| 1. |
- Chester, Mikhail V., et al.
(author)
-
Sensemaking for entangled urban social, ecological, and technological systems in the Anthropocene
- 2023
-
In: npj Urban Sustainability. - 2661-8001. ; 3:1
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Our urban systems and their underlying sub-systems are designed to deliver only a narrow set of human-centered services, with little or no accounting or understanding of how actions undercut the resilience of social-ecological-technological systems (SETS). Embracing a SETS resilience perspective creates opportunities for novel approaches to adaptation and transformation in complex environments. We: i) frame urban systems through a perspective shift from control to entanglement, ii) position SETS thinking as novel sensemaking to create repertoires of responses commensurate with environmental complexity (i.e., requisite complexity), and iii) describe modes of SETS sensemaking for urban system structures and functions as basic tenets to build requisite complexity. SETS sensemaking is an undertaking to reflexively bring sustained adaptation, anticipatory futures, loose-fit design, and co-governance into organizational decision-making and to help reimagine institutional structures and processes as entangled SETS.
|
|
| 2. |
- Lin, Brenda B., et al.
(author)
-
Nature experience from yards provide an important space for mental health during Covid-19
- 2023
-
In: npj Urban Sustainability. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2661-8001. ; 3:1
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Urban dwellers' use of public and private green spaces may have changed during the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic due to movement restriction. A survey was deployed in Brisbane and Sydney, Australia 1 year after the start of Covid-19 restrictions (April 2021) to explore relationships of mental health and wellbeing to different patterns of private yard versus public green space visitation. More frequent yard use during the initial year of Covid-19 was correlated with lower stress, depression, and anxiety and higher wellbeing. However, greater duration of yard visits (week prior to survey) was associated with higher stress, anxiety, and depression scores, potentially because individuals may seek to use nature spaces immediately available for emotional regulation during difficult times. The results highlight the importance of yards for mental health and wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic and that relationships between nature interaction and mental health may be context and timeframe dependent.
|
|
| 3. |
- Reckien, Diana, et al.
(author)
-
Quality of urban climate adaptation plans over time
- 2023
-
In: npj Urban Sustainability. - : Springer Nature. - 2661-8001. ; 3:1
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Defining and measuring progress in adaptation are important questions for climate adaptation science, policy, and practice. Here, we assess the progress of urban adaptation planning in 327 European cities between 2005 and 2020 using three ‘ADAptation plan Quality Assessment’ indices, called ADAQA-1/ 2/ 3, that combine six plan quality principles. Half of the cities have an adaptation plan and its quality significantly increased over time. However, generally, plan quality is still low in many cities. Participation and monitoring and evaluation are particularly weak aspects in urban adaptation policy, together with plan ‘consistency’. Consistency connects impacts and vulnerabilities with adaptation goals, planned measures, actions, monitoring and evaluation, and participation processes. Consistency is a key factor in the overall quality of plans. To help evaluate the quality of plans and policies and promote learning, we suggest incorporating our ADAptation plan Quality Assessment indices into the portfolio of adaptation progress assessments and tracking methodologies.
|
|
