Reassessing the role of urban green space in air pollution control.

The assumption that vegetation improves air quality is prevalent in scientific, popular, and political discourse. However, experimental and modeling studies show the effect of green space on air pollutant concentrations in urban settings is highly variable and context specific. We revisited the link between vegetation and air quality using satellite-derived changes of urban green space and air pollutant concentrations from 2,615 established monitoring stations over Europe and the United States. Between 2010 and 2019, stations recorded declines in ambient NO2, (particulate matter) PM10, and PM2.5 (average of -3.14% y-1), but not O3 (+0.5% y-1), pointing to the general success of recent policy interventions to restrict anthropogenic emissions. The effect size of total green space on air pollution was weak and highly variable, particularly at the street scale (15 to 60 m radius) where vegetation can restrict ventilation. However, when isolating changes in tree cover, we found a negative association with air pollution at borough to city scales (120 to 16,000 m) particularly for O3 and PM. The effect of green space was smaller than the pollutant deposition and dispersion effects of meteorological drivers including precipitation, humidity, and wind speed. When averaged across spatial scales, a one SD increase in green space resulted in a 0.8% (95% CI: -3.5 to 2%) decline in air pollution. Our findings suggest that while urban greening may improve air quality at the borough-to-city scale, the impact is moderate and may have detrimental street-level effects depending on aerodynamic factors like vegetation type and urban form.

How to Achieve a Healthy City: a Scoping Review with Ten City Examples.

This scoping review of the literature explores the following question: what systematic measures are needed to achieve a healthy city? The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests 11 characteristics of a healthy city. Measures contributing to these characteristics are extracted and classified into 29 themes. Implementation of some of these measures is illustrated by examples from Freiburg, Greater Vancouver, Singapore, Seattle, New York City, London, Nantes, Exeter, Copenhagen, and Washington, DC. The identified measures and examples indicate that a healthy city is a system of healthy sectors. A discussion section suggests healthy directions for nine sectors in a healthy city. These sectors include transportation, housing, schools, city planning, local government, environmental management, retail, heritage, and healthcare. Future work is advised to put more focus on characteristic 5 (i.e., the meeting of basic needs for all the city's people) and characteristic 10 (i.e., public health and sick care services accessible to all) of a healthy city.

HealthyPlan.City: A Web Tool to Support Urban Environmental Equity and Public Health in Canadian Communities.

Urban environmental factors such as air quality, heat islands, and access to greenspaces and community amenities impact public health. Some vulnerable populations such as low-income groups, children, older adults, new immigrants, and visible minorities live in areas with fewer beneficial conditions, and therefore, face greater health risks. Planning and advocating for equitable healthy urban environments requires systematic analysis of reliable spatial data to identify where vulnerable populations intersect with positive or negative urban/environmental characteristics. To facilitate this effort in Canada, we developed HealthyPlan.City ( https://healthyplan.city/ ), a freely available web mapping platform for users to visualize the spatial patterns of built environment indicators, vulnerable populations, and environmental inequity within over 125 Canadian cities. This tool helps users identify areas within Canadian cities where relatively higher proportions of vulnerable populations experience lower than average levels of beneficial environmental conditions, which we refer to as Equity priority areas. Using nationally standardized environmental data from satellite imagery and other large geospatial databases and demographic data from the Canadian Census, HealthyPlan.City provides a block-by-block snapshot of environmental inequities in Canadian cities. The tool aims to support urban planners, public health professionals, policy makers, and community organizers to identify neighborhoods where targeted investments and improvements to the local environment would simultaneously help communities address environmental inequities, promote public health, and adapt to climate change. In this paper, we report on the key considerations that informed our approach to developing this tool and describe the current web-based application.

Adapting Schools to Climate Change with Green, Blue, and Grey Measures in Barcelona: Study Protocol of a Mixed-Method Evaluation.

Under the framework of the Urban Innovative Actions program of the European Commission, in 2020, 11 primary schools in Barcelona were transformed into climate shelters by implementing green, blue, and grey measures. Schoolyards were also opened to the local community to be used during non-school periods. Here we present the study protocol of a mixed-method approach to evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions in terms of improving environmental quality and health for users. We evaluated school level through the following: (1) quantitative pre-post quasi-experimental study, and (2) qualitative evaluation. The quantitative study included measures of (a) environmental variables (collected via low-cost and non-low-cost sensors), (b) students' health and well-being (collected via health questionnaires, attention levels test, and systematic observations), and (c) teachers' health and well-being (collected via thermal comfort measurements and health questionnaires). The qualitative methods evaluated the perceptions about the effects of the interventions among students (using Photovoice) and teachers (through focus groups). The impact of the interventions was assessed at community level during summer non-school periods through a spontaneous ethnographic approach. Data collection started in August 2019 and ended in July 2022. The evaluation provides the opportunity to identify those solutions that worked and those that need to be improved for future experiences, as well as improve the evaluation methodology and replication for these kinds of interventions.

Does the morphology of residential greenspaces contribute to the development of a cardiovascular-healthy city?

BACKGROUNDS: Greenspaces are indispensable for the construction of a healthy city. Research has shown that greenspaces contribute to the reduction of cardiovascular risks. However, the role of greenspace morphology in the development of a healthy city is not well understood. METHODS: Our study utilized data from a cardiovascular disease screening cohort comprising 106,238 residents in Anhui Province, China, aged between 35 and 75 years. We calculated landscape indices of each participant using high-resolution land cover data to measure the greenness, fragmentation, connectivity, aggregation, and shape of greenspaces. We used a multivariate linear regression model to assess the associations between these landscape indices and triglyceride risk, and employed a structural equation model to explore the potential contributions of heatwaves and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) to this association. RESULTS: Overall, triglyceride was expected to increase by 0.046% (95% CI: 0.040%, 0.052%) with a 1% increase in the percentage of built-up area. Conversely, an increase in the percentage of greenspace was associated with a 0.270% (95% CI: 0.337%, -0.202%) decrease in triglyceride levels. Furthermore, when the total greenspace was held constant, the shape, connectedness, and aggregation of greenspace were inversely correlated with triglyceride levels, with effects of -0.605% (95% CI: 1.012%, -0.198%), -0.031% (95% CI: 0.039%, -0.022%), and -0.049% (95% CI: 0.058%, -0.039%), respectively. Likewise, the protective effect of the area-weighed mean shape index was higher than that of the total amount of greenspace. The stratification results showed that urban residents benefited more from greenspace exposure. Greenspace morphology can minimize triglyceride risk by reducing pollutant and heatwaves, with aggregation having the greatest effect on reducing pollutants whereas fragmentation is more efficient at reducing heatwaves. CONCLUSION: Exposure to the greenspaces morphology is associated with a reduction in triglyceride risk. The study has important practical and policy implications for early health monitoring and the spatial layout of greenspace and will provide scientific information for healthy urban planning by reducing unfavorable health consequences.

The Superblock model: A review of an innovative urban model for sustainability, liveability, health and well-being.

INTRODUCTION: Current urban and transport planning practices have significant negative health, environmental, social and economic impacts in most cities. New urban development models and policies are needed to reduce these negative impacts. The Superblock model is one such innovative urban model that can significantly reduce these negative impacts through reshaping public spaces into more diverse uses such as increase in green space, infrastructure supporting social contacts and physical activity, and through prioritization of active mobility and public transport, thereby reducing air pollution, noise and urban heat island effects. This paper reviews key aspects of the Superblock model, its implementation and initial evaluations in Barcelona and the potential international uptake of the model in Europe and globally, focusing on environmental, climate, lifestyle, liveability and health aspects. METHODS: We used a narrative meta-review approach and PubMed and Google scholar databases were searched using specific terms. RESULTS: The implementation of the Super block model in Barcelona is slow, but with initial improvement in, for example, environmental, lifestyle, liveability and health indicators, although not so consistently. When applied on a large scale, the implementation of the Superblock model is not only likely to result in better environmental conditions, health and wellbeing, but can also contribute to the fight against the climate crisis. There is a need for further expansion of the program and further evaluation of its impacts and answers to related concerns, such as environmental equity and gentrification, traffic and related environmental exposure displacement. The implementation of the Superblock model gained a growing international reputation and variations of it are being planned or implemented in cities worldwide. Initial modelling exercises showed that it could be implemented in large parts of many cities. CONCLUSION: The Superblock model is an innovative urban model that addresses environmental, climate, liveability and health concerns in cities. Adapted versions of the Barcelona Superblock model are being implemented in cities around Europe and further implementation, monitoring and evaluation are encouraged. The Superblock model can be considered an important public health intervention that will reduce mortality and morbidity and generate cost savings for health and other sectors.

Health by design; optimising our urban environmental microbiomes for human health.

Humans have evolved in direct and intimate contact with their environment and the microbes that it contains, over a period of 2 million years. As a result, human physiology has become intrinsically linked to environmental microbiota. Urbanisation has reduced our exposure to harmful pathogens, however there is now increasing evidence that these same health-protective improvements in our environment may also be contributing to a hidden disease burden: immune dysregulation. Thoughtful and purposeful design has the potential to ameliorate these health concerns by providing sources of microbial diversity for human exposure. In this narrative review, we highlight the role of environmental microbiota in human health and provide insights into how we can optimise human health through well-designed cities, urban landscapes and buildings. The World Health Organization recommends there should be at least one public green space of least 0.5 ha in size within 300m of a place of residence. We argue that these larger green spaces are more likely to permit functioning ecosystems that deliver ecosystem services, including the provision of diverse aerobiomes. Urban planning must consider the conservation and addition of large public green spaces, while landscape design needs to consider how to maximise environmental, social and public health outcomes, which may include rewilding. Landscape designers need to consider how people use these spaces, and how to optimise utilisation, including for those who may experience challenges in access (e.g. those living with disabilities, people in residential care). There are also opportunities to improve health via building design that improves access to diverse environmental microbiota. Considerations include having windows that open, indoor plants, and the relationship between function, form and organization. We emphasise possibilities for re-introducing potentially health-giving microbial exposures into urban environments, particularly where the benefits of exposure to biodiverse environments may have been lost.

Association between area-level walkability and glycated haemoglobin: a Portuguese population-based study.

Diabetes poses a substantial disease burden, prompting preventive interventions. Physical inactivity, a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes, can potentially be mitigated by enhancing area-level walkability. Despite this, limited population-based studies have investigated the link between walkability and objective diabetes measures. Our study aims to estimate the association between area-level walkability and individual glycated haemoglobin levels in the Portuguese adult population without the diagnosis of diabetes. Data from the 2011 census and an updated street map were obtained to construct a walkability index based on residential density, land-use mix, and street connectivity. Individual health data were sourced from The National Health Examination Survey (INSEF) 2015, a representative survey of the Portuguese adult population. Gamma regression was employed for estimation of the main associations, revealing that residing in moderately walkable areas significantly reduced average glycated haemoglobin levels (Exp(ß) = 0.906; 95% CI: 0.821, 0.999) compared to the least walkable areas. The association was less pronounced and not statistically significant for the third tertile of walkability (Exp(ß) = 0.919; 95% CI: 0.822, 1.028). Our findings highlight a nonlinear protective association between walkability and glycated haemoglobin, emphasizing the potential policy implications for urban planning, diabetes prevention, and health promotion.

Drivers of fatal bird collisions in an urban center.

Millions of nocturnally migrating birds die each year from collisions with built structures, especially brightly illuminated buildings and communication towers. Reducing this source of mortality requires knowledge of important behavioral, meteorological, and anthropogenic factors, yet we lack an understanding of the interacting roles of migration, artificial lighting, and weather conditions in causing fatal bird collisions. Using two decades of collision surveys and concurrent weather and migration measures, we model numbers of collisions occurring at a large urban building in Chicago. We find that the magnitude of nocturnal bird migration, building light output, and wind conditions are the most important predictors of fatal collisions. The greatest mortality occurred when the building was brightly lit during large nocturnal migration events and when winds concentrated birds along the Chicago lakeshore. We estimate that halving lighted window area decreases collision counts by 11× in spring and 6× in fall. Bird mortality could be reduced by ∼60% at this site by decreasing lighted window area to minimum levels historically recorded. Our study provides strong support for a relationship between nocturnal migration magnitude and urban bird mortality, mediated by light pollution and local atmospheric conditions. Although our research focuses on a single site, our findings have global implications for reducing or eliminating a critically important cause of bird mortality.

Provisional COVID-19 infrastructure induces large, rapid increases in cycling.

The bicycle is a low-cost means of transport linked to low risk of transmission of infectious disease. During the COVID-19 crisis, governments have therefore incentivized cycling by provisionally redistributing street space. We evaluate the impact of this new bicycle infrastructure on cycling traffic using a generalized difference in differences design. We scrape daily bicycle counts from 736 bicycle counters in 106 European cities. We combine these with data on announced and completed pop-up bike lane road work projects. Within 4 mo, an average of 11.5 km of provisional pop-up bike lanes have been built per city and the policy has increased cycling between 11 and 48% on average. We calculate that the new infrastructure will generate between $1 and $7 billion in health benefits per year if cycling habits are sticky.

Breathing in danger: Understanding the multifaceted impact of air pollution on health impacts.

Air pollution, a pervasive environmental threat that spans urban and rural landscapes alike, poses significant risks to human health, exacerbating respiratory conditions, triggering cardiovascular problems, and contributing to a myriad of other health complications across diverse populations worldwide. This article delves into the multifarious impacts of air pollution, utilizing cutting-edge research methodologies and big data analytics to offer a comprehensive overview. It highlights the emergence of new pollutants, their sources, and characteristics, thereby broadening our understanding of contemporary air quality challenges. The detrimental health effects of air pollution are examined thoroughly, emphasizing both short-term and long-term impacts. Particularly vulnerable populations are identified, underscoring the need for targeted health risk assessments and interventions. The article presents an in-depth analysis of the global disease burden attributable to air pollution, offering a comparative perspective that illuminates the varying impacts across different regions. Furthermore, it addresses the economic ramifications of air pollution, quantifying health and economic losses, and discusses the implications for public policy and health care systems. Innovative air pollution intervention measures are explored, including case studies demonstrating their effectiveness. The paper also brings to light recent discoveries and insights in the field, setting the stage for future research directions. It calls for international cooperation in tackling air pollution and underscores the crucial role of public awareness and education in mitigating its impacts. This comprehensive exploration serves not only as a scientific discourse but also as a clarion call for action against the invisible but insidious threat of air pollution, making it a vital read for researchers, policymakers, and the general public.

The barriers to uptake of disaster risk management science in urban planning: A political economy analysis.

There is increasing effort in science to support disaster risk management (DRM) and climate change adaptation in urban environments. It is now common for research calls and projects to reference coproduction methods and science uptake goals. This paper identifies lessons for researchers, research funders, and research users wishing to enable useful, useable, and used science based on the perspectives of research users in urban planning from low- and middle-income countries. DRM-supporting science is viewed by policy actors as: complicated and poorly communicated; presenting inadequate, partial, and outdated information; misaligned with policy cycles; and costly to access and inadequately positioned to overcome the policy barriers that hinder integration of DRM into urban planning. Addressing these specific concerns points to more systematic collection and organisation of data and enhancement of supporting administrative structures to facilitate better sight of human vulnerability and its link to development decision-making and wider processes of urban risk creation.

Reliability and Detectability of Emergency Management Systems in Smart Cities under Common Cause Failures.

Urban areas are undergoing significant changes with the rise of smart cities, with technology transforming how cities develop through enhanced connectivity and data-driven services. However, these advancements also bring new challenges, especially in dealing with urban emergencies that can disrupt city life and infrastructure. The emergency management systems have become crucial elements for enabling cities to better handle urban emergencies, although ensuring the reliability and detectability of such system remains critical. This article introduces a new method to perform reliability and detectability assessments. By using Fault Tree Markov chain models, this article evaluates their performance under extreme conditions, providing valuable insights for designing and operating urban emergency systems. These analyses fill a gap in the existing research, offering a comprehensive understanding of emergency management systems functionality in complex urban settings.

Enhancing Urban Data Analysis: Leveraging Graph-Based Convolutional Neural Networks for a Visual Semantic Decision Support System.

The persistent increase in the magnitude of urban data, combined with the broad range of sensors from which it derives in modern urban environments, poses issues including data integration, visualization, and optimal utilization. The successful selection of suitable locations for predetermined commercial activities and public utility services or the reuse of existing infrastructure arise as urban planning challenges to be addressed with the aid of the aforementioned data. In our previous work, we have integrated a multitude of publicly available real-world urban data in a visual semantic decision support environment, encompassing map-based data visualization with a visual query interface, while employing and comparing several classifiers for the selection of appropriate locations for establishing parking facilities. In the current work, we challenge the best representative of the previous approach, i.e., random forests, with convolutional neural networks (CNNs) in combination with a graph-based representation of the urban input data, relying on the same dataset to ensure comparability of the results. This approach has been inspired by the inherent visual nature of urban data and the increased capability of CNNs to classify image-based data. The experimental results reveal an improvement in several performance indices, implying a promising potential for this specific combination in decision support for urban planning problems.

Bridging the gap: Public engagement in blue-green space development for healthier urban futures.

BACKGROUND: With the rapid escalation of global urbanization, the role of blue-green spaces in urban ecology, public health, and planning has become increasingly prominent. Although their contributions to ecological preservation, public health, and urban design are widely acknowledged, research into public engagement and willingness to participate in the management and planning of these spaces is still in its early stages. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to identify key factors influencing public willingness to participate in blue-green space management, focusing specifically on people's perceptions of blue-green spaces (including perceived quality and accessibility), their usage behaviors (i.e., frequency of usage of blue-green spaces), and their self-assessed physical and mental health. METHODS: We interviewed local residents through random sampling to obtain sample data, and used a representative sample (n = 815, 510 women; 305 men, age 18-85 years, lived in Chengdu for an extensive time) of residents living in Chengdu City, China. Employing a quantitative approach, we examined the relationships between factors such as gender, regular occupation, income, behavior, and health status in relation to the willingness to participate. Additionally, we explored how perceptions and behaviors impacted health statuses and, consequently, inclinations to participate. RESULTS: The findings indicate that individuals with steady occupations and higher incomes are more inclined to engage in the management and planning of blue-green spaces. Notably, men exhibited a greater tendency to participate than women. Furthermore, access to blue-green spaces emerged as a crucial mechanism for addressing health disparities, offering significant implications for urban planning and public health. CONCLUSION: Successful blue-green space planning and understanding of willingness to participate necessitates the holistic consideration of people's perceptions of blue-green spaces, their usage behaviour and their self-rate health. For a tangible impact on health equity and global urban development, it's essential to prioritize blue-green spaces in planning, especially in lower-income regions. This not only promotes environmental perception but can also be a strategic approach to address health disparities. Our findings offer vital insights for tailoring international urban planning and management practices towards these goals.

Impact of urban space on PM2.5 distribution: A multiscale and seasonal study in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration.

Despite concerted efforts in emission control, air pollution control remains challenging. Urban planning has emerged as a crucial strategy for mitigating PM2.5 pollution. What remains unclear is the impact of urban form and their interactions with seasonal changes. In this study, base on the air quality monitoring stations in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, the relationship between urban spatial indicators (building morphology and land use) and PM2.5 concentrations was investigated using full subset regression and variance partitioning analysis, and seasonal differences were further analysed. Our findings reveal that PM2.5 pollution exhibits different sensitivities to spatial scales, with higher sensitivity to the local microclimate formed by the three-dimensional structure of buildings at the local scale, while land use exerts greater influence at larger scales. Specifically, land use indicators contributed sustantially more to the PM2.5 prediction model as buffer zone expand (from an average of 2.41% at 100 m range to 47.30% at 5000 m range), whereas building morphology indicators display an inverse trend (from an average of 13.84% at 100 m range to 1.88% at 5000 m range). These results enderscore the importance of considering building morphology in local-scale urban planning, where the increasing building height can significantly enhance the disperion of PM2.5 pollution. Conversely, large-scale urban planning should prioritize the mixed use of green spaces and construction lands to mitigate PM2.5 pollution. Moreover, the significant seasonal differences in the ralationship between urban spatical indicatiors and PM2.5 pollution were observed. Particularly moteworthy is the heightened association between forest, water indicators and PM2.5 concentrations in summer, indicating the urban forests may facilitate the formation of volatile compunds, exacerbating the PM2.5 pollution. Our study provides a theoretical basis for addressing scale-related challenges in urban spatial planning, thereby forstering the sustainable development of cities.

Combined sewer overflow mitigation through SUDS - A review on modelling practices, scenario elaboration, and related performances.

Hydrologic-hydraulic modelling of urban catchment is an asset for land managers to simulate Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) implementation to fulfil combined sewer overflow (CSO) regulations. This review aims to assess the current practices in modelling SUDS scenarios at large scale for CSO mitigation encompassing every stage of the modelling process from the choice of the equation to the validation of the initial state of the urban system, right through to the elaboration, modelling, and selection of SUDS scenarios to evaluate their performance on CSO. Through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 50 published studies, we found a diversity of choices when modelling the status quo of the urban system. Authors generally do not explain the modelling processes of slow components (deep infiltration, groundwater infiltration) and interconnexion between SUDS and the sewer system. In addition, only a few authors explain how CSO structures are modelled. Furthermore, the modelling of SUDS implementation at catchment scale is highlighted in the 50 studies retrieved with three different approaches going from simplified to detailed. SUDS modelling choices seem to be consistent with the objectives: studies focusing on dealing with several objectives at the time typically opt for a complex system configuration that includes the surface processes, network, CSO, SUDS, and often the soil and/or groundwater components. Conversely, authors who have selected a basic configuration generally aim to address a single, straightforward question (e.g., which type of SUDS). However, elaboration and selection of scenarios for CSO mitigation is mainly based on local constraints, which does not allow hydrological performance to be directly optimised. In conclusion, to improve current practices in modelling SUDS scenarios at large scale for CSO mitigation, authors suggest to: (i) improve clear practices of CSO modelling, calibration and validation at the urban catchment scale, (ii) develop methods to optimize the performance of scenarios for CSO mitigation using hydrological drivers, and (iii) improve parsimonious and user-friendly models to simulate SUDS scenarios in a context of data scarcity.

Dynamic analysis of carbon emissions from construction and demolition activities in Japan: Revealed by high-resolution 4D-GIS modeling.

To meet the 2050 decarbonization target of the global buildings and construction sector, more attention is needed to reduce carbon emissions from construction and demolition. However, current national carbon accounting studies for these activities remain limited in spatial granularity and localized applicability. This study developed a bottom-up spatiotemporal database of carbon emissions from building construction and demolition in Japan via integrating a geographic information system-based building stock model, statistical data, and survey information. Focusing on municipal-level emissions, the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index approach was used to decompose spatiotemporal variations and identify the contributing factors. Results indicate that carbon emissions from Japan's construction and demolition activities fell by more than 50% between 2005 and 2020, largely due to declining new/demolished-to-stock ratio, suggesting a transition to a stock-based society. Central cities' reliance on carbon-intensive buildings positively contributed to spatial variations in their construction emissions, underscoring the importance of sustainable materials and timber designs. Differences between prefectures in demolition emission intensity highlighted the strategic placement of recycling facilities in key regions to curb transportation-related emissions. Overall, these findings provided data reference for local governments to devise tailored policies for managing construction and demolition emissions.

Urban biodiversity conservation: A framework for ecological network construction and priority areas identification considering habit differences within species.

The construction of ecological networks within the context of urbanization is an effective approach to cope with the challenges of urban biodiversity decline, representing a crucial goal in urban planning and development. However, existing studies often overlook the richness and uniqueness within species communities by homogenizing traits of species in the same class. This study proposes a framework for constructing and optimizing ecological networks focused on differential conservation within the same class. By classifying birds into three groups (specialists of water, forest or urban areas) based on their ecological requirements and urbanization tolerance, we constructed an ecological network tailored to their distinct migratory dispersal patterns. We then identified strategic areas including pinch points, barriers, and breakpoints specific to each bird group. Our findings reveal notable variations in suitable habitat distribution among different bird groups in urban environments. Corridor layouts varied according to habitat preferences and migratory dispersal patterns. Despite these differences, urban built-up areas persist as central hubs for the distribution of suitable habitats for 75% of bird species, with peripheral mountain-plain transition areas constituting 63% of crucial dispersal corridors. This emphasizes the critical role of urban built-up areas in maintaining biodiversity and ecological connectivity. Prioritizing connectivity between central urban areas and distant natural spaces is imperative. Our approach innovatively classifies and constructs networks to identify strategic areas with diverse species-specific attributes, providing valuable spatial information for land planning and guiding solutions to enhance target species. While the primary focus is on bird conservation in Beijing, our framework is broadly applicable to global biodiversity management and green planning under urbanization challenges. Overall, this study offers innovative insights for urban planning development and serves as decision support for prioritizing urban actions.

Digitally supported participation in the nexus between public health and urban planning.

The nexus between urban planning and public health acknowledges the importance of creating cities that contribute to their residents' physical, mental, and social well-being. The Healthy Cities movement underlines that community participation and intersectoral work are important to create sustainable, equitable, and healthy cities.Several theoretical and practical participatory approaches form the foundation for participation in public health and urban planning. Growing digitalization has significantly transformed how participation is conducted in various fields. Digital technologies not only play a large role in daily life, but they have opened more opportunities for individuals to interact, share, and collaborate in the planning and design of cities.This article explores how digital technologies enable participation among residents and stakeholders in order to support the health-oriented planning of cities and neighborhoods. From the selective case studies presented in the paper, it can be ascertained that digital technologies can support various forms of participation by enabling different levels of engagement as well as both one-way and two-way interactions. Some forms of engagement can be supported entirely within digital platforms. However, in the case of higher engagement, which requires deeper insights into the problems and the codevelopment of solutions, other nondigital formats and traditional methods such as follow-up workshops and focus group discussions are necessary to complement the digital form of participation.