Green infrastructure： a planning concept for the urban transformation of former coal-mining cities

Green infrastructure is a concept aimed at realizing a strategically planned network of valuable natural and seminatural areas, designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services and to protect biodiversity in rural and urban settings. In the general post-mining context of China and Germany, this paper suggests and outlines an approach that combines green infrastructure with specific concepts of post-mining landscapes. While Germany has a long tradition of post-mining restoration, concepts of green infrastructure are still poorly developed. China, on the other hand, has taken its first steps in the restoration of coal regions, and could profit from the new concepts while drawing on Germany＇s experience. The potentials of relevant strategies are investigated here through two case studies from Germany and China. Although there are significant differences in the post-mining development strategies of these two countries, it is clear that the green infrastructure concept can contribute significantly to a growth in ecosystem services. Four advantages of the green infrastructure concept are seen： First, it enables a systematic and highly objective assessment of mining impacts on the ecosystem. Second, the concept assists in the implementation of urban sustainability goals. Third, it is rooted in the local characteristics of landscapes. And finally, the green infrastructure concept seems to be highly compatible with tools of landscape and regional planning.

Recent behavior and possible future evolution of the glacieret in the cirque Golemiya Kazan in the Pirin Mountains under conditions of climate warming

This research reveals relationships between climate variables and inter-annual dynamics in the area of the glacieret located in the cirque Golemiya Kazan in the Pirin Mountains. The study period is 1993–2017. The correlations are identified using statistical methods. Also, a statistical model is constructed, including some climate variables as predictors. Despite the evident decrease of the glacieret's size in the period from the 1950 s onwards, the long-term trends for the last decades have been insignificant. The main climatic factors influencing the inter-annual dynamics in the area of the glacieret are air temperature, precipitation, zonal and meridional winds and relative humidity. With respect to the dynamics in the area of the glacieret, the important trends in the different climate variables are those of the warm period air temperatures and zonal(u) wind. They also determine to a great extent its future development by acting in two opposite directions – rising temperatures in the warm period will lead to a rapid decrease of its area by the end of the melting season, while the change of wind directionfrom west to east in the warm period will increase its area. The influence of the zonal wind in the warm period is explained mainly by the location of the glacieret in the cirque. Generally, the glacieret is tilted downwards from west to east. Thus, westerly winds facilitate blowing away the snow from the surface of the glacieret, assisting its melting in the warm period. Easterly winds do not have such an effect. The combination of the opposite effects of these two most important climate variables leads to the most likely scenario for the future development of the glacieret, according to which by the middle of this century it is expected to turn into a semi-permanent snow patch, which disappears after some summers, and by the end of the century to completely melt every year before the end of the melting season.

A comprehensive comparison of different regression techniques and nature-inspired optimization algorithms to predict carbonation depth of recycled aggregate concrete

The utilization of recycled aggregates(RA)for concrete production has the potential to offer substantial environmental and economic advantages.However,RA concrete is plagued with considerable durability concerns,particularly carbonation.To advance the application of RA concrete,the establishment of a reliable model for predicting the carbonation is needed.On the one hand,concrete carbonation is a long and slow process and thus consumes a lot of time and energy to monitor.On the other hand,carbonation is influenced by many factors and is hard to predict.Regarding this,this paper proposes the use of machine learning techniques to establish accurate prediction models for the carbonation depth(CD)of RA concrete.Three types of regression techniques and meta-heuristic algorithms were employed to provide more alternative predictive tools.It was found that the best prediction performance was obtained from extreme gradient boosting-multi-universe optimizer(XGB-MVO)with R^(2) value of 0.9949 and 0.9398 for training and testing sets,respectively.XGB-MVO was used for evaluating physical laws of carbonation and it was found that the developed XGB-MVO model could provide reasonable predictions when new data were investigated.It also showed better generalization capabilities when compared with different models in the literature.Overall,this paper emphasizes the need for sustainable solutions in the construction industry to reduce its environmental impact and contribute to sustainable and low-carbon economies.

Compressive strength prediction and optimization design of sustainable concrete based on squirrel search algorithm-extreme gradient boosting technique

Concrete is the most commonly used construction material.However,its production leads to high carbon dioxide(CO_(2))emissions and energy consumption.Therefore,developing waste-substitutable concrete components is necessary.Improving the sustainability and greenness of concrete is the focus of this research.In this regard,899 data points were collected from existing studies where cement,slag,fly ash,superplasticizer,coarse aggregate,and fine aggregate were considered potential influential factors.The complex relationship between influential factors and concrete compressive strength makes the prediction and estimation of compressive strength difficult.Instead of the traditional compressive strength test,this study combines five novel metaheuristic algorithms with extreme gradient boosting(XGB)to predict the compressive strength of green concrete based on fly ash and blast furnace slag.The intelligent prediction models were assessed using the root mean square error(RMSE),coefficient of determination(R^(2)),mean absolute error(MAE),and variance accounted for(VAF).The results indicated that the squirrel search algorithm-extreme gradient boosting(SSA-XGB)yielded the best overall prediction performance with R^(2) values of 0.9930 and 0.9576,VAF values of 99.30 and 95.79,MAE values of 0.52 and 2.50,RMSE of 1.34 and 3.31 for the training and testing sets,respectively.The remaining five prediction methods yield promising results.Therefore,the developed hybrid XGB model can be introduced as an accurate and fast technique for the performance prediction of green concrete.Finally,the developed SSA-XGB considered the effects of all the input factors on the compressive strength.The ability of the model to predict the performance of concrete with unknown proportions can play a significant role in accelerating the development and application of sustainable concrete and furthering a sustainable economy.

先进制造与可持续城市发展（英文）

"工业4.0"^([17,、18、28])、"工业互联网"^([15、16])和"中国制造"^([3])是3个经济上高度相关的话题,它们都关乎当前国际价值网络的未来。实现"先进制造"的3个途径是针对即将到来的"第四次工业革命"而提出的,"第四次工业革命"的基础就是所有工业和服务的生产逐步数字化的过程^([4])。这些长期规划和战略的制定基于现有的技术,即信息物理系统、物流网、分布式软件服务和云计算等。它们高度依赖于数字基础设施的水平和运作完好的物流系统,也对其所在的城市和地区产生影响。因此,对城市发展和先进制造之间的联系目前仍少有研究是个令人吃惊的现象,因为全球生产和物流会在相应制造战略的实施过程中引起重大变化。在工业领域内,与城市相关、可持续的经济活动将调整自身以适应新的地方、区域和全球ICT型的价值链和物流链。由于全球范围内关于先进制造和城市发展之间的关系还没有充足的科学研究或实践经验,文章以探索的方式论述了一个学术和实践的新领域。首先,本文尝试建立一个假设,而不提出基于数据或案例的分析证据。我们在包含(1)高质量增长、(2)绿色城市经济和(3)可持续城市发展这3个概念的语境下讨论先进制造,这3个概念曾由德国国际发展公司(GIZ)做出过定义和释义^([10、11])。绿色城市经济和大都市地区的可持续发展与增长方法的质量密切相关,在城市语境下,它们将涉及更广的范围并改变增长的质量。高质量经济增长被视为高生产力、体面的就业的前提,后者进而对根除贫困和促进公平的社会经济发展起到了非常关键的作用^([10])。GIZ从以下几方面定义了高质量增长。精明增长:通过鼓励知识和创新型的经济发展提高生产力和竞争力。可持续增长:使一代人的经济发展不会对后代造成负担的环境可持续性,以及向绿色经济的转型。包容性/共享性增长:社会的所有部门都高产地参与到经济进程中。弹性增长:减少经济波动,减缓经济发展受经济危机的危害或影响。整合增长:改善商品和服务跨国流通的框架条件。增长治理:建立强力机制和透明、参与式决策过程。这几方面构成了颇有价值的框架,本文也将以之为分析的指南。在精明增长方面,很显然,对先进制造概念的理解有助于理解精明生产环境系统的概念。绿色城市经济这个概念帮助城市利益相关者在城市语境中理解国际上和国内关于绿色经济的争论。这个概念基于这样的假设:在世界绝大部分已经是城市的未来,城市应该成为绿色经济转型的先锋。GIZ所定义的绿色城市经济的关键因素包括^([2]):包容的经济增长:"未来的发展战略必须不再只专注于量化的目标。相反,必须要有能造福所有人口组成部分的质的增长。尤其在城市中,贫富差距日益扩大,还有越来越多的人群不能充分参与社会和经济活动"^([2])。环境兼容性:"经济增长脱离资源消耗和温室气体排放是非常关键的一点。这是可以通过鼓励创新和环境无害的技术来实现的。由于其人口密度高,城市往往可以提供建立高效基础设施网络的机遇"^([2])。减少贫困:"包容、生态无害的增长必然要走向减少贫困和为人们在生活中提供机会。这需要产生更多的收入机会,尤其要为低收入人群和城市非正式产业提供收入机会,改善贫民和非正式住区居民获得基本市政服务的情况"^([2])。大都市地区的可持续发展是应对城市群和大都市地区需求,并努力提升其治理结构的的途径。GIZ认为有4个多部门的优先点是相关的^([2]):大都市地区作为创新产业地区:"大都市为地方、国家和全球商业的商品和信息的交流提供了场所。他们吸引知识型公司,并推进和落实可促进可持续经济活动的新想法。但是,为了实现这一点,必须要建立适当的框架"^([2])。大都市地区作为包容的劳动力市场和住宅中心:"大都市地区以其经济增长可创造广泛的服务类工作岗位,贫困人群也可从中受益^([2])。"大都市地区作为"密集纽带"网络:大都市地区把大量的人口、生产和消费集中在一个区域,它要消耗巨量的能源和自然资源。但是由于大都市地区存在着紧密交织的地理连接和部门连接,还是有很好的机会以提高其物质和能量循环的效率的"^([2])。大都市地区作为治理体系:"城市群需要新的治理结构以组织和控制它们所面临的多部门的挑战……"^([2])上述的3个途径:高质量增长、绿色城市经济和可持续城市发展,有不少相互重合和联系之处。高质量增长关注总体上的经济发展,而绿色城市经济和大都市地区可持续发展的概念把增长质量转化到城市发展的语境中。因此,我们取增长质量这个方法来作为分析的基础。

The Promotion of Building Culture in Rural Germany

Over the past two decades,building culture has increasingly caught the attention of the architectural and planning professions.The building culture is to be understood in the broadest sense as the sum of all cultural,economic,technological,social and ecological factors influencing the quality and process of planning and construc­tion.While the revitalisation and promotion of building culture is central to discussions on urban areas,these are generally ignored in regard to rural areas.This article aims to provide an overview of how building culture has been promoted in Germany’s rural areas,thereby contributing to international research on this topic.The paper adopts a general descriptive approach in examining the promotion of building culture in rural Germany.It provides back­ground knowledge on institutional promotion and demonstrates the diverse approaches implemented in represent­ative villages as best practices examples.The German experience confirms that the promotion of building culture is a meaningful and effective measure to help revitalise rural areas.Moreover,the three selected rural municipalities show how stakeholders from civil society are increasingly involved in measures to implement and promote building culture in the local context.

全球清洁能源快速增长引发对土地资源占用的担忧

Most countries in the world have joined the race for carbon neutrality, to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, leading to a boom in the clean-energy sector. However, the construction of clean-energy infrastructure can disproportionately occupy limited productive soil and natural land resources, compared to conventional energy plants (Fig. 1). Thus, comprehending the land footprint resulting from the proliferation of clean-energy systems is now imperative, to better anticipate and manage the energy industry, and specifically to quantify the land-use trade-offs of the energy transition in a global context.