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.

Assessment of Sustainable Development System in Suihua City, China

Sustainable development is a complex and systemic issue. It is essential to study it by the component analysis method from the view of system science. The urban developmental sustainability is one of focuses that people has paid more attention to, however, little common understanding how to measure and evaluate the sustainability has been gotten. In this paper, a framework is designed to evaluate the developmental sustainability of Suihua City, Heilongiiang Province in China from the aspects of economy, society, population, resources and environment. We adopt the Principal Components Analysis （PCA） to decrease dimensions and simplify the original indexes into 12 indexes. Also, the hierarchy and comprehensive multiple-criterion evaluative methods are employed to assess the sustainable development system in Suihua City. Then, the weights of indexes are attained by Analytic Hierarchy Process （AHP） method. Furthermore, urban comprehensive development level, developmental sustainability, coordinate degree are calculated and analyzed. By analyzing, we know the fluctuation of development level of subsystem, especially resources and environment subsystem, is acute. The comprehensive development level of sustainable development system in Suihua has been on the rise since 1999. That results from the effect of traditional economic development mode with high energy-consumed being decreased in the city after 1999. At the same time, it is obvious that there was an instability of development level in Suihua City during 1990-2002, the status＇trend was more harmonious in 1999-2002. with a turn in 1998, and the development could be sustainable,

Coalition Emergency Response System, City Security and City Sustainable Development

The relations among the establishment of Coalition Emergency Response System （CERS）, city security and city sustainable development are analyzed in the article. According to the relation analysis, it is concluded that cities should build up their CERS to deal with the thread of damage in China. The recommendations about the establishment of the system are also provided.

Regional Sustainable Assessment at City Level Based on CSDIS(China Sustainable Development Indicator System)Concept in the New Era,China

The core issue of sustainable development refers to the coordinated development of economic-social-environmental issues.In the present study,by complying with the China Sustainable Development Indicator System(CSDIS)concept,a comprehensive index system was built;besides,Natural Breaks(Jenks)Classification Method,Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis and Geographic Detector Analysis were conducted to delve into the sustainability and coordinated degree at city level in China from 2007 to 2017.The achieved results are presented as follows.First,for spatial differentiation,the overall spatial distribution pattern was characterized by the high-value units in eastern China and the low-value units in western China from 2007 to 2017.To be specific,the high-value units were radiated along the Beijing-Guangdong Axis(Jing-Guang Axis)centered on the core of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region,the middle-value units were distributed in strips along the coast,and the low-value units were vastly gathered in western China and gradually break via the Hu Huanyong line(Hu Line)in south China from 2007 to 2017.More specifically,based on the five subsystems,the pattern of each system was consistent with the whole,whereas the degree of concentration was different.Second,for spatial correlation,the significant High-High(HH)areas were primarily distributed in the core of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei,Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta Regions.The significant Low-Low(LL)areas were continuously distributed in the southwest China and broke through the Hu Line from 2007 to 2017.There were insufficient number of significant High-Low(HL)and significant Low-High(LH)areas,whereas the spatial agglomeration of them was less obvious.Third,for internal coupling coordination,the spatial differentiation between the coupling degree and the coupling coordinated degree was significantly consistent in 2007 and 2017.The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei,Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta Regions have demonstrated a high level of coordinated evolution,and the pattern of western mountainous areas exhibited a low degree of coordinated growth.Lastly,based on the combination of quantitative and qualitative,its factors were underpinned by robust economic strength,the vitality support of the information level and the basic support function of the topography,active guidance of national policies and path dependence and industrial transfer.

Comprehensive Evaluation on Urban Sustainable Development of Harbin City in Northeast China

It is an effective way in realizing urban coordinated and sustainable development to establish a series of in- dicators and to evaluate urban environmental and socioeconomic development. According to the characteristics of Harbin City in Northeast China, an indicator system including five subsystems and 37 indicators was established for comprehensive evaluation on urban sustainable development. The development indexes of all urban subsystems and complex system were calculated quantitatively using the comprehensively integrated methods composed of Principle Component Analysis, Analytic Hierarchy Process and weighed index method, and then the comprehensive level of ur- ban sustainable development and the degree of urban interior coordination were analyzed. The results indicated that 1) the overall urban development presented an uptrend, however, the interior development was not well balanced from 1996 to 2006; 2) the development in each subsystem presented a strong fluctuation; and 3) the development in re- sources subsystem showed a downtrend. Based on those results, the suggestions of urban sustainable development were put forward at the end.

Sustainable Development of Wuhan City Based on Methods of Conventional Ecological Footprint and Emergy Ecological Footprint

This article uses the conventional ecological footprint method and its improved model of ecological footprint to analyze the state of the sustainable development of Wuhan City in 2009, the results show that the per capita ecological deficit calculated by the method of emergy ecological footprint is 3.8629 hm2, and the per capita ecological deficit calculated by the method of conventional ecological footprint is 2.0169 hm2. The results obtained by the two methods respectively show that current development of Wuhan is unsustainable. The emergy ecological footprint method introduces the energy flow to reflect the relationship between human resource demand and supply of nature to human and adopts parameters—emergy conversion rate and energy density to calculate the ecological carrying capacity data which is more accurate.

TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE CITY CENTRE:INTEGRATING ECOLOGICALLY SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT(ESD)PRINCIPLES INTO URBAN RENEWAL

This paper reflects upon a wide range of strategies focused on increasing sustainability of urban design beyond and within the scope of individual buildings.By examining the case study of the Australian city of Newcastle,the paper provides a context for a general debate about the urban design of a sustainable city centre,and discusses how urban design is affected(and can be expected to be even more affected in future)by the new paradigms of ecology.In this context,the author presents the case study of‘SolarCity’,which is based on a vision for the revitalisation of Newcastle’s city centre.It is an in-progress research and demonstration project,involving Australian and German architects,engineers and industry partners.It deals with cross-cutting issues in architecture and urban design and addresses the question:How to best cohesively integrate all aspects of energy systems,transport systems,waste and water management,climatisation,etc.,into contemporary urban design and the environmental performance of eco-buildings?The‘SolarCity’project encapsulates a vision based on the belief that urban revitalisation can be achieved and facilitated through the use of sustainable urban design principles.Consequently,this paper addresses the fundamentals of urban sustainability,such as orientation to the sun,and general strategies for more compact communities.As we begin to fully understand the consequences of our dependency on fossil energy and the automobile,the cost of mobility,and ways to integrate sustainability systems into buildings,it becomes apparent that the common knowledge of aesthetics of urban composition is no longer sufficient.

Strategies for Construction of Sustainable Development Experimental Zone in Fumian District,Yulin City

From strengthening the construction of an innovation system,adhering to the green development model of the industry,advancing the rural revitalization strategy,strengthening the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage,accelerating the development of social undertakings,and expanding the space for regional cooperation,this paper discusses the strategies for the construction of sustainable development experimental zone in Fumian District,Yulin City.It is intended to build Fumian District into a vibrant,economically prosperous,urban and rural integrated,characteristic cultural,safe and harmonious,inclusive and open district.

Opportunities,Challenges and Safeguard Measures for Sustainable Development of Fumian District,Yulin City

This paper first analyzes the main opportunities for sustainable development of Fumian District,Yulin City,and then discusses the challenges faced by Fumian District in its sustainable development.Finally,it proposes safeguard measures for sustainable development of Fumian District:(i)strengthening leadership and implementing responsibilities;(ii)enhancing cooperation and gathering forces;(iii)reinforcing supervision and ensuring implementation;(iv)increasing input and integrating resources;(v)strengthening publicity and creating an atmosphere.

Interdependency Between Sustainable Development and Economic Growth （Investment Attraction）： The Role of City＇s Governance, Branding and Monitoring Strategies

Sustainable development is now considered the only option for collective happiness. This paper aims to highlight the interdependent role of city governance, its quality of life and corporate sustainable development process. A place that is good to live in, means that it is good to inhabit, work at, study invest, and visit. Therefore, public policies makers should think about the role of city administration in order to provide a good environment for entrepreneurship and corporate sustainable development. Territories, regions, cities and firms, must know their capabilities and competencies and define a common vision of the future, taking into account the present and the context in which they operate. Being defined as the strategy based on the principles of collective efficiency and market orientation, the successful implementation of activities requires ＂an operational framework for monitoring, supported by mechanisms of interdepartmental cooperation, and performance measurement procedures based on indicators and monitoring progress＂ （ENDS-2015, 2007）. This paper discusses the implementation of place marketing strategies and adoption, by the city governance, of the best practices of business management such as： balanced score card methodologies, leading to the enhancing of the wellness produced by cities; promoting productivity, innovation and rational use of resources; and developing competences and expertise in order to strength their competitive advantages and achieve the desired sustainable development.

Changing Trend and Sustainable Development of Farmland Resources in Pingdingshan City,China

The grey forecast and the sustainable use evaluation are conducted on the data of farmland resources from 2010 to 2020 in Pingingshan City by using the area of farmland land from 1999 to 2010 and by applying the grey forecast and land pressure system.The results show that from 2010 to 2020 the quantity of farmland resources maintains balance;the minimum per capita farmland in Pingdinshan stays around the lower limit of per capita amount of farmland in China;the pressure of farmland is rather huge and the farmland protection is not so optimistic.Therefore,in order to realize the sustainable use of land resources in Pingdinshan City,the government should try to improve the efficiency of farmland use and implement stricter land protection system.as well as the requisition-compensation balance of farmland resources,land consolidation and land reclaimation and so on.

Inheritance and Sustainable Development of Concession Gardens of Tianjin City,China

Through reviewing development history of concession gardens in Tianjin City,features,advantages and problems of these gardens were analyzed.It was stressed that cultural context should be inherited,and features of the city highlighted.The gardens should be protected from the perspective of development,combined with urban green space system,integrated with cultural life of local citizens,and coordinated with contemporary architectural style of the city.In addition,plant landscapes should be enriched,and infrastructure of the gardens supplemented to properly handle the relationship between urban construction and protection of historical image,and provide reference for inheriting cultural context of the city in the urban development.

Economic Cost Analysis of the Urban Sustainable Development——A Case of Guiyang City,China

Based on the constitution identification of the urbanization economic costs,econometric model of urbanization economic costs is constructed from four aspects of the investment cost in employment opportunities,the investment cost in urban land use,the investment cost in urban infrastructure,and the investment cost in urban management.Taking Guiyang City as an example,economic cost for each additional urban population in Guiyang City is measured under the current level of social and economic development.Capital requirement for the urban development of Guiyang City in the next 10 years is forecasted.And it is pointed out that there will be significant financing gap in the sustainable development and urbanization process of Guiyang City in future,which provides the basis for the development speed and the reasonable goals of urban sustainable development in future.

Carrying Capacity and Coupling Coordination of Water and Land Resources Systems in Arid and Semi-arid Areas: A Case Study of Yulin City, China

Quantitatively assessing the carrying capacity of water and land resources systems in arid and semi-arid areas is crucial for achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.In this work,taking Yulin City in China as a case study and employing the Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation(CRITIC)method,a modified model of coupling degree was developed to evaluate the car-rying capacity of water and land resources systems endowment and utilization,as well as their coupling coordination degree from 2013 to 2020.Our findings indicate that the water and land resources of Yulin are diminishing due to declines in agriculture,higher industrial water use,and wetland shrinkage.However,reallocating domestic water for ecological sustainability and reducing sloping farmland can mitigate this trend of decline.Temporally,as the coupling coordination between water and land resources system endowment in Yulin continuously improved,the coupling coordination between water and land resources system utilization first decreased and then in-creased with 2016 as the turning point.Spatially,the carrying capacity of water and land resources systems,the coupling coordination degree between water and land resources system endowment,and the coupling coordination degree between water and land resources system utilization in Yulin exhibited the same pattern of being higher in the six northern counties than in the six southern counties.Improving the water resources endowment is vital for the highly efficient use of water and land resources.

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.

Sustainable city development challenged by extreme weather in a warming world

The year of 2021 has witnessed many extreme weather events across the world that have shocked and challenged human society,in particular for the populous cities,challenging progress on sustainable city development.In the comment we highlighted the record-breaking rainstorm that is considered to happen only“once-in-a-thousand-years”on 20 July 2021 in Zhengzhou,China;and a series of short and long-term resilience enhancement and risk reducing measures to climate change and natural hazard risks.We found that increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events caused by human-induced climate change challenges progress on sustainable city development,but could also accelerate activities to enable cities to become more resilient.This comment is essential to advance towards the sustainable city development goal(SDG 11)in China’s mega cities,as well as informing progress for other global cities.

Changing Concepts of City and Urban Planning Practices in Guangzhou(1949–2010): An Approach to Sustainable Urban Development

By focusing on Guangzhou, this paper examines how different concepts of city in terms of urban-rural relationships are shaped in transforming China since 1949, and explores how they influence the way in which urban planning are practiced. In the pre-reform era, the city was defined as a productive space under the system of urban-rural segregation established for securing rapid industrialization. Urban planning was thus only concerned with the development of urban areas. In the 1980 s and 1990 s after the reform, institutional change and economic transformation mobilized the urban-rural linkages. The development of suburban areas was then considered by urban planning, but this consideration was a passive response to urban problems such as population explosion and water resources protection. Since the new millennium, the agenda for sustainable development and problems of uneven urban-rural development have called for the development of urban-rural integration. In this context, the city is conceptualized as a complex of mountain, city, river, farmland and sea, reconstructing the ideology of urban-rural division in defining urban development. Urban planning has therefore sought in an active way to develop a sustainable city embracing rural and natural elements, and to balance economic growth and environmental protection. It is argued that developing the concept of city as a complex of urban and rural elements contributes to the urban planning for sustainable urban development, while this conceptualization relies on the recognition of the integrated urban-rural relationship.

City Environment Art and Sustainable Development

The development of everthing follows its own law, which does not change at people’s own sweet will. Therefore, we must study the development of things so as to grasp the essence of things in their deep meanings, explore the direction of their de- velopment, and make them better serve the people. As a part of the thought of sustainable development, city environment art will be of active significance to the perfection of the thought and will also be the concrete embodiment of the synthetic index of economic development. Such a thesis, starting from the macroscopic angle, and relying on the leading thought of sustainable development, takes hold of the development trend of city environment art, and explores the various problems that have arisen in city environment in the process of city management by combining thoughts on city planning, so as to guide urban harmonious development theoretically. The present paper expounds on the views comprehensively and, through the synthetic analysis on city planning, city environment, art esthetics and the thought of sustainable development, makes a detailed analysis of the effects of the present rapid city development on city environment.

URBAN REGIONAL STRUCTURES TRANSFORMATION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: CASE STUDY OF NANJING MEGALOPOLIS

s: Since 1978, many changes have happened on the background of urban regional structure in China, such as the economy system restructuring, the social transforming including the population flow accelerating and social demand diversifying and individualizing, the political and economic systems reforms, the rise of the real estate market and the changing relationship between human and nature. From the macroscopic view, these changes make the national urban system to be a newer pattern with a widening gap among the cities in spite of the rising of the cities as a whole. At the same, the urban land use structures are changing with both the trends of intensification and diversification, and the trends of the regional diversification and the economic integration. Besides, urban structures with multiple centers are emerging in several metropolitan areas in China. These changes and trends mentioned above are confirmed by a case study of Nanjing City, a growing metropolitan area in east China. The case study also points out some problems in urban regional structure reforming, especially the poor social and ecological considerations. We should pay more attention to some ideas like balance of intensification and decentralization, development of suburban centers and a reasonable mixing of the functional activities to develop a sustainable urban regional structure.

Unified Data Model of Urban Air Pollution Dispersion and 3D Spatial City Model:Groundwork Assessment towards Sustainable Urban Development for Malaysia

Understanding the behavior of urban air pollution is important en route for sustainable urban development (SUD). Malaysia is on its mission to be a developed country by year 2020 comprehends dealing with air pollution is one of the indicators headed towards it. At present monitoring and managing air pollution in urban areas encompasses sophisticated air quality modeling and data acquisition. However, rapid developments in major cities cause difficulties in acquiring the city geometries. The existing method in acquiring city geometries data via ground or space measurement inspection such as field survey, photogrammetry, laser scanning, remote sensing or using architectural plans appears not to be practical because of its cost and efforts. Moreover, air monitoring stations deployed are intended for regional to global scale model whereby it is not accurate for urban areas with typical resolution of less than 2 km. Furthermore in urban areas, the pollutant dispersion movements are trapped between buildings initiating it to move vertically causing visualization complications which imply the limitations of existing visualization scheme that is based on two-dimensional (2D) framework. Therefore this paper aims is to perform groundwork assessment and discuss on the current scenario in Malaysia in the aspect of current policies towards SUD, air quality monitoring stations, scale model and detail discussion on air pollution dispersion model used called the Operational Street Pollution Model (OSPM). This research proposed the implementation of three-dimensional (3D) spatial city model as a new physical data input for OSPM. The five Level of Details (LOD) of 3D spatial city model shows the scale applicability for the dispersion model implementtation. Subsequently 3D spatial city model data commonly available on the web, by having a unified data model shows the advantages in easy data acquisition, 3D visualization of air pollution dispersion and improves visual analysis of air quality monitoring in urban areas.