A. Wandl

Amsterwarm: Mapping the landuse, health and energy-efficiency implications of the Amsterdam urban heat island

The Amsterwarm project investigates the urban heat island of Amsterdam, the vulnerability of its population, the energy efficiency of its buildings and landuse. A novel mapping approach provides insights into the questions of what causes the urban heat island and who will be affected by it. Landuse does affect the surface temperature. The difference between the areas in the city with the least and the greatest impervious surface coverage accounts for an average land surface temperature difference of 11.6℃ per hectare. The study demonstrates furthermore that the vulnerability of people and buildings to the urban heat island effect is a local condition in which the energy efficiency of buildings, quality of life and demographic factors should all be considered in an approach that is sensitive to place. Practical application: The typological maps will allow local authorities to prioritise adaptive actions in urban planning in response to the urban heat island, an emerging climate-related challenge that has a significant impact on the comfort and health of its citizens and on the (future) energy use required for cooling buildings. Raising the albedo in those areas of the city that are dominated by impervious surface cover seems an effective adaptation strategy, suitable to a city such as Amsterdam that no longer builds on green field sites but only builds as possible within the envelope of the existing city. Improving the quality of life in neighbourhoods and the energy efficiency/climate proofing of the building stock could also be prioritised in the identified neighbourhoods.

Sustainable Planning of Peri-Urban Areas: Introduction to the Special Issue

Peri-urban areas have enormous potential to play a positive role in enhancing urban sustainability at the global level. This is because cities in all countries have to face the challenges posed by ...

Introducing Spatial Variability to the Impact Significance Assessment

The concept of Circular Economy has gained momentum during the last decade. Yet unsustainable circular systems can also create unintended social, economic and environmental damage. Sustainability is highly dependent on a system’s geographical context, such as location of resources, cultural acceptance, economic, environmental and transport geography. While in some cases an impact of the proposed change may be considered equally significant under all circumstances (e.g. increase of carbon emissions as a main contributor to the global climate change), many impacts may change both their direction and the extent of significance dependent on their context (e.g. land consumption may be positively evaluated if applied to abandoned territories or negatively if a forest needs to be sacrificed). The geographical context, (i.e. its sensitivity, vulnerability or potential) is commonly assessed by Spatial Decision Support Systems. However, currently those systems typically do not perform an actual impact assessment as impact characteristics stay constant regardless of location. Likewise, relevant Impact Assessment methods, although gradually becoming more spatial, assume their context as invariable. As a consequence, impact significance so far is also a spatially unvarying concept. However, current technological developments allow to rapidly record, analyse and visualise spatial data. This article introduces the concept of spatially varying impact significance assessment, by reviewing its current definitions in literature, and analysing to what extent the concept is applied in existing assessment methods. It concludes with a formulation of spatially varying impact significance assessment for innovation in the field of impact assessment.

Haagse Hitte : Het Haagse warmte-eiland in kaart gebracht

De afgelopen jaren zijn verschillende studies verricht naar het warmte-eiland effect in Nederland. Een studie van TNO (TNO, 2012) heeft voor wat betreft Den Haag de toon gezet. Den Haag zou van alle Nederlandse steden het sterkste warmte-eiland effect kennen. Die beeldvorming heeft gezorgd voor een maatschappelijke en politieke bezorgdheid die het vertrekpunt vormt voor dit Haagse Hitte onderzoek van de TU Delft, mede mogelijk gemaakt door de gemeente Den Haag. Bij het onderzoek hebben we ons de volgende vragen gesteld: - Is het warmte-eiland effect in Den Haag inderdaad fors sterker dan in naburige steden? - Welke stadsdelen van de gemeente Den Haag zijn het sterkst getroffen door het zomerse hitte-eiland effect? - Wordt het warmte-eiland effect in Den Haag veroorzaakt door het ruimtegebruik? En zo ja, welk ruimtegebruik legt hier het meeste gewicht in de schaal? - In juli 2006 trad er als gevolg van de extreme hitte een verhoogde sterfte op in Den Haag. Is de ruimtelijke spreiding van de sterfte gedurende die maand mede te verklaren aan de hand van het warmte-eiland effect? - Is er voldoende aanleiding voor de stad Den Haag om actie te ondernemen ten aanzien van het stadsklimaat? En zo ja, moeten dan bepaalde delen van de stad eerder aangepakt worden dan andere? Welke adaptieve maatregelen moeten we daar nemen om het warmte-eiland effect verminderen?

Social-Ecological-Technical systems in urban planning for a circular economy: an opportunity for horizontal integration

ABSTRACT The Circular Economy (CE) is receiving interest worldwide as a way to overcome the currently dominating linear and wasteful production and consumption models of our society. Currently the implementation of CE thinking into practice is still in an early stage. As the main hubs of consumption and to a more limited extent also, production, metropolitan areas often are seen as crucial to achieving a successful transition towards a CE, and therefore it is necessary to find ways to integrate a CE based approach into urban planning practice. In this paper literature dealing with the concept of the CE is reviewed within an urban planning framework to examine how well integrated it is in the built environment, both vertically and horizontally, in ideas prevalent in CE literature. The paper aims to contribute to the understanding of how the concept of CE can be integrated into urban planning practice with a view to enabling urban planners to integrate CE into their work to further accelerate the implementation of CE in metropolitan areas. In this paper a framework is presented for understanding opportunities for the integration of CE into urban planning.

Towards Sustainable Territories-in-Between: A Multidimensional Typology of Open Spaces in Europe

Abstract To improve the ecosystem service provided by open spaces in dispersed urban areas is a key challenge for sustainable spatial development in Europe. The typology presented in this article illustrates the different potentials that open spaces in territories-in-between have across 10 cases in Europe. Unlike other typologies, neither function nor form is used for the classification, but the potential interaction of open spaces with social, technical and ecological networks. Therefore, the typology informs regional spatial planning and design about the potential ecosystem services in networked urban regions. Thereby the importance of territories-in-between, which are often neglected by mainstream spatial planning and design, for sustainable development is highlighted.