scholarly journals EXPLORING THE POTENTIALS OF SMALL URBAN STREAMS IN CREATING BLUE-GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE CITY OF NIŠ, SERBIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Milena Dinić Branković ◽  
Milica Igić ◽  
Petar Mitković ◽  
Jelena Đekić ◽  
Ivana Bogdanović Protić
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Area ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Stormwater Management ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Urban Streams ◽  
The City

“Blue-Green Infrastructure” (BGI) is a simple and cost-effective natural resource that enhances theappeal, resilience and sustainability of urban areas. Small urban streams are an important BGIcomponent that is often underused, especially regarding stormwater management. The aim of thisresearch is to explore small urban streams and their integration into BGI in the urban area of Niš,and to point out the benefits that their restoration would bring in functional, social and environmentalterms. Results of this study show that Niš urban area has significant “Blue” natural capital in smallstreams, and that standing planning documents support the creation of BGI to some extent. Theseare good grounds for the implementation of BGI in urban planning practice.

scholarly journals Revitalizing small urban streams as an instrument of urban planning in creating resilient cities

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-205
Author(s):  
Milena Dinic-Brankovic ◽  
Milica Markovic
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Urban Streams ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Small Streams

Small urban streams are an important element of blue-green infrastructure that is often underused, especially regarding storm water management. In addition, small streams in dense urban areas often seem to be polluted and devastated, or even buried underground. This paper discusses the problems and challenges that occur in urban areas regarding small streams and creeks, and explores how their revitalization can help in shaping more resilient communities. The study explores two cities, Graz and Oslo, and their best practice examples in revitalizing urban watercourses. As a valuable natural ?blue? capital, small streams can reduce the city?s risk of flooding from intense rainfall and strengthen the ecosystem. At the same time, small urban streams are cost effective, proactive and attractive elements of urban landscape. Research identifies the benefits that the process of revitalization of small urban streams brought about to the selected case studies regarding the environment, public health, social interactions, land use and adaptation to climate change. Furthermore, the research establishes urban planning guidelines for revitalization of watercourses that could help in setting up policy framework for adapting inherited urban settings to climate change.

scholarly journals ARCHITECTURAL URBAN PLANNING AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC PREREQUISITES FOR THE FORMATION OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-40
Author(s):  
O. S. Savytska ◽  
◽  
T. S. Rumilec ◽  
V. V. Kurian ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Spatial Arrangement ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Water Runoff ◽  
The World ◽  
City Structure ◽  
The City

In the article the relevance of this research is due to overcoming the complex of social, environmental and economic problems in urban planning related to environmental improvement, improvement, greening of cities and settlements. Being one of the main elements of urban planning, "green spaces" form a favorable ecological environment. They also help to combat the effect of "thermal islands" by participating in the process of evaporation of moisture; reduce storm water runoff; improve air quality by absorbing atmospheric pollution. Improvement of cities is one of the priority tasks of forming a comfortable urban environment. It includes: improvement of the ecological situation in cities (related to the improvement of the landscaping system, which means scientifically grounded spatial arrangement of all components of urban landscaping according to urban areas) soil, climatic and other factors in order to achieve optimal ecological, sanitary and sanitary and sanitary effects. In the foreign practice of urban planning use the concept of "green infrastructure" ("Green infrastructure") or blue-green infrastructure ("Blue - green infrastructure"), which focuses on the environmental importance of the territory. Which considers the whole spectrum of landscape changes and serves as a basis for the formation and development of a favorable state in cities. The main reason for the interest in green infrastructure in the world is the desire to make the city a more conducive place to live, as well as to climate change. Reducing the negative impact on the environment is the key to the socio-economic development of the country. The purpose of this work is to develop recommendations for the design of green infrastructure. Analysis of existing experience in designing and implementing green infrastructure in an urbanized environment, identifying trends in the further development of their architectural and urban planning structure. The object of the study is the green infrastructure of major cities in the world, including its architectural and urban planning and spatial solutions in the city structure. The article presents typical landscaping schemes and their classification, as well as methods of using green spaces to improve the environmental, social and aesthetic status of cities.

Lightweight aggregates to reduce heavy metal pollution in green infrastructure for urban stormwater management

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Concepcion Pla ◽  
Javier Valdes-Abellan ◽  
Miguel Angel Pardo ◽  
Maria Jose Moya-Llamas ◽  
David Benavente
Keyword(s):  
Heavy Metals ◽  
Heavy Metal ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Metal Pollution ◽  
Heavy Metal Pollution ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Stormwater Management ◽  
Lightweight Aggregates ◽  
Urban Stormwater ◽  
Runoff Water

<p>The impervious nature of urban areas is mostly responsible for urban flooding, runoff water pollution and the interception of groundwater recharge. Green infrastructure and sustainable urban drainage systems combine natural and artificial measures to mitigate the abovementioned problems, improving stormwater management and simultaneously increasing the environmental values of urban areas. The actual rate of urban growth in many urban areas requires the enhancement and optimization of stormwater management infrastructures to integrate the territorial development with the natural processes. Regarding the quality of runoff stormwater, heavy metals are critical for their impact on human health and ecological systems, even more if we consider the cumulative effect that they produce on biota. Thus, innovative stormwater management approaches must consider new solutions to deal with heavy metal pollution problems caused by runoff. In this study, we propose the employment of Arlita<sup>®</sup> and Filtralite<sup>®</sup>, two kind of lightweight aggregates obtained from expanded clays, to remove heavy metal concentration from runoff stormwater. Laboratory experiments were developed to evaluate the removal rate of different heavy metals existent in runoff stormwater. The lightweight aggregates acted as filter materials in column experiments to quantify their removal capacity. In addition, batch tests were also developed to evaluate the exhaustive capacity of the materials. Results from the study confirmed the efficiency of the selected lightweight aggregates to reduce the heavy metals concentration by up to 90% in urban stormwater runoff.</p>

scholarly journals Sustainable Site System

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorden J. S. Lefler
Keyword(s):  
Urban Area ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Heat Island ◽  
Rating Systems ◽  
Island Effect ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Site Design ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

This thesis discusses a method of analysing the input of interventions in a building's site design, all of which affect the heat island effect, bio-diversity and hydrology of urban areas. Existing standards from Toronto, Vancouver and Berlin have been researched and analysed. This paper presents an evolution of a method called biotope area factor used in Berlin, Germany. A synthesis of the approach of all three systems was considered and distilled into the key points which were then incorporated into the proposed method. In addition to the impact of an individual building, it also includes the impact from the adjacent street area. The final components of this thesis are the application of the method developed to an urban area in the city of Toronto and results showing the impacts on architectural design from site rating systems.

scholarly journals An automated classification system for urban areas matching the ‘city country fingers’ pattern: the cases of Kamakura (Japan) and Acireale (Italy) cities

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Spina ◽  
Emiliano Tramontana
Keyword(s):  
Urban Area ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Classification Model ◽  
Complete Analysis ◽  
City Development ◽  
Essential Condition ◽  
Green Areas ◽  
The City

Abstract The uncontrolled expansion of urban areas is one of the main factors that reduce the liveability of cities. In recent years, to contrast urban sprawl, several nations have promoted policies aimed at developing urban green spaces. The importance of green oases within cities had already been highlighted, in 1977, by the architect Christopher Alexander who had developed a series of patterns including ‘City Country Fingers’ claiming that city development should consider the prolongation of country land in to the urban area. In several cities, especially in Japan, it is possible to recognize the imprint of urban development based on country fingers. This term refers to extensive urban intersections of agricultural land or wooded hills which, from the peripheral areas, penetrate the city. Inside them, there are urban windows, called city fingers, whose development direction is opposite to those of the country fingers. To recognize and analyze, in an automated way, these particular structures, a Python-based application was created. Starting from the original high-resolution image of Google Earth, a complete analysis was performed, labeling and delimiting urban and vegetational areas and extrapolating the main geometric parameters of the country and city fingers. The finalization of the results obtained was carried out through a classification model whose criteria were based on Alexander’s pattern. Thanks to this classification scheme, the distinction between Active Green Areas (country fingers) and Passive Green Areas (gardens and public parks) have been revealed for the analyzed cities. The tests performed showed almost ideal conditions for the city of Kamakura and a limited match for the urban area of Acireale. The proposed method is suitable for fields of application that require a qualitative and quantitative determination of the vegetation cover present within the city, an essential condition for correct territorial planning.

Introducing environmental-justice analysis into urban planning practices in the city of Bottrop, Germany

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (0) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Kristina Ohlmeyer ◽  
Mathias Schaefer ◽  
Madeleine Kirstein ◽  
Dietwald Gruehn ◽  
Stefan Greiving
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
Weather Extremes ◽  
Urban Green ◽  
The City ◽  
Environmental Burdens

An analysis of the provision and accessibility of urban green infrastructure was carried out and combined with the spatial exposure of social-welfare recipients to noise, air pollution and weather extremes in the city of Bottrop, Germany. We found out that social-welfare recipients tend to live in areas where the exposure to multiple environmental burdens is higher compared to other statistical districts in the city. Ultimately, there is a real impact of our conceived indicators, since they were integrated into an obligatory ‘sustainability check’, which was adopted by the city assembly of Bottrop in June 2020.

Simulation of the Cooking Organic Aerosol Concentration Variability in an Urban Area

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evangelia Siouti ◽  
Ksakousti Skyllakou ◽  
Ioannis Kioutsioukis ◽  
Giancarlo Ciarelli ◽  
Spyros N. Pandis
Keyword(s):  
Urban Area ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Temporal Distribution ◽  
Late Summer ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Organic Aerosol ◽  
Basis Set ◽  
Cooking Times ◽  
The City ◽  
Lunch Time

<p>Cooking operations can be an important fine PM source for urban areas. Cooking emissions are a source of pollution that has been often ignored and are not included or are seriously underestimated in urban emission inventories. However, several field studies in cities all over Europe suggest that cooking organic aerosol (COA) can be an important component of the total organic PM. In this study we propose and evaluate a methodology for the simulation of the COA concentration and its variability in space and time in an urban area. The city of Patras, the third biggest in Greece is used for this first application for a typical late summer period. The spatial distribution of COA emissions is based on the exact location of restaurants and grills, while the emissions on the meat consumption in Greece. We estimated COA emissions of 150 kg d<sup>-1</sup> that corresponds to 0.6 g d<sup>-1</sup> per person. The temporal distribution of COA was based on the known cooking times and the results of the past field studies in the area. Half of the daily COA is emitted during dinner time (21:00-0:00 LT), while approximately 25% during lunch time (13:00-16:00 LT). The COA is simulated using the Volatility Basis Set with a volatility distribution measured in the laboratory and is treated as semivolatile and reactive. The maximum average COA concentration during the simulation period is predicted to be 1.3 μg m<sup>-3</sup> in a mainly pedestrian area with a high density of restaurants. Peak hourly COA concentrations in this area exceed 10 μg m<sup>-3</sup> during several nights. The local production of secondary COA is predicted to be slow and it represents just a few percent of the total COA.</p><p> </p>

scholarly journals Smart City Governance and Children’s Agency: An Assessment of the Green Infrastructure Impact on Children’s Activities in Cagliari (Italy) with the Tool “Opportunities for Children in Urban Spaces (OCUS)”

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (18) ◽  
pp. 4848 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Garau ◽  
Alfonso Annunziata
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Synthetic Index ◽  
Macro Scale ◽  
Scale Properties

The increases in urbanization, pollution, resource depletion, and climate change underline the need for urban planning policies that incorporate blue–green infrastructure (BGI) and ecosystem services. This paper proposes a framework for assessing BGI’s effect on children’s outdoor activities. This effect, called meaningful usefulness, is a central issue due to the influence of experiences with nature on children’s development and the global trend of concentration of children in urban areas. Based on the concept of affordance, the methodology formalizes meaningful usefulness in terms of an index of usefulness of individual settings (IUIS) and a synthetic index of usefulness of BGI in a specific area (ISGI). These are determined via an audit protocol, Opportunities for Children in Urban Spaces (OCUS), which incorporates a set of indicators measuring micro-scale properties of individual places and contextual macro-scale factors. The methodology is applied to BGI components in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy, which was selected for its superior density of urban green spaces. The application of the OCUS tool confirms its usefulness for investigating functional affordances incorporated into the trans-scalar structures of BGIs. The analytic protocol further contributes to the implementation of urban planning strategies within the smart city paradigm.

scholarly journals LiDAR based urban vegetation mapping as a basis of green infrastructure planning

2020 ◽  
Vol 171 ◽  
pp. 02008
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Pyszny ◽  
Mariusz Sojka ◽  
Rafał Wróżyński
Keyword(s):  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Laser Scanning ◽  
Noise Pollution ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Data Mapping ◽  
Vegetation Density ◽  
Island Effect ◽  
Detailed Assessment ◽  
The City

Planning green infrastructure in the cities is a challenging task for planners and city managers. Developing multifunctional green space systems provide many benefits including: increasing water retention, mitigating urban heat island effect, microclimate regulation, reducing air, water and noise pollution and conservation biodiversity. The greenery in the city also have an impact on human health. The paper presents the possibilities of using LiDAR data mapping vegetation density in urban areas on the example of Gorzów Wielkopolski (Poland). Maps made as a result of processing the point clouds obtained from airborne laser scanning represents the most accurate, comprehensive and detailed assessment of Gorzów Wielkopolski vegetation cover to date and establishes the baseline for greenery governance and planning of green infrastructure in the city.

scholarly journals Multivariate Analysis for Assessing Sources, and Potential Risks of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Lisbon Urban Soils

Minerals ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anabela Cachada ◽  
Ana Dias ◽  
Amélia Reis ◽  
Eduardo Ferreira da Silva ◽  
Ruth Pereira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Aromatic Hydrocarbons ◽  
Urban Soils ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
City Center ◽  
Polycyclic Aromatic ◽  
Potential Risks ◽  
The City

Urban soils quality may be severely affected by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) contamination, as is the case of Lisbon (Portugal). However, to conduct a risk assessment analysis in an urban area can be a very difficult task due to the patchy nature and heterogeneity of these soils. Thus, the present study aims to provide an example on how to perform the first tier of a risk assessment plan in the case of urban soils using a simpler, cost effective, and reliable framework. Thus, a study was conducted in Lisbon to assess the levels of PAH, their potential risks to the environment and human health, and to identify their major sources. Source apportionment was performed by studying PAHs profiles, their relationship with potentially toxic elements, and general characteristics of soil using multivariate statistical methods. Results showed that geostatistical tools are useful for evaluating the spatial distribution and major inputs of PAHs in urban soils, as well as to identify areas of potential concern, showing their usefulness in risk assessment analysis and urban planning. Particularly, the prediction maps obtained allowed for a clear identification of areas with the highest levels of PAHs (close to the airport and in the city center). The high concentrations found in soils from the city center should be a result of long-term accumulation due to diffuse pollution mostly from traffic (through atmospheric emissions, tire debris and fuel exhaust, as well as pavement debris). Indeed, most of the sites sampled in the city center were historical gardens and parks. The calculation of potential risks based on different models showed that there is a high discrepancy among guidelines, and that risks will be extremely associated with the endpoint or parameters used in the different models. Nevertheless, this initial approach based on total levels was useful for identifying areas where a more detailed risk assessment is needed (close to the airport and in the city center). Therefore, the use of prediction maps can be very useful for urban planning, for example, by crossing information obtained with land uses, it is possible to define the most problematic areas (e.g., playgrounds and schools).

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