Rejuvenation in rural Ireland in response to the COVID-19 induced urban-to-rural migration phenomenon

The aim of this paper is to discuss the paradigm shift in residential choices induced by the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. Firstly, the resilience of the rural regions belonging to the Northern Periphery and Arctic Program will be explored—the challenges brought about by COVID-19 within their tourism sectors, and the opportunities for rural revival generated by the current shifts in workplace mobility. The paper will then delve deeper into the case study of Ireland. The pre-existing issue of Ireland’s one-off housing and suburban sprawl will be explored, and the extent to which the regional plan “Our Rural Future” will tackle these issues by optimizing building density and dwelling typology in the post-COVID-19 era.

The Ventilation Efficiency of Urban Built Intensity and Ventilation Path Identification: A Case Study of Wuhan

Urban ventilation is being hampered by rough surfaces in dense urban areas, and the microclimate and air quality of the urban built environment are not ideal. Identifying urban ventilation paths is helpful to save energy, reduce emissions, and improve the urban ecological environment. Wuhan is the capital city of Hubei, and it has a high urban built intensity and hot summers. Taking Wuhan city, with a size of 35 km ×50 km, as an example, the built environment was divided into grids of 100 m × 100 m and included the building density, floor area ratio, and average building height. The ventilation mechanism of the urban built intensity index has previously been explained. The decrease in building density is not the sole factor causing an increase in wind speed; the enclosure and width of the ventilation path and the height of the front building are also influential. Twelve urban built units were selected for CFD numerical simulation. The ventilation efficiency of each grid was evaluated by calculating the wind speed ratio, maximum wind speed, average wind speed, and area ratio of strong wind. The relationship between the urban built intensity index and ventilation efficiency index was established using the factor analysis method and the Pearson correlation coefficient; building density and average building height are the most critical indexes of ventilation potential. In addition, the layout of the building also has an important impact on ventilation. A suitable built environment is that in which the building density is less than 30%, the average building height is greater than 15 m, and the floor area ratio is greater than 1.5. The urban built intensity map was weighted to identify urban ventilation paths. The paper provides a quantitative reference for scientific planning and design of the urban spatial form to improve ventilation.

Optimization Strategy of Traditional Block Form Based on Field Investigation—A Case Study of Xi’an Baxian’an, China

Rapid urbanization has caused environmental problems such as the urban heat island and air pollution, which are unfavorable to residents. Urban traditional blocks are facing the dual challenges of restoration and protection. This paper proposes adaptive transformation strategies for improving the microclimate of traditional areas. We selected Baxian’an Block in Xi’an city, simulated the air temperature and wind speed during summer and winter using ENVI-met, and studied the correlationship between morphological parameters (average building height, building density, enclosure degree, height fall, aspect ratio, and sky view factor) and air temperature and wind speed ratio. The case study revealed that the wind speed ratio of Baxian’an is relatively different in summer, reaching a maximum of 0.61, meaning that the ventilation capacity is significantly affected by the architectural form of the block. Finally, suggestions for the optimal design of the block’s form are provided: the building density should be less than 50%, the average building height should be more than 50 m, the enclosure degree should be less than 0.2, the height fall should be more than 41.7 m, and the sky view factor should be less than 0.5. This study can provide data and support for improving the planning and design standards of traditional residential areas.

Impact of Urbanization to an Island and the Continent: Species Turnover and Nestedness in Neotropical Bird Assemblages

Islands are well-known as particular and vulnerable ecosystems with evolutionary histories, environmental characteristics, and original communities different from those of continents. On the contrary, urban environments are recent, artificial, and structurally similar among distant regions. To assess the relative importance of regional and local processes on urban biota, we chose two urban environments, i.e., one on the mainland and another on an island in the same ecoregion. We asked whether the urbanization process affects the avian biodiversity of the ISLAND in the same way as in the continent. We defined an urban gradient with three levels of building density, namely, patches of native vegetation (remnant woodlands in the urban matrix), medium density urbanized areas that maintain vegetation along the streets and gardens, and residential areas with less vegetation cover and higher building density. In each geographical locality, we selected three sites (replicates) for each level of the urban gradient and did bird surveys. We found two times as many species in the urban landscape of the continent (69) as on the island (35), with the analogous richness decrease along the gradient in both regions. Species similarity was higher between urbanized sites of both regions compared with the similarity between woodlands and urbanized sites, showing that urban matrix filters similar species of each pool regionally. Individual species responded to urban structure in different ways. We found 32% of bird species were urban exploiters, 48% urban tolerant, and 20% urban avoiders in both regions. However, some species showed different frequencies of occurrence on the island and the continent. Species turnover contributed more than richness differences to species dissimilarity along the urban gradient on the continent. Contrarily, the nestedness component (i.e., species being a strict subset of the species at a richer site) was higher on the island. We concluded that the negative impact of highly urbanized areas on birds was stronger on the island than on the continent. Our results may help to assess the implications of beta-diversity loss, especially on islands.

Polynuclearity as a Spatial Measure of Urban Sprawl: Testing the Percentiles Approach

Polynuclearity and polycentricity are spatial phenomena which overlap each other in the context of urban sprawl, and this sometimes hinders the possibility of clearly distinguishing the two. Hence, the basic goal of the article is to indicate the differences between polycentricity and polynuclearity as well as their conceptualization and operationalization as urban sprawl features. The article indicates that the main differences between polycentricity and polynuclearity boil down to functional connections. However, empirical exemplification was made in relation to the agglomeration of Cracow, Poland using an urban morphology approach based on 1 km2 square grids. Among the conclusions, it can be found that the identification of the central core is an important stage of research. If at least two cores appear then polynuclearity is identified and then polycentricity can be further identified. Testing of four mathematical approaches to identifying the central core showed that the most accurate results are given by the 95th percentile, i.e., the grids within the 95th percentile of building density qualify for the central core. It is also necessary to remove grids with extremely high building density from the analyses.

Urban correction of global DEMs using building density for Nairobi, Kenya

Urban flood models that use Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) to simulate extent and depth of flood inundation rely on the accuracy of DEMs for predicting flood events. Despite recent advances in developing vegetation corrected DEMs, the effect of building height and density errors in global DEMs in urban areas are still poorly understood, and their correction remains a challenge. In this research we developed a methodology for building error correction that can be applied to any other case study, where building density data and a local reference DEM data are available. This methodology was applied to Nairobi, Kenya using six global DEMs (SRTM, MERIT, ALOS, NASADEM, TanDEM-X 12 m, and TanDEM-X 90 m DEM). Our results show building error at highest building density varying between 1.25 m and 5.07 m for the DEMs used, with the MERIT DEM showing the smallest vertical height error from the reference DEM. The six DEMs were corrected by deriving a linear relationship between building density and DEM error. Our findings show that the removal of building density error resulted in the improvement of the vertical height accuracy of the global DEMs of up to 45% for MERIT and 40% for ALOS. This methodology was also applied to the Central Business District (CBD) area of Nairobi, characterized by taller buildings and high building density. The error parameters in the CBD area resulted to be between 15 to 45% higher than those of the Nairobi city wide area for the six global DEMs, thus providing further insights into the contribution of building heights to errors in global DEMs. Building height data is still unavailable on a global scale and our results show that global DEMs can be usefully corrected for building density errors in urban areas, even where specific building height data are not available.

Complexity of relationship between 2D/3D urban morphology and land surface temperature: A multi-scale perspective

Urban morphology is a crucial contributor to urban heat island (UHI) effects. However, few studies have explored the complex effect of 2D/3D urban morphology on UHI from a multi-scale perspective. In this study, We chose the central area of Jinan city, which was commonly known as the “furnace”, as the case study area. novel 2D/3D urban morphology indexes-building coverage ratio (BCR)(for assessing the 2D building density), building volume density (BVD)( for assessing the 3D building density), and the frontal area index (FAI)(for assessing 3D ventilation conditions) were calculated and derived to investigated complexity of relationship between 2D/3D urban morphology and land surface temperature(LST) at different scales using the maximum information coefficient (MIC) and geographically weighted regression (GWR). The results indicated that (1) These newly 2D/3D urban morphology indexes as essential factors that are responsible for LST variation, BCR is the most important urban morphology index affecting the LST, followed by BVD and FAI. Importantly, the relationship between the BCR, BVD, and FAI and the LST was an inverse U-shaped curve. (2) The relationship between 2D/3D urban morphology and LST variation showed a significant scale effect. With increased grid size, the correlation between the BCR, BVD, and FAI and the LST strengthened, “inflection point” of inverse U-shaped curve was significantly declined, and their explanation rate to LST first increased and then decreased, with a maximum value at the 700-m scale. Additionally, the FAI exerted a stronger negative effect, while the BCR and BVD generally had stronger positive effects on LST as the grid size increasing. This study extends our scientific understanding of the complexity effect of urban morphology on LST and is of great practical significance for urban thermal environment regulation at multi-scale.