S M Labib

Utrecht University | UU · Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning

CO2 emissions from urban traffic are a major concern in an era of increasing ecological disequilibrium. Adding to the problem net CO2 emissions in urban settings are worsened due to the decline of bio-productive areas in many cities. This decline exacerbates the lack of capacity to sequestrate CO2 at the micro and meso-scales resulting in increased...

Background: (free download: https://bit.ly/3mIrn0d) There is an increasing volume of literature investigating the links between urban environments and human health, much of which involves spatial conceptualisations and research designs involving various aspects of geographical information science. Despite intensifying research interest, there has b...

Metrics representing exposure to the natural environment are widely used in environmental health-related studies. They are calculated using a variety of different data sources representing greenspace and a range of buffer sizes representing human interaction with the environment. Previous studies have identified issues relating to buffer distance a...

The visibility of natural greenness is associated with several health benefits along multiple pathways, including stress recovery and attention restoration mechanisms. However, existing methodologies are inadequate for capturing eye-level greenness visibility exposure at high spatial resolutions for observers located on the ground. As a response, w...

Background Greenspace exposures are often measured using single exposure metrics, which can lead to conflicting results. Existing methodologies are limited in their ability to estimate greenspace exposure comprehensively. We demonstrate new methods for estimating single and combined greenspace exposure metrics, representing multiple exposure types...

Previous reviews concluded that nature contact was an important coping strategy against poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the quality of evidence in these reviews was not sufficiently documented in terms of the risk of bias in reviewed studies. We attempted to fill this gap with a Navigation Guide systematic review and meta-...

Many world cities want to expand the number of urban trees. How this expansion occurs should consider what people expect from trees based on how they experience and perceive these trees. Therefore, we need a better understanding of how people’s perceptions of urban trees may relate to the abundance of urban trees. This research examined whether peo...

Most nature and health research use the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) for measuring greenness exposure. However, little is known about what NDVI measures in terms of vegetation types (e.g., canopy, grass coverage) within certain analysis zones (e.g., 500 m buffer). Additionally, exploration is needed to understand how to interpret c...

In this study, we aimed to investigate the relative influence of the built environment (BE) on commuter mode choice focusing on the nonlinear and interactions effects. We used 10,150 home-based commuter journeys from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to test several machine learning algorithms, and, based on predictive performance, we applied Random Forest to ana...

Despite much has been published in recent years about the effects of the built environment (BE) on urban travel in the developing world, much attention was on cities in China, while few articles have so far been published based on studies using a large city in a under developed South Asian country. The paper addresses the existing gaps in research...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic and measures such as lockdowns to control its transmission generated unique effects on psychological health and well-being. In these circumstances, access to nature and outdoor spaces became a potentially important coping strategy, but the evidence exploring the mental health benefits of nature exposure during diffe...

Numerous studies have highlighted the physical and mental health benefits of contact with nature, typically in landscapes characterized by plants (i.e., “greenspace”) and water (i.e., “bluespace”). However, natural landscapes are not always green or blue, and the effects of other landscapes are worth attention. This narrative review attempts to ove...

Numerous studies have highlighted the physical and mental health benefits of contact with nature, typically in landscapes characterized by plants (i.e., “greenspace”) and water (i.e., “bluespace”). However, natural landscapes are not always green or blue, and the effects of other landscapes are worth attention. This narrative review attempts to ove...

While COVID-19 lockdowns have slowed coronavirus transmission, such structural measures also have unintended consequences on mental and physical health. Growing evidence shows that exposure to the natural environment (e.g., blue-green spaces) can improve human health and wellbeing. In this narrative review, we synthesized the evidence about nature'...

Prior studies show that the Built Environment (BE) can influence route and mode choice, increasing the uptake of active modes and reducing car dominance. One of the main challenges in establishing such relationships between the BE and travel behaviour is the unavailability of micro-scale BE data. This study presents a methodology for harmonising an...

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected many people's psychological health. Impacts may be particularly severe among socially vulnerable populations such as college students, a group predisposed to mental health problems. Outdoor recreation and visits to greenspaces such as parks offer promising pathways for addressing the mental health chall...

[FINAL PUBLISHED VERSION: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155095 ] While COVID-19 lockdowns have slowed coronavirus transmission, such structural measures also have unintended consequences on mental and physical health. Growing evidence shows that exposure to the natural environment (e.g., blue-green spaces) can improve human health and we...

Background: The existing environment literature separately emphasizes the importance of neighborhood walkability and greenness in enhancing health and wellbeing. Thus, a desirable neighborhood should ideally be green and walkable at the same time. Yet, limited research exists on the prevalence of such "sweet spot" neighborhoods. We sought to inves...

Background Research suggests that exposure to green and blue space (GBS) is significantly associated with improved health and wellbeing; however, the relationship between GBS visibility and health is still poorly understood. Objectives Conduct a systematic review to understand the strength and adequacy of the associations between GBS visibility and...

Assessment of green visibility exposure is challenging for a large spatial extent and in a complex built environment. In this study, we demonstrated an innovative application of viewshed-based greenness visibility index (GVI) modelling at a fine spatial resolution for each location within the study area. We validated our GVI against a commonly used...

Urban green space use is often associated with improved physical and mental health and lower noncommunicable disease (NCDs) burdens. Factors that influence green space visits have been documented in cities of the Global North, but evidence of urban green space use patterns for cities in the Global South is scarce. The aim of this study is to invest...

The Rohingya crisis defies easy summary. Terms such as ethnic cleansing, genocide, abuse of human rights, have all been applied to what is undoubtedly a major humanitarian crisis of our times. Understanding and responding to the plight of hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas requires a multi-disciplinary approach, with the need for engagement from a...

Studies evaluating potential of Green Infrastructure (GI) development using traditional Boolean logic-based multi-criteria analysis methods are not capable of predicting future GI development under dynamic urban scape. This study evaluated robust soft-computing-based methods of artificial intelligence (Artificial Neural Network, Adaptive Neuro-Fuzz...

Studies evaluating the potential for green infrastructure (GI) development using traditional Boolean logic-based multi-criteria analysis methods are not capable of predicting future GI development in dynamic urbanscapes. This study evaluated both artificial neural network (ANN) and adaptive, network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) algorithms i...

A growing body of research has applied intelligent transportation technologies to reduce traffic congestion at signalized intersections. However, most of these studies have not considered the systematic integration of traffic data collection methods when simulating optimum signal timing. The present study developed a three-part system to create opt...

This paper explored the environmental cost of existing Rohingya Refugee crisis between Myanmar and Bangladesh, utilizing remote sensing techniques. The focus was to determine the loss of vegetation in setting refugee camp sites at Kutupalong-Balukhali expansion area. Change Vector Analysis has been applied to determine the forest cover loss using L...

Green infrastructure (GI) mapping and monitoring is crucial in urban areas, and remote sensing is widely used to accomplish the task. Improved moderate resolution Sentinel-2A (10 m) and LandSat-8 (15 m) images, in place of commercial satellite images, enable GI mapping with little to no cost. Considering so, the objective of this paper is to evalua...

Waste management is a major issue for rapidly growing megacities in developing countries. Unorganized and poor management system leads towards negative environmental impact, and lowering livability of these cities. How-ever, there are scope for integrating general people in the waste management to improve overall performance. In such context, the a...

This study explores the potential of public participatory GIS mapping in community based disaster management. Using P-GIS method, earthquake vulnerability map of a community in Ward-13 of Dhaka city has been prepared. The major focus of this research was to ensure community participation to increase their resilience to earthquake, find safe place w...

Public participation is a core of neighbourhood planning in UK. PPGIS has long been used to incorporate public knowledge of places into community planning. The need for instant spatial data acquisition and automated analysis process for decision making in planning process necessitates the update of public participation methods. This study focuses o...

Non-motorized transportation (NMT) services have vital role in urban public transportation for developing nations' megacities like Dhaka. Yet NMT services are not promoted and encouraged as fuel free public transportation mode. In order to depict the importance, and promoting NMT, this study developed a weighted index to reflect the situation of NM...

This paper focuses on stakeholder debate and conflict during policy implementation. In doing so it analyzes the reason behind the implementation snag of Bangladesh leather processing industry relocation policy, which is extreme stakeholder negotiation. Relevant stakeholders have been identified and their influence over the policy measure has been f...

Rapid urbanization in large cities around the globe demands for hurried development in transportation sector to meet the mobility needs for both people and goods. In doing so, the excessive transportation activities are required resulting congestion, mobility deficiencies, access inequality, inadequate road safety, excess emission of green house ga...

The main objectives of this study is to find the real estate buyers preferences for location, flat size and their choice factor for selecting flats at different locations in Dhaka. Secondly the study tried finding out the existing market condition and location preferences of different real estate firms. The study used primary collected from buyers...

Regional growth of any particular employment sector is influenced by economic and industrial structure of nation and region. Shift Share analysis determines the degree of influence of national development and regional and local factors on overall regional employment growth. It is argued that in traditional shift share component analysis cannot sepa...

Sustainable city with sustainable transportation system in now become the heartiest demand for burgher, especially in a city like Dhaka; where ecological imbalance lead to unbearable livable condition with unsustainable growth in every sector resulting the degradation of life quality. Transportation sector in Dhaka is one of the major adherents beh...