Subsurface multi-physical characterization of mountain excavation and city construction in loess plateau with a fiber-optic sensing system

Mountain excavation and city construction(MECC)projects being launched in the Loess Plateau in China involve the creation of large-scale artificial land.Understanding the subsurface evolution characteristics of the artificial land is essential,yet challenging.Here,we use an improved fiber-optic monitoring system for its subsurface multi-physical characterization.The system enables us to gather spatiotemporal distribution of various parameters,including strata deformation,temperature,and moisture.Yan’an New District was selected as a case study to conduct refined in-situ monitoring through a 77 m-deep borehole and a 30 m-long trench.Findings reveal that the ground settlement involves both the deformation of the filling loess and the underlying intact loess.Notably,the filling loess exhibits a stronger creep capability compared to underlying intact loess.The deformation along the profile is unevenly distributed,with a positive correlation with soil moisture.Water accumulation has been observed at the interface between the filling loess and the underlying intact loess,leading to a significant deformation.Moreover,the temperature and moisture in the filling loess have reached a new equilibrium state,with their depths influenced by atmospheric conditions measuring at 31 m and 26 m,respectively.The refined investigation allows us to identify critical layers that matter the sustainable development of newly created urban areas,and provide improved insights into the evolution mechanisms of land creation.

A robust method for evaluating the potentials of 15-minute cities:Implications for sustainable urban futures

The‘15-minute city’(15minC)concept,which aspires to bring essential services within reach via a 15-minute walk for all residents,represents a pivotal paradigm shift in sustainable urban development.However,the achievability of this concept for different cities varies considerably across diverse population distributions,urban contexts,and development priorities.In this study,we propose a robust method for evaluating a city’s 15minC potential-a city’s capability to achieve widespread 15-minute accessibility while maintaining an optimal balance between resource efficiency and resident accessibility.We employ the Location Set Covering Problem optimization model to analyze the resources required to achieve full coverage of 15-minute accessibility and the knee point detection algorithm to assess a city’s 15minC potential.Across 23 major Chinese cities,our method exhibits a sharp sensitivity to delineate distinct 15minC potentials.It reveals that cities’current 15minC development level doesn’t align with their inherent potential uniformly.Key determinants include how well current facility locations match population centers and the population density in remote areas.Further,reducing facility constructions by twothirds has only a marginal impact on accessibility,emphasizing the need for tailored,data-driven planning in effective and sustainable urban development based on the distinct potentials of cities.Our approach prioritizes resource efficiency,minimizing the inefficient use of facilities that serve only a small portion of residents while maximizing the benefits of the 15minC and therefore has significant implications for a sustainable urban future.

Spatial Development Explorations of Middle- and Small-sized Mountainous Cities: A Case Study of Shangluo City, China

Spatial structural features of middle- and small-sized mountainous cities in China were analyzed. Taking Shangluo City for example, problems in the spatial planning of middle- and small-sized mountainous cities were explored, it was stressed that local characteristics should be respected to make plans reasonably, and handle the spatial transition between urban and rural areas properly, so as not to lose the originality of rural areas during the urbanization. The study aimed at providing useful experience for the urbanization.

Constructing a standard system of city sustainable development assessment technology based on the SDGs

Given the rapid development of China’s new urbanization,cities with different locations and varying functional positioning,resource endowments,and development stages have insufficient scientific and applicable technical tools for implementing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs).City managers and policymakers must urgently establish SDG benchmarks to diagnose city development.Moreover,successful experiences from similar cities regarding sustainable development and self-improvement must be learned from to promote diversified,sustainable development across the country.Furthermore,emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence,the Internet of Things,big data and 5G are widely used in smart cities.Therefore,there is a growing need for“knowledge-based,personalized and intelligent”technologies to support monitoring,evaluation,and decision-making processes facilitating sustainable development in cities.This paper uses standardization as the theoretical support and technical basis.This approach can help clarify the sustainable development processes in China and clarify the evaluation results of and provide data on horizontal city comparisons,which can be used to develop evaluation technology for sustainable development in cities and construct a standardized system.The results provide a standard framework for intelligent assessment and decision-making regarding cities’sustainable development capabilities in China.Evaluating major international standardization institutions reveals that the practices of Chinese national standards should be fully absorbed and integrated to guide the evaluation of smart,resilient,and low-carbon cities.To this end,an indicator library of city sustainable development is proposed to provide standard evaluation technology methods.Finally,analyzing the response relationship of the indicator library to SDGs reveals the need for a standardized knowledge map of sustainable development assessment techniques and methods from the perspective of integrated management for sustainable development in cities.

Construction of an indicator library for cities’sustainable development

Cities are key to countries’strategies for achieving the UN’s sustainable development goals(SDGs).In China,evaluating cities’sustainable development(CSD)processes and abilities requires establishing an indicator library for cities’sustainable development(ILCSD).Based on the SDG framework,and referring to typical evaluation systems and international standards,this study proposes an ILCSD,aiming to promote new urbanization and high-quality development in China.Using a step-by-step“eliminate-replace-augment”indicator selection method that takes mature indicators from existing standards for city evaluation,we form an ILCSD that responds to the SDGs while meeting China’s specific needs.Using the ILCSD,cities can select a set of indicators to assess and monitor their strengths and weaknesses.Through empirical analysis,we verify the feasibility of using ILCSD to construct a CSD evaluation system for Beijing,China.For the first time,ILCSD has established a mapping relationship between the core indicators from domestic and foreign standards of city development and the SDGs.It provides a tool for cities in different regions,at different stages of development and with different endowment types to select high-quality indicators according to local conditions,effectively solving the“last mile”problem of SDGs implementation at the city level.In the process of implementing indicators,we further suggest that important indicators with incomplete statistical data should nevertheless be included in the scope of cities’statistical monitoring.This study’s findings can facilitate China’s contribution to global sustainable development indicators and to future revisions of international standards.

Ensemble Deep Learning Based Air Pollution Prediction for Sustainable Smart Cities

Big data and information and communication technologies can be important to the effectiveness of smart cities.Based on the maximal attention on smart city sustainability,developing data-driven smart cities is newly obtained attention as a vital technology for addressing sustainability problems.Real-time monitoring of pollution allows local authorities to analyze the present traffic condition of cities and make decisions.Relating to air pollution occurs a main environmental problem in smart city environments.The effect of the deep learning(DL)approach quickly increased and penetrated almost every domain,comprising air pollution forecast.Therefore,this article develops a new Coot Optimization Algorithm with an Ensemble Deep Learning based Air Pollution Prediction(COAEDL-APP)system for Sustainable Smart Cities.The projected COAEDL-APP algorithm accurately forecasts the presence of air quality in the sustainable smart city environment.To achieve this,the COAEDL-APP technique initially performs a linear scaling normalization(LSN)approach to pre-process the input data.For air quality prediction,an ensemble of three DL models has been involved,namely autoencoder(AE),long short-term memory(LSTM),and deep belief network(DBN).Furthermore,the COA-based hyperparameter tuning procedure can be designed to adjust the hyperparameter values of the DL models.The simulation outcome of the COAEDL-APP algorithm was tested on the air quality database,and the outcomes stated the improved performance of the COAEDL-APP algorithm over other existing systems with maximum accuracy of 98.34%.

Influence of seismicity parameter uncertainty on seismic hazard estimation of cities and towns

The influence on seismic hazard estimation for 310 cities and towns in the whole nation are studied in particular,owing to uncertainty of seismicity parameters caused by non-uniqueness in selecting statistical time ranges. Andthe regional sketch maps of the average varying values of intensity and the average relative varying values of peakacceleration with different probability of exceedance in 50 years are drawn in the Chinese mainland.

Impact of coupling coordination development of port and city environments on urban economic competitiveness:Evidence from the coastal port cities in eastern China

Promoting the coupling coordination development of port and its hinterland city environments is an important way to improve urban economic competitiveness.Based on relevant data of 13 coastal port cities in eastern China from 2000 to 2018,this study explores the coupling coordination development of port and city environments and its impact on urban economic competitiveness by constructing the coupling coordination degree model and the panel threshold model.The research results show that:(1)In terms of the coupling coordination development of port and city environments,most coastal ports and their hinterland cities are in a state of moderate or serious disorder.Overall,the degree of coupling coordination of port and city environments needs to be further improved;(2)The coupling coordination degree of port and city environments has a significant impact on urban economic competitiveness,and this effect gradually increases with the development of the ports and the urban economy.Among the variables that impact the urban economic competitiveness,fixed assets investment and foreign trade are significant factors that can enhance urban economic competitiveness.(3)At present,there is a“U-shaped”relationship between the coupling coordination degree of port-city environments and the urban economic competitiveness.This relationship lies on the right side of the inflection point of the“U-shaped”curve.Therefore,following the concept of assigning priority to ecological development,expanding fixed assets investment and actively developing foreign trade can further enhance the urban economic competitiveness.

Application Strategies of Spatial Refinement Design in Ancient Cities Supported by Digital Te-Zhaoyu Ancient City in Qixian County as an Example

Digital technology provides a method of quantitative investigation and data analysis for contemporary landscape spatial analysis,and related research is moving from image recognition to digital algorithmic analysis,providing a more scientific and macroscopic way of research.The key to refinement design is to refine the spatial design process and the spatial improvement strategy system.Taking the ancient city of Zhaoyu in Qixian County,Shanxi Province as an example,(1)based on obtaining the integrated data of the ancient city through the drone tilt photography,the style and landscape of the ancient city are modeled;(2)the point cloud data with spatial information is imported into the point cloud analysis platform and the data analysis is carried out from the overall macroscopic style of the ancient city to the refinement level,which results in the formation of a more intuitive landscape design scheme,thus improving the precision and practicability of the landscape design;(3)Based on spatial big data,it starts from the spatial aggregation level,spatial distribution characteristics and other evaluation index system to achieve the refinement analysis of the site.Digital technology and methods are used throughout the process to explore the refined design path.

Landslide-oriented disaster resilience evaluation in mountainous cities: A case study in Chongqing, China

Natural and human-made disasters are threatening cities around the world.The resilience of cities plays a critical role in disaster risk response and post-disaster recovery.In mountainous cities,landslides are among the most frequent and destructive hazards.This study presents a novel methodological framework for assessing the spatial resilience of mountainous cities specifically against landslides.Focusing on Chongqing in the Three Gorges Reservoir region,this study conceptually divides the disaster resilience of mountain cities to landslides into two dimensions:environmental resilience and social resilience.This study developed a comprehensive database by compiling data from 4,464 historical landslide events,incorporating 17 environmental resilience indicators and 16 social resilience indicators.Random forest(RF)model was employed to evaluate environmental resilience,achieving a high AUC of 0.968 and an accuracy of 97.1%.Social resilience was assessed by the Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP),and comprehensive resilience was ranked by the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution(TOPSIS).Key findings include:(1)Establishing a multi-dimensional resilience indicator system that effectively assesses landslide-oriented resilience in mountainous cities.(2)Comprehensive resilience in mountainous cities exhibit distinct spatial clustering patterns.Regions with lower environmental resilience are mainly characterized by high rainfall and complex terrain.higher social resilience concentrated in city centers,while peripheral regions face challenges due to weaker economies and inadequate healthcare infrastructure.(3)In the future development of mountain cities,comprehensive and sustainable strategies should be adopted to balance the relationship between environmental resilience and social resilience.This study provides a robust framework for disaster prevention and resilience assessment in mountainous cities,which can be applied to evaluate the disaster resistance capabilities of other mountainous cities.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SERIOUSLY POLLUTED CITIES IN CHINA——Taking Benxi City as an Example

The environmental problems in the seriously polluted cities in China have been paid attention to by policy makers and foreign and domestic scholars. However, it is very difficult to improve the environmental quality fundamentally due to its complexity, for example the formation of the seriously deteriorated environment. It is considered that the terminal harnessing is an important way,but the spread of high level terminal treatment is restricted by the limit of funds and technological level. Therefore, the way for a sustainable development of the seriously polluted cities should be multiple sided, which is to correlate the operation of environmental protection with the operation of city construction. To achieve an identity of these opposites, measures should be taken during economic development and environmental protection in every developing stage. In this paper, the authors take Benxi City as a case study.

Designing an Elderly-Friendly City in Cardiff: Cultivating Sense of Security for the Aging Population: Transforming Butetown for the Entertainment, Health, and Diversification of the Elderly

As an important part of urban construction,elderly-friendly construction is crucial to the formation of an elderly-friendly society,which has been widely recognized internationally.Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic,various organizations around the world have called for changes in public space and urban building planning,with an emphasis on the accessibility of green spaces.This underscores the complexity and difficulty of integrating vulnerable groups of the elderly into cities and using infrastructure and public space.

Development of the Greening of Industrial Firms in the Cities along Taihu Lake:A Case Study in Wuxi City,Jiangsu Province

Under the globalization, the coastal China becomes a hot area of the international manufacturing investment due to its priority location, excellent environment, lower labor and land costs, etc. However, the fast industrialization has aroused the great demolishment to the local ecological environment. For example, the heavy water eutrophication in Taihu Lake has affected the source of drinking water for the cities around the lake. Anyway, in order to keep the economic increase and reduce the resource ex- pense and pollution at the same time, it is necessary to encourage the greening of industrial enterprises actively for sustainable de- velopment. On the basis of the investigation of industrial enter- prises in Wuxi city within Taihu Basin, the relatively developed region in coastal China, this paper analyzed the development process of green industry. This article concluded that governmen- tal principal is the main pressure for enterprises to protect envi- ronment while the market factor plays a part role. Moreover, en- terprises in the high technology development zone work better in environmental protection than those in the villages and towns, while the large enterprises work better than those small enterprises.

Transitional Road of Resources-exhausted Cities to Low-carbon Economy:Tourism Resources Development——A Case Study of Gejiu City

Tourism is of vital practical significance to low-carbon economic transition of resources-exhausted cities.By taking Gejiu City of Yunnan Province for example,the paper discussed that Gejiu City as the resources-exhausted city should positively develop tourism,particularly industrial heritage tourism,treating tourism development as the breakthrough and motive power of low-carbon economic transition of resources-exhausted cities,so as to walk out a unique road of tourism promoting low-carbon economic development.

Research on Budding "Villages in Cities" during Urbanization Process in Lanzhou City of China——A Case Study of Chaijiahe Village,China

By introducing the theory of suburb urbanization,it was considered that budding villages in cities emerged with the close relation between city and suburb during rapid urbanization process.The paper had briefly analyzed development of villages in cities in China.By taking villages in Lanzhou City for example,it had studied geological location,appearance,spatial structure,economy and demographic feature of budding villages in cities.Furthermore,with Chaijiahe Village of Xiguoyuan Town as case study,empirical study had been conducted and development thought of Chaijiahe Village as budding village in city had been discussed.It emphasized that it should control the development scale of villages,economically and intensively utilize lands;develop industrialized high-efficiency agriculture and leisure agriculture,develop lily economy and explore the potential of characteristic industries;realize integration of urban and rural development;strive to develop education,improve villages' quality and cultivate villagers of new generation who possessed pioneering spirit and modern agriculture technology.On this basis,it summarized approaches to realize sustainable development of budding villages in cities.

Research on Landscape Ecology Mode of New Resources-based Cities—A Case Study of Yulin City of Shaanxi Province in China

Based on the overall understanding of new cities developing based on resources,by taking Yulin City of Shaanxi Province for example and combining with relevant statistical data,main problems existing in resources development have been pointed out,covering simple resources industrial structure and serious wastes in resources development;insufficient intensive processing of products and low level of resources integrated utilization;and deteriorative regional eco-environment.On this basis,a new mode of landscape ecology of resource-based cities have been proposed,emphasizing constructing new green energy industrial development mode from the perspective of microscopic view;ecological industrial park of circular economy from the perspective of mesoscopic view;and the overall ecological recovery mode of the mining area from the perspective of macroscopic view.It hopes to give a vital inspiration to the sustainable development of new resources-based cities.

SWOT Analysis and Development Countermeasures of Taohua Mountain Ecotourism Agricultural Park in Ya’an City

By using SWOT Analysis, the internal strengths and weakness, and the external opportunities and challenges of Taohua Mountain Ecotourism Agricultural Park were discussed. The result showed that Taohua Mountain was unique in scenery, rich in rural tourism resources and broad in market prospect. However, the tourism products were monotonous, lack of characteristics and depth; the ecological environment was weak; the tourism staff was with low quality; some parts of the area were in poor sanitary condition, restrained by season and periodicity. Meanwhile, there existed some opportunities and challenges in this park. The opportunities mainly contained policy opportunity and transference of tourists’ preference. The challenges primarily included challenges from urban tourism spots of Ya’an City and surrounding cities, and threats of sustainable use of tourism resources resulting from blind exploitation of fruit production area. And the corresponding development countermeasures were put forward, that is, to develop diversified tourism programs, to allocate mountainous resources according to local conditions, to train the local tourism staff, to dredge the area with poor sanitation, to diversify business with other industries supporting the development of tourism agriculture.

Study on Over-urbanization of the Ecotone between Mount Tai and Tai'an City

By investigating the ecotone between Mount Tai Scenic Area and downtown area of Tai'an City,the characteristics of such an ecotone are analyzed,serious problems brought by the over-urbanization to local natural environment,such as destruction of eco-environment,aggravated pollution and degradation of mountainous landscape resources are studied.Then countermeasures for the harmonious development of the ecotone are proposed to better promote the coordinated development of cities and mountainous scenic areas.

Analysis on the Green Space System Planning of Small Cities in Mountainous Areas

With the urban green space system planning of small cities in mountainous areas as the study object,the planning practices are analyzed and studied to summarize the common characteristics of urban green space system planning in those small cities.Being combined with relevant national standards and regulations,the problems that those small cities are faced with in their urban green space system planning are analyzed,then corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are put forward to resolve problems in the practical planning.

Research on Ecological Livable Urban Construction in Small and Medium Cities of China——A Case Study of Huaihua City

The paper has analyzed the concept of ecological livable city,considered that small and medium cities as the major pattern of China's urbanization are more likely to become ecological livable cities compared with large cities.Based on the actual situation of Huaihua City,it has pointed out its advantages in transport,ecology,foundation and national characteristic,and analyzed existing problems in the construction of ecological livable city from the perspective of urban eco-environment.It considers that its urban ecological planning is to be perfect,urban environment pollution is still serious and people's consciousness for environmental protection is to be improved.On this basis,relevant suggestions have been proposed for ecological livable urban construction in Huaihua City,emphasizing it should perfect urban ecological planning,enhance environmental pollution treatment,intensify environmental protection education,and improve people's consciousness for environmental protection.