Wan-Yu Shih

National Taiwan University | NTU · Disaster Risk Reduction and Reslience (MDR3)

Urban green infrastructure is central to integrated climate responses linking ecosystem services and social equity within urban planning for extreme heat in cities. This study examines the extent to which temperature regulating services from green infrastructure influence electricity consumption along with socio-economic gradient across urban neigh...

The purpose of this paper is to assess the role of greenspace patterns on cooling effects from urban greenspaces. Greenspace has been argued to have significant potential to mitigate urban heat island effect in urban areas, and thus to reduce risks to human health and wellbeing intensified by global warming. Based on remote sensing data and subsequ...

This paper argues that climate change adaptation through strategic greenspace planning requires scholars and planners to think differently about what equity means in an urban greenspace context. We use the heat mitigation potential of greenspace and the case of Taipei Metropolis in Taiwan to assess challenges arising from thinking about fairness in...

This paper assesses the influence of land development patterns on intra-urban thermal variation in a densely-developed subtropical city, considering joint effect from greenspace pattern and built-up geometry. Despite growing research on urban climates, research at a scale that can support urban planning with scientificallyinformed strategies is sti...

Risk to health from extreme heat is gaining attention in scholarship and policy. Demographic and socio-economic factors affect the extent to which a person is at risk from extreme heat, whilst empirical research of social vulnerability to heat outside a ‘Western’ context is relatively limited. Many countries still rely on expert judgements to draw...

Climate change research is broad, diverse and constantly growing. Cross- and interdisciplinary understanding is essential for generating robust science advice for policy. However, it is challenging to prioritise and navigate the ever-expanding peer-reviewed literature. To address this, we gathered input from experts across various research fields t...

The urban heat island effect has become a common meteorological phenomenon in urban areas in recent years. Research on urban thermal environments has used various technologies, such as remote sensing, on-site/mobile measurement, and model simulation. This study employed satellite images to comprehensively identify the correlations between thermal e...

Increased extreme heat events draw attention to the potential of urban nature as a heat adaptation strategy for cities. This is reflected in multiple scientific perspective pieces, policy documents and science media publications advocating for urban greening as a cooling approach. Although attention to the dangers of heat and the benefits of urban...

There is growing interest globally in the potential of urban farming to respond to a breadth of urban sustainability challenges. Yet it is also recognised that the policy and implementation of this nature-based strategy is influenced by an underlying science–policy–practice community. The aim of this paper is to understand how different actors and...

There is increasing advocacy from academics, international agenda-setting organisations, and cities themselves for expert- and evidence driven approaches to multiple aspects of urban climate change and sustainability, including nature-based solutions. However, given growing interest in nature-based solutions research and practice towards questions...

The Working Group II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides a comprehensive assessment of the scientific literature relevant to climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. The report recognizes the interactions of climate, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human societie...

Extreme heat events are gaining ever more policy and societal attention under a warming climate. Although a breadth of expertises are required to understand drivers of vulnerability to hazards such as extreme heat, it is also acknowledged that expert assessments in group settings may be subject to biases and uneven power relations. In this Technica...

Traditional engineering approaches alone (gray infrastructure) are not able to meet all the challenges of sustainability posed by growing urban population and consumption. Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure (GBI) can provide small-scale cost-effective treatments, and help the achievement of several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, kn...

Extreme high temperature poses significant threats to public health. Its slow-onset nature allows people to perceive discomfort and protect themselves from negative health consequences, but higher risk perception does not necessarily lead to precautions. Our study understands this gap by arguing that subjective heat-health symptoms are more direct...

This article reviews the current status of research on urban green and blue infrastructure (GBI) in developing countries. We critically analyzed a total of 283 papers addressing urban GBI in selected developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), published between 2015 and 2019. The review aimed to a) analyze publicati...

As concern increases over high temperatures in cities due to a combination of climate change and urban heat island effects, there is a rising interest in the cooling services that green infrastructure may provide. This article evaluates this role for green infrastructure as part of strategic land use planning to counter urban warming, through consi...

Interest in nature-based approaches for climate change adaptation in cities is growing. Whilst there is a growing field of scholarship in a European and North America setting, research on the policy and governance of urban greenspace for climate adaptation in subtropical Asia is limited. Given the different development patterns, environmental chara...

This paper assesses barriers to local biodiversity and ecosystem (BES) governance within cities, drawing on findings from an international expert survey encompassing 45 cities in 25 countries. BES is recognised as a key foundation for sustainable cities, yet current literature indicates that more clarity is needed on the factors which may undermine...

The intense development of Taipei City has caused high thermal stress in its urban areas. This study used the urban climatic map (UCmap) and the local climate zone (LCZ) to analyze how land development patterns have affected urban thermal conditions. The UCmap is an efficient tool for obtaining information about urban microclimatic conditions based...

This paper evaluates the role of epistemic communities in shaping local environmental policy, through the case of management of environmental change through planning and greenspace in Fukuoka City, Japan. Amidst increasing global interest in the role of evidence-based policy and urban science in responding to environmental issues in cities, Fukuoka...

Thermal distribution patterns and the influence of green infrastructure in Taipei Basin were analyzed using LANDSAT 8 satellite imagery. The image analysis results showed that most heat islands are distributed within New Taipei City, where they are characterised by densely built areas and/or large and continuous impervious surfaces; whereas cool is...

We assess socio-political challenges for urban heat island (UHI) mitigation in greenspace planning, focusing on Taipei Metropolis, Taiwan. Through analysis of articles from two newspapers, we suggest that attention to greenery and heat tends to reflect immediate weather or planning considerations, and that there is a persistent perception of greens...

(Full text available here: http://rdcu.be/Dcp1) Urban greenspaces harbouring many species in cities are vital planning objects for enhancing biodiversity. Seeking to optimise ecological values of urban greenspaces, this paper explores 1. Bird composition by feeding and foraging characteristics in urban greenspaces located in densely developed centr...

This paper evaluates the planning competences required to enact a managed transition to sustainability at the municipal level for cities facing population, economic and employment decline. Drawing on the ‘shrinking cities’ literature, we argue consolidation of the built environment can become a focal point for sustaining citizen welfare when transi...

This paper evaluates the role of land-use planning, especially open space systems, in mainstreaming biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES) at the urban level. Whilst there is increasing interest in BES mainstreaming to balance environmental protection with socio-economic development, there is also concern that BES thinking deflects attention fro...

This study aims to develop a model for predicting thermal distribution in cities based on urban development patterns. Featured by the process of urbanization and land use policy, built environments are varied in land cover, density, building height, and usage. This study applied the classification scheme of Local Climate Zones (LCZs) to categorize...

This study examines how urban development patterns might influence thermal distribution across the urbanized areas of Taipei Basin. By means of LANDSAT 8 data and the mapping scheme of local climate zones, the development characteristics were classified into climatological related features and was correlated to corresponding land surface temperatur...

Ecosystem-based Adaptation is the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services as part of an overall adaptation strategy to help people to adapt to the negative effect of climate change (SCBD, 2009). Through the management, conservation, and restoration of ecosystem, a wide range of environmental benefits, such as carbon sequestration, temperature re...

Green infrastructure that provides cooling service is regarded as a critical urban planning strategy to mitigate urban heat. This study assesses important greenspace and matrix factors that contribute to greenspace cooling effect beyond greenspaces in Taipei metropolis using Landsat 8 satellite imagery. The results indicated that both greenspace an...

Greenspaces provides an important cooling services to mitigate urban heat island effect. Several studies have shown important greenspace characteristics that are positively related to cooling magnitude. Less studies however have investigated the effect of greenspace configuration on temperature reduction both within and beyond greenspaces. Taking T...

Green Infrastructure (GI) plays a critical role in providing multiple ecosystem services in urban areas and their cooling effect is considered as a mitigation strategy for urban heat island effect (Gill et al., 2006). The temperature of urban GI and their immediate surroundings is found to be lower than that in built-up areas (e.g Bowler et al., 20...

This assessment explores the Japanese concepts of satoyama and satoumi (land and coastal), as possible strategies for sustainable management and governance of common urban ecological resources. Satoyama and satoumi are described as landscape types, and management approaches to land and coastal areas that build on a mosaic composition of ecosystem t...

1 ABSTRACT Urban green spaces contribute to the quality of human life, whilst providing significant value to biodiversity (Hough, 2004; Sundseth and Raeymaekers, 2006). However, the recreation activities of people often inevitably conflict with habitat conservation, and achieving maximum benefits is difficult in practice. Green infrastructure conce...