and in its metropolitan area, embedding an analysis of its connectivity. The study contributes to implementing the concept of green infrastructure in urban and spatial planning, providing tools for planning the green-blue infrastructures of large cities and their metropolitan areas and, implicitly, reducing urban sprawl, improving air quality and mitigating environmental threats due to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning for a green-blue infrastructure contributes to protecting nature and improving the quality of urban life by supporting the ecological, economic and social functions of urban areas. The European Commission states that there is no need for legislation designed exclusively to enforce implementing the concept of green-blue infrastructure in European countries and calls instead for using existing legislation, policy instruments and funding mechanisms. For the effective conservation of biodiversity, territorial planning at any spatial level must be an indispensable tool, especially for a country like Romania, where nature conservation yields almost always to economic development. Therefore, the main objective of our study is developing and implementing an innovative methodology for delimiting green-blue areas and ecological corridors in Bucharest metropolitan area and its integration into national policies and strategies. The methodology for developing the green-blue infrastructure plan is based on European, local and regional data, GIS tools, and urban planning solutions. The results of this study represent a realistic connectivity analysis, which contributes to planning for the green-blue infrastructure within the Urban Plan of Bucharest. As the main conclusion, we mention the need to protect the metropolitan territory of big cities from the intensity and dispersion of urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This comparative study aims to test the hypothesis according to which environmental awareness of planners is crucial to sustainable cities with a healthy and well connected green infrastructure able to provide ecosystem services. To test the hypothesis, we compared two cities, Bucharest (Romania) and Chisinau (Moldova), based on quantitative analyses using CORINE land cover and use data to analyze the land structure and its dynamic, and qualitative analyses focused on the planning process. Our findings suggest that both cities share a decreasing interest for planning for their green infrastructure, which was lost and fragmented. The process was aggravated in Bucharest by post-communist property restitution. Based on the results, we recommend planners in post-communist countries to give more attention to the green infrastructure, in order to produce plans fitted to the welfare and sustainability needs of people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern cities, decision-making in urban planning activity is related with the analysis and processing of a large amount of data describing the state of all urban subsystems, which involves the participation of specialists in many fields of science and practice. Today, these tasks are performed in a scientific way, based on experience and qualification. The main objective of the CRISALIDE project is the development of a decision support system for urban environment management. It is envisaged to be used by representatives of state authorities and local governments, enterprises and local organizations, as well as by individuals working in fields like sustainable development, social innovation, information or communication technologies. Modern methods and geo-information systems are used to improve efficiency of urban management and to reduce the planning costs at different levels. The expected result when achieving the main objective of the project is the IDMT tool (Integrated Decision Making Tool), an online platform based on IGIS (Intelligent Geographic Information Systems), which aims to support local authorities from the city of Rostov-on-Don (Russia) in order to streamline the urban management and to reduce redundant planning costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an overall view of the first cities of the world which are considered to be the origin of urbanization, as they are reflected in historical bird's-eye views and maps, on one hand, and in aerial views, obtained using modern technologies such as aerial photogrammetry, on the other hand. Historical bird's-eye views of ancient cities, having a more artistic style rather than a technical one and requiring thousands of hours to be created, have been replaced nowadays with aerial photography allowing realistic representations. The paper illustrates several bird's-eye views and maps created between the 16th and 18th centuries by famous engravers in order to picture well-known cities, referring at the same time to modern digital techniques that are used today to map, visualise, analyse and manage remains of ancient cities. The use of new research methods in archaeology, such as aerial photogrammetry, high resolution satellite imagery, UAVs, GIS and GPS techniques combined with classical surface or sub-surface survey tools is being exemplified in the case of 5 cities, origin of urbanization, constituted in the first 4 millenniums BC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]