Abstract
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change were adopted in the year 2015; thereafter, countries ‘established a foundation for coherent implementation of climate action and sustainable development objectives across all levels and sectors’. We are now mid-way in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, when multiple converging crises are putting the Sustainable Development Goals at risk. COVID-19 pandemic and conflicts in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere are impacting sustainable development adversely. Climate change impacts, including the intense heatwaves in South Asia, Western Europe and North America, and the biodiversity loss in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos and Malaysia, all have negative effects on global food and energy security. These crises are challenging the strategies to keep the 1.5°C temperature goal a reality and achievement of the global Goals by their 2030 deadline. The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 indicates that there has been a reversal of progress on a number of goals, especially those connected to sustainable urban communities.
The articles in the current volume attempt to highlight and address the challenges thrown up by urbanization, several of which have impacted sustainable and inclusive development in different cities across Asia. In the first article, Mohammad Shahidul Hasan Swapan, Md Sayed Iftekhar and Xiyuan Li have tried to identify factors influencing use-diversity of urban parks by undertaking a cross-cultural study between China (Dufu Cottage in Chengdu, DC) and Australia (Kings Park in Perth, KP). Using a post-occupancy survey questionnaire, the authors addressed two key questions: (a) Is there any difference in use-diversity between these urban parks and (b) which demographic and socio-economic factors influence use pattern of urban parks most. They observed that, in general, use frequency is lower in DC compared to KP. The study found that in both parks, opportunity of physical activity is the most important motive for visits, more concentrated during the weekends in DC whereas KP was used more consistently throughout the week. Various factors such as gender, age, income level and frequency of visits have some influence on frequency and diversity of usage. The impact of socio-demographic factors on the extent of use highlights the importance of understanding users’ profiles to adopt more targeted measures to address local demands. The study identified some common patterns and differences in use-diversity between the two parks, underscoring the potential for managers of these parks in both countries for mutual learning and adopting best management practices.
M.D.K. Lakmali Gunathilaka, Devanmini Halwatura, Lasantha Manawadu and Dinuke Munasinghe analysed the effects of land use and land cover change-induced lake ecosystem degradation in three urban lakes in Sri Lanka using a multi-faceted approach including: (a) Satellite Remote Sensing, (b) Geographic Information System Analysis and (c) a causal framework. A holistic cause–effect human–environment interaction framework was applied in Sri Lanka to identify measures to protect urban lake ecosystems sustainably. The research shows that there was significant urban expansion during the study period with the Thalangama lake being the most impacted, regardless of its Environmental Protected Status. Short-term mitigatory measures such as control of invasive species, treatment of polluted water, nutrient load monitoring and riparian buffer expansion were proposed to reduce lake degradation. Sustainable city planning through the application of site-specific control measures at different scales is envisioned as a long-term solution.
Jean Marie V. Juanga and Mario R. Delos Reyes assessed the visual quality of dual thoroughfare streetscapes in Davao City, specifically identifying existing visual components in terms of landscape layer, landform, vegetation, light and colour, compatibility, archetypal elements and its character of peace and silence. Davao City had a consistent score in its streetscapes, garnering not the highest but a relatively high score. The results showed that the presence of landscape layers, light and colour, vegetation and character of peace and silence seem to be the most critical visual components in its overall contemplative score. Based on the overall ranking system in the contemplative score, Davao City obtained a relatively high rank. The presence of vegetation, particularly the young to fully grown trees, also produces more shade which provides thermal comfort and a cooler experience in the streetscape. The association between the individual visual landscape component scores against the overall visual quality resulted in a landscape layer of 0.825 and vegetation of 0.824, which showed a significant correlation. The significant findings among the components is the indication of landforms which greatly contributed to the total score.
Predicting Potential Change in Land Cover and its Effect on the Temperature of the Land Surface in Khulna City Corporation (KCC, Bangladesh) was undertaken by Sohel Rana, Subrota Sarkar, Md Nazmus Sadat, Tasnim Tabassum and Ashraf Uddin Fahim. The authors argue that KCC has undergone rapid urban development and expansion in recent times. These changes, including the change in land surface temperature (LST) throughout the area, have significant long-term effects. This research analysed the effects of land cover changes on KCC’s LST. By using the Maximum Likelihood Classification Method, Landsat imagery investigation identified the land cover chart and determined the LST for the years 1999, 2009 and 2019. It was modelled for the simulation of land cover for the year 2029 by using the classification results and applying the multi-layer perceptron Markov models together. It then also modelled the LST for the year 2029 by using three thematic indices and multiple regression analysis. Results show that the KCC urban area grew by 49% between 1999 and 2019. Simulation results have shown that the KCC could possibly experience a temperature range of more than or equal to 26°C in 2029, if the recent pattern persists. For KCC, the average LST for the urban area is projected to be 27°C in 2029. The results will assist urban planners in quantifying the impact of various LST change-related issues and, thus, in preparing proper strategic measures to combat the environmental challenges.
Arvaan Kumar and Sriroop Chaudhuri uses a mixed-method approach to inform the urban authorities in the city of Delhi: (a) the state of air pollution in the city, (b) systemic flaws in current monitoring network, (c) potential means to bolster it and (d) need of a participatory framework for monitoring. Information about Air Quality Index (AQI), obtained from 36 monitoring stations across Delhi, is compared between 2021 (20 April–25 May; 2nd year/phase of SARS-CoV-2 lockdown), the corresponding time periods in 2020 (1st year/phase of lockdown) and 2019 (business-as-usual) using the Mann–Whitney U Test. AQI during the 2021 lockdown (a) appeared statistically more similar (p < .01) to that of 2019 and (b) exceeded the environmental health safety benchmark for 85% days during the study period (20 April–25 May). However, this only presented a partial glimpse into the air pollution status. It owes to numerous ‘holes’ in the AQI data record (no data and/or insufficient data). Moreover, certain areas in Delhi yet have no monitoring station, or only too few, to yield ‘representative’ estimate (inadequate spatial coverage). Such shortcomings in the existing monitoring network may deter future research and targeted/informed decision-making for pollution control. To that end, the present research offers a summary view of low-cost air quality sensors (LCAQS) to offer the urban sustainability authorities a ‘complementary’ technique to bolster and diversify existing network. The final section reflects on the integration of science and technology with social dimensions of air quality monitoring and highlights key requirements for (a) community mobilization and (b) stakeholder engagement to forge a participatory systems’ design for LCAQS deployment.
The identification of the effects of the nature of urban development on land surface temperature (LST) and the strengths of different bio-physical and anthropogenic factors in explaining the spatial variation of LST at the neighbourhood scale in Dhaka city, Bangladesh, has been attempted by Md Anwar Hossain, Shahana Sultana and Md Rezwan Siddiqui. Landsat 5 TM and Landsat 8 OLI images were used to retrieve LST. The study found that the mean LST in Dhaka increased at a rate of 1.260C per decade between 1991 and 2014. LST is found to be higher in the built-up areas, particularly in informally developed areas (i.e., slum settlements) and unplanned mixed-use areas. The ordinary least square (OLS) analysis indicates that population density, building density and slum concentrations have a significant effect on the spatial variation of LST at neighbourhood scales. While the area covered by vegetation, water bodies and bare soil explains about 59% of the LST variations, the inclusion of population and building density and slum concentrations explained more than 73% of the variances. The study findings suggest a planned development with vegetation cover and water bodies can significantly reduce the LST in Dhaka.
Anil Kumar Roy, Ajith Kaliyath and Debjani Ghosh explored the existing urban planning curriculum of selected planning schools in India to understand the deepening of research, skill formation and the possible change in pedagogy due to growing concerns about climate change and disaster risk reduction (DRR) in urban areas. The study selected three planning schools from three pathways of planning education in India, namely, (a) School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi (b) Department of City and Regional Planning, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and (c) Faculty of Planning, CEPT University, Ahmedabad. This paper examines the urban planning course curriculum of these three schools using content analysis. The content analysis shows that all three schools have made some efforts to understand and internalize climate change and DRR concepts into their courses. A deepening of the content impacting the pedagogy is yet to be taken up by any of these schools. There is a growing interest in these topics among the institutions. It will be timely for leading agencies engaged in climate change and DRR to step in and enhance the institutions’ stake and resource base to make a visible impact in cities and towns in India.
Piyush Tiwari and Jyoti Shukla argues that low-income households living in low- and middle-income countries are most vulnerable to the effects of disasters. They further add that the current approaches to disaster management related to post-disaster reconstruction have not been able to reconstitute well-being of disaster affected persons in India. The paper attempts to propose a framework based on capability approach to understand the determinants of wellbeing. The paper argues that a capabilities-based approach that aligns with sustainable development goals could provide a framework to identify components of a post-disaster management plan to satisfactorily rebuild well-being of affected persons.
Sima Rani Dey, Tanzila Sultana and Mowshumi Sharmin investigate how CO2 emissions behave with the increase or decrease in urbanization and energy consumption with a panel of 137 countries from 1961–2019 employing pooled OLS estimator. The findings indicate the presence of asymmetry between urbanization, energy consumption and CO2 emission nexus. From a global perspective, the asymmetry of urbanization on CO2 emission is more prominent than energy consumption, although CO2 emission is more responsive towards energy consumption in symmetric cases. For low-income economies, unlike energy consumption, urbanization does not exhibit any significant impact on carbon emission. For lower-middle income economies, a decrease in urbanization has a greater impact on CO2 emission than an increase in urbanization, but carbon emission is more reactive towards energy consumption. Moreover, both urbanization and energy consumption posit a significant impact on carbon emission for upper-middle-income economies. The authors argue that environment-friendly urbanization and efficient energy consumption should be prioritized to offset the effect of negative externalities.
There are three articles in the section on ‘Perspectives’. In the first article, R.K. Jena argues that deep learning-based techniques have been successfully used to predict sentiment in different domains and would provide great insight into the nature of discourse regarding climate change topics in India. The paper has tried to classify and predict the sentiments of Indian people on different issues of climate change by answering to the following research questions: Do users express different opinions towards climate change topics on social media? How do the user demographics (e.g., gender, age) influence people’s opinions towards climate change? Can a robust model be built to predict Indian peoples’ sentiment towards different climate change topics? Data from various social media platforms have been used for this research. The study showed that people in India have demonstrated concern about topics related to climate change. The study also found that the convolutional neural network was the most effective algorithm for sentiment classification. The results from this research can help different stakeholders, including the government, prioritize actions to mitigate climate change’s causes and effects based on citizens’ perception.
Meenal Jain, Meenakshi Mital and Matt Syal argue that India is expected to have a high growth rate in energy demand over the coming years. They add that solar energy presents an attractive solution to growing energy challenges as it is abundant, inexhaustible and environment friendly. This paper comprehensively assesses various government initiatives for off-grid Solar Photovoltaic/Solar Water Heating systems for commercial establishments and brings forth the government’s perspective in implementation of these initiatives. It also highlighted the need for improvement and the lacunae in availing the incentives.
The growth of cities has been facilitated by a variety of factors. One of these is the land annexation by municipality with the assistance of elite individuals. In this regard, Sana Ghazal, Ahmad Abu Hammad and Kamal Abdulfattah attempt to investigate how the elite influenced Nablus—in the centre of Palestine—facilitated the Municipality’s expansion. The study scanned Nablus Municipality Archives, conducted interviews with the annexed villages’ people and used master plans to trace out the city’s expansion over time from 1960 to 2016 (Jordanian rule, Israeli occupation, and Palestinian Authority rule). The analysis found that elite groups proposed and oversaw Nablus Municipality’s expansion boundaries at various times, delayed master plan’s approval and influenced the distribution plots for Popular Housing projects.
The current issue is a collection of interdisciplinary contributions. The articles offer a balanced and accessible presentation of the crucial urban and environmental challenges as well as define the measures and approaches to be taken to tackle them. I hope the readers benefit from the articles in their quest to build a sustainable future.