- Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
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Environmental health inequalities in cities of the Global South are hardly studied up to now, though they are expected to increase due to rapid urbanization and motorization taking place in many of these cities. In this study,... more
Environmental health inequalities in cities of the Global South are hardly studied up to now, though they are expected to increase due to rapid urbanization and motorization taking place in many of these cities. In this study, environmental inequalities in the city of Kathmandu, Nepal for the years 2013 and 2021 are analyzed. The goal of the study is to determine the degree of environmental inequalities and their changes over time. The study examines horizontal and vertical inequalities in access to drinking water sources, air and noise pollution exposure, and health effects based on self-reported household data. Results show statistically significant environmental inequalities between neighborhoods in Kathmandu regarding access to basic water infrastructure, air and noise pollution exposure, and resulting health effects. Inequalities between socio-economic groups are not significant. Over time, the perceived exposure to air pollution has increased, mainly due to increased motorized...
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The interlinked nature of today’s societal challenges asks for integrative approaches. The energy transition is an especially impactful challenge and presents a compelling opportunity to pursue integration, as it requires changes to... more
The interlinked nature of today’s societal challenges asks for integrative approaches. The energy transition is an especially impactful challenge and presents a compelling opportunity to pursue integration, as it requires changes to space, landscape, infrastructure and organizations at different scales. While the added value of integrative approaches that address the energy transition alongside other societal challenges is widely acknowledged, it is not the status quo. The aim of this study is to uncover the institutional barriers to integration and suggest possibilities for redesign. The paper sheds light on a hitherto relatively understudied phase of integration, namely implementation. Two illustrative cases for energy transition integration are discussed; (i) sustainable residential heating combined with climate adaptation in the urban context, and (ii) biogas production from livestock manure for rural residential heating and nitrogen reduction in the Netherlands. Inspired by the...
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The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Agenda, in particular, Goal 11.3.2 and 11.6.7 urged the necessity to implement good public participation practices that ensure equal opportunities for all groups of stakeholders to engage in the... more
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Agenda, in particular, Goal 11.3.2 and 11.6.7 urged the necessity to implement good public participation practices that ensure equal opportunities for all groups of stakeholders to engage in the development processes. In Indonesia, after the establishment of Village Law in 2014, an annual participatory planning practice called Musrenbang is implemented to produce the village development plans through public meetings. As an obligatory process, Musrenbang is often poorly implemented due to problems such as power relations and disagreement among stakeholders. Enabling the stakeholders to find common understanding through knowledge integration is crucial to minimize these issues. Aside from the participatory planning process through Musrenbang, the law also requires each village to have a village map that showing the boundaries, facilities and infrastructure, and landuse/land cover of the village. However, most villages do not have these maps because the map-making process is considered expensive and requires particular skills or expertise. Therefore, we developed a collaborative spatial learning methodology to enable the village stakeholders to participate in the mapping process. Through the implementation of the participatory mapping approach we supported not only the production of the village maps, but investigated how the participatory mapping activities contribute to integrate stakeholders’ spatial knowledge; helping them to minimize the power gaps and to find common understanding through the social learning experiences. Ultimately, it is expected that the developed methodology would improve the Musrenbang implementation at the village level.
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Cities are complex systems that comprise of various interacting sub-systems [2]. To be able to take appropriate policies and strategies to attain a desired future it is required to understand the behaviour of the city in question and... more
Cities are complex systems that comprise of various interacting sub-systems [2]. To be able to take appropriate policies and strategies to attain a desired future it is required to understand the behaviour of the city in question and foresee the changes that are likely to occur. Given the complexity of cities their behaviour is highly unpredictable. Hence it is required to develop tools that can be used to study the impacts of the strategies taken up today on the emerging structure of the city in question. The human’s zeal and the requirements laid by various organizations and institutes have resulted in development of various modelling tools through time to represent spatial behaviour of cities. Ahmedabad city, India, is in the developing stage and is experiencing unseeingly high growth rates demographically, economically and spatially. To set up a model relevant to represent this behaviour the city’s land use is modelled from the year 1983 to 2001 using SL-METRONAMICA. The simulat...
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Several cities in the Netherlands have developed ambitious local climate change mitigation plans to become carbon neutral in the future, including measures for significantly increasing the amount of locally produced renewable energy. The... more
Several cities in the Netherlands have developed ambitious local climate change mitigation plans to become carbon neutral in the future, including measures for significantly increasing the amount of locally produced renewable energy. The paper describes the GIS-based interactive tool COLLAGE that allows stakeholders to negotiate together where to locate a pre-determined demand of renewable energy within their municipality. The COLLAGE tool is implemented for stakeholder workshops of Dalfsen municipality, Netherlands. The interactive mapping sessions were perceived useful for better understanding the scope of envisioned development of renewable energies.
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Outdoor walking has positive impacts on older adults’ health. It is crucial to identify less active older adults and to encourage them to take outdoor walks. Previous studies have shown that physical activity levels vary according to... more
Outdoor walking has positive impacts on older adults’ health. It is crucial to identify less active older adults and to encourage them to take outdoor walks. Previous studies have shown that physical activity levels vary according to socioeconomic deprivation. However, knowledge on objectively measured older adults’ outdoor walking levels is limited. This study investigated associations between area (socioeconomic) deprivation and older adults’ objectively (geographic positioning system [GPS]) measured outdoor walking levels (i.e., walking durations and frequencies) in Birmingham, United Kingdom. It used a multilevel approach. The final sample included 173 participants (65 years and above). A questionnaire was used to collect data on personal characteristics (e.g., educational attainment as a proxy of individual deprivation, age, and marital status). The results show that independent of personal characteristics, area deprivation associates with outdoor walking durations. Participant...
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Low-income residents are among the most vulnerable groups to climate change in urban areas, particularly regarding heat stress. However, their perceptions about heat and the impacts they face go often undocumented, and are seldom... more
Low-income residents are among the most vulnerable groups to climate change in urban areas, particularly regarding heat stress. However, their perceptions about heat and the impacts they face go often undocumented, and are seldom considered in decision-making processes delivering adaptation. This paper presents a robust tool to allow the integration of perception, concerns and impacts of different income groups in urban adaptation planning and governance, using the City of New York as a case study. Employing online interviews—a solid method to reach poorer households—and Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping, we compare impacts and adaptation perception to heat and simulate adaptation scenarios. Results reveal that lower income groups are more concerned about impacts of heat waves than middle- and high-income populations. All income groups see citizens more in charge of adaptation, although more people from the lower income groups regard it necessary to do much more to protect themselves, proport...
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Older residents of high-deprivation areas walk less than those of low-deprivation areas. Previous research has shown that neighborhood built environment may support and encourage outdoor walking. The extent to which the built environment... more
Older residents of high-deprivation areas walk less than those of low-deprivation areas. Previous research has shown that neighborhood built environment may support and encourage outdoor walking. The extent to which the built environment supports and encourages walking is called "walkability". This study examines inequalities in neighborhood walkability in high- versus low-deprivation areas and their possible influences on disparities in older adults' outdoor walking levels. For this purpose, it focuses on specific neighborhood built environment attributes (residential density, land-use mix and intensity, street connectivity, and retail density) relevant to neighborhood walkability. It applied a mixed-method approach, included 173 participants (≥65 years), and used a Geographic Information System (GIS) and walking interviews (with a sub-sample) to objectively and subjectively measure neighborhood built environment attributes. Outdoor walking levels were measured by usi...
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Differential exposure to multiple environmental burdens and benefits and their distribution across a population with varying vulnerability can contribute heavily to health inequalities. Particularly relevant are areas with high cumulative... more
Differential exposure to multiple environmental burdens and benefits and their distribution across a population with varying vulnerability can contribute heavily to health inequalities. Particularly relevant are areas with high cumulative burdens and high social vulnerability termed as "hotspots". This paper develops an index-based approach to assess these multiple burdens and benefits in combination with vulnerability factors at detailed intra-urban level. The method is applied to the city of Dortmund, Germany. Using non-spatial and spatial methods we assessed inequalities and identified "hotspot" areas in the city. We found modest inequalities burdening higher vulnerable groups in Dortmund (CI = -0.020 at p < 0.05). At the detailed intra-urban level, however, inequalities showed strong geographical patterns. Large numbers of…
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ABSTRACT
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ABSTRACT -After accessing and contacting local authorities we reviewed approved and/or published urban climate change mitigation and adaptation plans from 200 cities in 11 European countries, and statistically analysed the plans’ regional... more
ABSTRACT -After accessing and contacting local authorities we reviewed approved and/or published urban climate change mitigation and adaptation plans from 200 cities in 11 European countries, and statistically analysed the plans’ regional distribution across countries and cities’ commitment in international climate networks. -Climate change response of European cities, i.e. the number of officially approved urban adaptation and mitigation plans or those in process of development, is uneven across the 200 cities and 11 countries investigated. -Based on a representative sample of cities in terms of city size and regional, as well as population covered in each country, the analysis yields a strong North-South divide. -About two-third of cities investigated have a mitigation plan; only about one third has an adaptation plan. -International climate networks seem conducive; the Covenant of Mayors Initiative of the European Commission is the most successful, particularly with respect to mitigation. -There are no climate networks on the international level, such as the Covenant of Mayors, dedicated to adaptation of climate change, which is highly needed.
In less developed countries, the recent high rates of urban expansion are often associated with the emergence of informal settlements that may exaggerate social and environmental problems and impede sustainable development. An enhanced... more
In less developed countries, the recent high rates of urban expansion are often associated with the emergence of informal settlements that may exaggerate social and environmental problems and impede sustainable development. An enhanced understanding of informal ...
Research Interests: Management, Geography, Decision Making, Modeling, Logistic Regression, and 15 moreEmergence, Middle East, Growth, Less developed countries, Models, Geomatic Engineering, Informal Settlement, Informing Science, Logistic Regression Model, Expansion, Environment, Geographic Information Systems, GIS, Driving force, and Environmental Problem
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Research Interests: Geography, Climate Change, Climatic Changes, Ecology, Climate, and 15 moreEnvironmental Planning, Medicine, Multidisciplinary, Climate Change Impacts, Biological Sciences, Cities, Humans, Climate Change Mitigation, Europe, PLoS one, GDP, Risk Factors, Adaptive capacity, Climate Planning, and Climate Change Responses
Although planning support systems (PSS) are meant to facilitate the implementation of innovative social or technological urban solutions, usability studies show a bottleneck in the adoption of these IT systems. One explanation is that IT... more
Although planning support systems (PSS) are meant to facilitate the implementation of innovative social or technological urban solutions, usability studies show a bottleneck in the adoption of these IT systems. One explanation is that IT developers are too far removed from the planning environment. Therefore, they lack important contextual knowledge concerning the diverse interests that steer the interactions of growing numbers of stakeholders in their response to economic and environmental uncertainty. Consequently, practitioners perceive PSS designs to be too technical and not sufficiently responsive to their needs for adaptability and process integration. This paper aims to better inform PSS design through a method that explores conditions of high complexity and uncertainty in industrial revitalization projects. By applying the three main principles of complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory – agents, their interactions and the environment within which they interact – we identify t...
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While the majority of assessments of future heat-related health risk are based on projections of heat hazards superimposed on current socioeconomic conditions only, the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) appear to have the potential to... more
While the majority of assessments of future heat-related health risk are based on projections of heat hazards superimposed on current socioeconomic conditions only, the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) appear to have the potential to enhance the integration of future socioeconomic conditions in assessments of future heat-related health risk. That is, to account for the influence that changes in socioeconomic vulnerability and exposure have on future heat-related health challenges. In this presentation, we report the findings of two studies in which we combined extended SSPs with RCPs to provide spatially explicit projections of heat-related health risk and mortality that account for multiple changes in both socioeconomic and climatic conditions. In this study, we paid a particular attention to the quantification of the diversity of drivers of vulnerability – such as pre-existing medical conditions, social isolation, age, education, income, and land use – under different SSPs. Th...
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Nowadays the biggest part of urbanization is taking place in cities of the global south, where urban development often occurs as informal settlements. Thus, it is crucial to envision possible urban futures for these highly dynamic urban... more
Nowadays the biggest part of urbanization is taking place in cities of the global south, where urban development often occurs as informal settlements. Thus, it is crucial to envision possible urban futures for these highly dynamic urban areas. Urban upgrading is discussed and already implemented in order to improve livelihood conditions in these areas. However, urban upgrading might lead to unexpected effects such as increased segregation. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the effects of improved infrastructure provision onto residential mobility and resulting spatial patterns of population distribution. For a better understanding of the on-going urbanization processes and for informing local policy makers, suitable modelling tools that make use of up to date spatial information are needed. In the paper, a spatially explicit agent-based model (ABM) for simulating the development of informal settlements will be presented. The ABM is being developed for the context of Sub-Sahar...
Reckien, D., Flacke, J., De Gregorio Hurtado, S., Salvia, M., Heidrich, O., Dawson, R. J., ... Pietrapertosa, F. (2014). Section III-I Urban climate change response and the impact of climate networks in Europe. In R. Dawson, A. Wyckmans,... more
Reckien, D., Flacke, J., De Gregorio Hurtado, S., Salvia, M., Heidrich, O., Dawson, R. J., ... Pietrapertosa, F. (2014). Section III-I Urban climate change response and the impact of climate networks in Europe. In R. Dawson, A. Wyckmans, O. Heidrich, J. Kohler, S. Dobson, & E. Feliu (Eds.), Understanding Cities: Advances in integrated assessment of urban sustainability . (pp. 45-52). Centre for Earth Systems Engineering Research (CESER), Newcastle University.
In Indonesia, an annual participatory planning practice called Musrenbang is implemented to produce village development plans through public meetings. Being an obligatory process, Musrenbang is often poorly implemented due to problems... more
In Indonesia, an annual participatory planning practice called Musrenbang is implemented to produce village development plans through public meetings. Being an obligatory process, Musrenbang is often poorly implemented due to problems such as power relations and disagreement among stakeholders. Enabling the stakeholders to find common understanding through knowledge integration is crucial to minimize these issues. As most villages do not have proper maps, we developed a collaborative spatial learning methodology to enable the village stakeholders to participate in the mapping process. Through the mapping exercise it is expected that we can support production of the village maps, and contribute to integrate stakeholders’ spatial knowledge; helping them to minimize the power gaps and to find common understanding through social learning experiences. Ultimately, it is expected that the developed methodology will improve the Musrenbang implementation at village level.
Very hot and humid weather often leads to numerous health issues, ranging from heat cramps to death. Due to changing climatic conditions and to demographic growth, the number of people exposed to very hot and humid days is increasing... more
Very hot and humid weather often leads to numerous health issues, ranging from heat cramps to death. Due to changing climatic conditions and to demographic growth, the number of people exposed to very hot and humid days is increasing worldwide. This is particularly the case across the African continent, where population growth is rapidly increasing and very hot and humid days are becoming more and more frequent, particularly in tropical areas. In this study, we consider more than 150 large African cities across 43 countries and project the number of people that will be exposed to dangerous heat conditions. Our projections suggest that this number will be 20 to 52 times higher at the end of the 21st century than currently. Large cities in Western and Central Africa appear to be particularly at risk, whereas cities in Southern Africa will remain relatively unscathed. We also show that a restrained urban demographic growth could lead to a 50% reduction in the number of people exposed t...
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Transition to a low-carbon economy requires a complete transformation of the energy sector. The replacement of traditional energy sources with renewables implies extensive changes to socio-ecological systems and existing structures.... more
Transition to a low-carbon economy requires a complete transformation of the energy sector. The replacement of traditional energy sources with renewables implies extensive changes to socio-ecological systems and existing structures. Simply replacing fossil fuels with renewables in a large-scale producer-controlled commercial system is unlikely to be successful. Rather, local, decentralized, publicly supported renewable energy initiatives are predicted to play a major role in this transition. These increasingly popular projects involve new actors and dynamics and have impacts that are insufficiently understood. There is a need for new tools and approaches to support co-design of integrated regional spatial planning and land use policy. For example, local stakeholders could explore effects of different CO2 emissions reduction options through interactive scenario planning activities. In this paper, two approaches are described; 1) The Collaborative Location and Allocation Gaming Enviro...
Distance learning requires a specific effort of addressing the students: Students motivation has to be kept up high throughout the course via interesting and diversified teaching material and methods. Experiences from distance courses... more
Distance learning requires a specific effort of addressing the students: Students motivation has to be kept up high throughout the course via interesting and diversified teaching material and methods. Experiences from distance courses held in asynchronous teaching mode showed that this is difficult over a longer period. Adding live online interaction using a virtual classroom system for synchronous teaching generated positive effects in terms of student’s motivation and engagement. An already established eight weeks distance course using Blackboard learning system has been brushed up with live online interaction using Elluminate Live!, a real-time virtual classroom that allows live interactions. Scheduled at strategic moments throughout the course, these live sessions help to cover important topics in detail and to keep the motivation of the students high throughout the course. The share of drop outs during the course was considerably decreased compared to previous courses. Technica...
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It is by now widely acknowledged that future social vulnerability to climate change depends on both future climate state and future socio-economic conditions. Nevertheless, while most of the vulnerability assessments are using climate... more
It is by now widely acknowledged that future social vulnerability to climate change depends on both future climate state and future socio-economic conditions. Nevertheless, while most of the vulnerability assessments are using climate projections, the integration of socio-economic projections into the assessment of vulnerabilities has been very limited. Up to now, the vast majority of vulnerability assessments has been using current socio-economic conditions, hence has failed to consider the influence of socio-economic developments in the construction of vulnerability. To enhance the use of socio-economic projections into climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability assessments, the climate change research community has been recently involved in the development of a new model for creating scenarios that integrate future changes in climate as well as in society, known under the name of the new scenario framework for climate change research. This theoretical framework is made ...
This study investigated the role of participatory village maps in strengthening the Musrenbang, an annual multi-stakeholder public consultation forum to discuss development issues and plans in Indonesia. We evaluated the Musrenbang in... more
This study investigated the role of participatory village maps in strengthening the Musrenbang, an annual multi-stakeholder public consultation forum to discuss development issues and plans in Indonesia. We evaluated the Musrenbang in five villages in Deli Serdang District after conducting participatory mapping workshops to produce village maps to inform the Musrenbang process. Our results show that communication between Musrenbang participants improved because the maps provided a clear definition of the village administrative area, geospatial data as resources for participation, transparency, and a dynamic deliberative process. Collaboration was also evident as the maps enabled participants to exchange knowledge, experience social learning, and have greater influence on the decision-making process. Despite the benefits, some issues impeded the optimal use of the village maps to support the participatory process in the Musrenbang. The maps could not completely overcome the power dis...
The paper discusses the use of empirical evidence to derive the concept for a spatially explicit agent-based model that simulates land-use change in an informal settlement in the city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Dar es Salaam's... more
The paper discusses the use of empirical evidence to derive the concept for a spatially explicit agent-based model that simulates land-use change in an informal settlement in the city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Dar es Salaam's informal settlements are home to 70 - 80% of the city's residents and are characterized by high housing densities, unstructured road infrastructure and inadequate water, electricity, and sewerage services. However, they differ from typical Sub-Saharan informal settlements in two main ways: First they consist of residents with varying socioeconomic backgrounds, specifically income, education, and type of employment. Second, plots of land are not squatted on. The main purpose of the research is to develop the concept for an agent-based model for informal settlement growth derived from empirical findings. The model concentrates on the economic aspects of the spatial growth, but also includes other socioeconomic and biophysical elements. Empirical evidenc...
The Ayamama River basin in Istanbul is a densely populated urban area that is frequently impacted by flash floods causing damage to people and infrastructure. The IPCC expects that under climate change conditions, more intense... more
The Ayamama River basin in Istanbul is a densely populated urban area that is frequently impacted by flash floods causing damage to people and infrastructure. The IPCC expects that under climate change conditions, more intense precipitation will occur, leading to a higher risk of flash floods. Approaches to assess vulnerability focus on particular hazards without relating to climate change; usually emphasizing either physical or social vulnerability. However, enabling governance systems to deal with risks due to climate change requires participation of local inhabitants and inclusion of local knowledge for planning effective climate change adaptation measures. This paper presents a framework for a spatial assessment of urban vulnerability to flash floods under climate change conditions. Qualitative interviews were conducted to capture local knowledge of citizens in the Ayamama area about flood events and climate change. Spatial multi criteria evaluation was applied to calculate vuln...
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Urban areas are increasingly affected by extreme heat in the face of climate change, while the size and vulnerability of exposed populations are shifting due to economic development, demographic change, and urbanization. In addition to... more
Urban areas are increasingly affected by extreme heat in the face of climate change, while the size and vulnerability of exposed populations are shifting due to economic development, demographic change, and urbanization. In addition to the need to assess future urban heat-related health risks, there is also an increasing need to design adaptation strategies that will be effective under varying levels of socioeconomic development and climate change. We use the case study of Houston, Texas, to develop and demonstrate a scenario-based approach to explore the effectiveness of both autonomous and planned heat-related adaptations under multiple plausible futures. We couple a heat risk model with urban climate projections (under the Representative Concentration Pathways) and vulnerability projections (under locally extended Shared Socioeconomic Pathways) to investigate the impact of different adaptation strategies under multiple scenario combinations. We demonstrate that, in the context of...
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Purpose Climate analogues have been extensively used in ecological studies to assess the shift of ecoregions due to climate change and the associated impacts on species survival and displacement, but they have hardly been applied to urban... more
Purpose Climate analogues have been extensively used in ecological studies to assess the shift of ecoregions due to climate change and the associated impacts on species survival and displacement, but they have hardly been applied to urban areas and their climate shift. This paper aims to use climate analogues to characterize the climate shift of cities and to explore its implications as well as potential applications of this approach. Design/methodology/approach The authors propose a methodology to match the current climate of cities with the future climate of other locations and to characterize cities’ climate shift velocity. Employing a sample of 90 European cities, the authors demonstrate the applicability of this method and characterize their climate shift from 1951 to 2100. Findings Results show that cities’ climate shift follows rather strictly north-to-south transects over the European continent and that the average southward velocity is expected to double throughout the twen...
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A frequent criticism of knowledge-based planning tools is the apparent mismatch between information frameworks used in their spatial models and the information needs of planning actors. Increasingly, these actors are contributing their... more
A frequent criticism of knowledge-based planning tools is the apparent mismatch between information frameworks used in their spatial models and the information needs of planning actors. Increasingly, these actors are contributing their context-specific knowledge during the development of such tools. Transferring this knowledge from actors to the model remains a challenge. This study establishes a set of design requirements for knowledge elicitation in small group settings and introduces game co-design as a method allowing planning actors and planning support experts to meet halfway between the technology and user domains in the so-called third space. We present an initial case where in three nominal group sessions, actors encountered and critiqued parameterized assumptions of their planning issues in a tangible game environment. Findings indicate that the method can elicit different types of knowledge (divergence) about a spatial system in operationalized terms (formalization). We d...
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The consensus nowadays is that there is a need to adapt to increasingly occurring climate impacts by means of adaptation plans. However, only a minority of European cities has an approved climate adaptation plan by now. To support... more
The consensus nowadays is that there is a need to adapt to increasingly occurring climate impacts by means of adaptation plans. However, only a minority of European cities has an approved climate adaptation plan by now. To support stakeholder dialogue and decision-making processes in climate adaptation planning, a detailed spatial information and evidence base in terms of a climate impact assessment is needed. This article aims to compare the climate impact assessment done in the context of two regional climate change adaptation planning processes in a Dutch and a German region. To do so, a comparison of guidelines and handbooks, methodological approaches, available data, and resulting maps and products is conducted. Similarities and differences between the two approaches with a particular focus on the input and output of such analysis are identified and both processes are assessed using a set of previously defined quality criteria. Both studies apply a similar conceptualisation of ...