New Issue Published: Landscape Architecture, Volume 2026, Issue 1
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2024
- Research article
by
1College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
2Turenscape Urban Planning and Design Co., Ltd., Beijing 100080, China
- Volume 114 Issue 4
- Pages: 143
- - 160
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20241144-10
Planners of road corridors are thus confronted with the problem of how to translate capacity considerations into action within the context of valued landscapes that have been recognized as such by the local population. Public Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) can be used to identify these valued places. However, a survey of preferences does not necessarily yield information about the interpretation of weakly separated preservation options. In this paper, we apply the technique of Co-Valuation Tension Graphing to the question of how aggregate PPGIS data indicate preservation-stability, ambiguity-sensitivity, negotiation, and dependency on corridor planning as conditions for road-infrastructure development. Empirically, there are 1044 participants and 3132 mapped valued landscapes of Dutch corridor planning involving 1734 points, 1120 polygons, and 278 lines. The study applies sustainability-value coupling, land use selection, co-land use, and preservation-point concentration measures. The findings demonstrate that the public preference pattern is structured even if there is no preference for a unique sacrifice hierarchy. Company settlement and development potential show the strongest value coupling (rs = 0.596). Water body and soil represent the strongest substrate for environmental preservation (rs = 0.492). Agricultural land represents the most planning sensitive use because it shows positive relationships with ecology and biodiversity, soil, water bodies, and spatial quality and negative relationships with accessibility, development potential, citizen settlement, well-being and health, and social relevance. There is only very weak value selection of roads by preference scores but the land use adjacent to road infrastructure represents business, semi-built up, agricultural, and railway terrain. Preservation-point values demonstrate the extent of choice compression with 39.5% of respondents scoring above 50, 23.8% above 60, and 13.7% above 70 points. PPGIS tables may inform corridor planning if interpreted as relational evidence of value coupling, land use sensitivity, and preservation compression.
- Research article
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1The school of Automation and Electrical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China
- Volume 114 Issue 4
- Pages: 128
- - 142
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20241144-09
Green-area comparisons based solely on percentage cover, patch count, and aggregated connectivity may understate the stress on green systems caused by their high population pressure, limited resident-level supply, fine-grained grain, concentration of connectivity, and water shortage in dry climates. For the current comparison, the Population adjusted Connectivity Stress and Leverage (PaCSL) is calculated for the cities of Almada, Antwerp, Lisbon, Paris, Poznan, Tartu, and Zurich. PaCSL includes five normalized stress indices: population pressure, supply of green areas per 1000 residents, UGA fine-grained morphology, dominance of large or highly connected patches, and climate-induced water constraints. A distinct leverage factor is calculated as the product of the connectivity intensity and the percentage of green area cover, thus allowing to separate stressed systems from those with high consolidation potential. As the comparison demonstrates, the green percentage measure is an insufficient criterion for evaluating green-network condition in cities. For instance, Paris and Lisbon both have 16\% green areas, yet in Paris there is a much smaller share of green area per 1000 inhabitants (0.80 ha) compared to Lisbon where this figure stands at 2.49 ha per 1000. Paris has the largest PaCS stress index (0.989) with its maximum population pressure, maximum green supply scarcity, near-maximum UGA grain stress, maximum dominance, and moderate water constraint. The second highest score belongs to Lisbon (0.522) primarily due to small amount of green space per 1000 residents and severe water constraint. The third position, with PaCSL scores of 0.377 and 0.350 respectively, is shared by Almada and Tartu; however, the two have vastly differing leverage values of 0.835 and 0.018. Zurich has the largest leverage score (1.000) corresponding to 30\% green coverage and 292.90 connectivity units per hectare.
- Research article
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1Department of Urban Design and Landscape Planning Greenfield State University United States
- Volume 114 Issue 4
- Pages: 113
- - 127
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20241144-08
The importance of urban green infrastructure can be stated in terms of contributions to climate adaptation, biodiversity preservation, health benefits, community revitalisation, and environmental justice. Nevertheless, the potential contribution of urban green infrastructure to resilience may be overstated because strong ecological or innovation components can offset poor performance in terms of governance, autonomy, and social cohesion. In the case of the municipal programme for urban green infrastructure in Madrid between 2015 and 2019, one may distinguish 21 districts with more than three million inhabitants, a population density of 5512 inhabitants per km2, 18.3 m2 of green space per inhabitant, 1.4 trees per three inhabitants, 27 urban green infrastructure policies, 620 geolocated actions, 30 resilience indicators, six factor scores, and district vulnerability values. From a set of six factor scores, one can discern the following picture of the profile of this municipality: learning and innovation and social-ecological justice have reached 0.98 on the 0–2 scale; diversity – 0.95; social cohesion – 0.81; self-sufficiency and autonomy – 0.76; and polycentric governance – 0.69. The highest mean score (6.97) among all sets of three policies belongs to HI_plan, MD_info, and MI_plan. Together with GIB_plan and GS_plan, this constitutes a five-policy strategic core with a mean score of 6.74 and a better municipal balance due to the link between neighbourhood participation and planning continuity. District action scores correlate rather strongly (r = 0.569) and positively with the proportion of low-education or no-education residents, i.e., a partial pro-vulnerability orientation exists.
- Research article
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1Department of Landscape Architecture, Stuart Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, 119 Meyerson Hall, 210 South 34th Street, Philadelphia, PA19104-6311, USA
2Associate Professor, Department of Real Estate Management, HungKuo Delin University of Technology, No. 1, Lane 380, Qingyun Road, Tucheng District, New Taipei City
- Volume 114 Issue 3
- Pages: 97
- - 112
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20241143-07
The assessment of urban green infrastructure tends to be based on measures of parks, gardens, street trees, and open space, but the social impacts of urban greenery are additionally mediated by land form, soils, drainage, history of settlement, and metro connections. This paper focuses on London neighbourhood data for 1881-2001 to evaluate whether greening in poor slum-clearance areas was linked with lower lower-status concentration. The present study interprets the London coefficients in terms of their direction, statistical significance, and reliability for groups of variables including ground conditions and status distribution; the Slum2Green terms among cleared neighbourhoods; and the long-run socioeconomic evolution in light of centrality and the 1908 London Underground line network. In all 197 London neighbourhoods, alluvium land is positively related to lower status concentration in 1881 (\(0.101^{**}\)) and 2001 (\(0.024^{**}\)). Bed rock sand has positive correlations with upper status concentration in 1881 (\(0.984^{*}\)) and 2001 (\(0.390^{***}\)). Slope elevation has negative relationships with class v in 1881 (\(-4.115^{***}\)), and positive correlations with social classes i–ii, \(2.027^{*}\). The main Slum2Green coefficients by 2001 tend to be positive or close to zero, and are weakly statistically significant in all specifications except for all-clearance and MSOA. Period-specific greening indicators have mixed signs, without strong evidence of a persistent reduction in lower-status concentration due to greening. The size of clearance, proximity to central London, distance to Westminster, and distance to 1908 underground network exhibit stronger associations. The London experience, thus, suggests no evidence of class replacement in greened slum-clearance areas.
- Research article
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1Faculty of Architecture and Urban Studies Capital Design University Canada
2Department of Environmental Planning Pacific Research University Canada
3Department of Environmental Design Coastal Research University United States
- Volume 114 Issue 3
- Pages: 80
- - 96
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20241143-06
Green infrastructure in peri-urban areas may be assessed according to various criteria like green-area quantity, accessibility, or sustainability class. Such indicators prove valuable, however, the difference between convertible and resilient land remains overlooked. This paper studies Krakow’s peri-urban fringe based on land-use composition within five sustainability classes defined for each of the 2313 hexagonal cells in the assessment system. The aim was to identify sustainability classes that feature both significant proportion of space and land use configuration that increases vulnerability of green infrastructural assets. Additionally, the effect of a modest arable-permanent grassland land-use exchange is estimated on those two classes that exhibit relatively higher susceptibility to change. The five classes under study have 1095 fields each (which constitutes 47.34% of the total number of fields), while very high and high classes account for 615 fields apiece (totaling 26.59%). Ordinal state is equal to 2.81, while ordinal sustainability burden stands at 0.547. In the very low class, arable land covers 74%, built-up – 11%, permanent grassland – 10% and no forest; therefore, its exposure-resilience ratio comes up to 8.50. For very high class arable land occupies 16%, built-up – 3%, permanent grassland – 18% and forest – 58%; hence, it gets an exposure-resilience ratio equal to 0.25. The low class is primarily responsible for vulnerability since it involves 36.62% of the total number of fields, exposes 73% to conversion and scores the transition-priority value of 0.200. With 20% arable-permanent grassland reallocation, the ratio of the very low class drops from 8.50 to 2.83, and that of the low class decreases from 3.48 to 1.78.
- Research article
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1Islamic Azad University of Ramsar
- Volume 114 Issue 2
- Pages: 66
- - 79
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20241142-05
In urban gardens, shade, culture, recreation, biodiversity and many other positive attributes are provided; yet, in addition to providing these positive traits, plants found in gardens could contribute towards increasing allergies through the release of allergenic pollen. The current paper uses DBALM in the assessment of two urban public gardens located in Funchal, Madeira: Municipal Garden and Santa Catarina Park. In particular, a direct analysis of the Index of Urban Green Zone Allergenicity (\(IUGZA\)), along with the use of threshold position, Shannon-evenness buffering, green-surface normalisation, latent biological activation, contribution concentration and replacement leverage is used. In the first place, \(IUGZA\) is 0.39 for Municipal Garden and 0.16 for Santa Catarina Park, implying that only the former exceeds the concern threshold of 0.30. In addition, the use of diversity buffering helped preserve this differentiation, since \(DBP\) is 0.257 and 0.070, correspondingly. This differentiation could not be explained through the comparison of the gardens’ areas and numbers of plant species, yet differences in trees’ evenness, contribution concentration and pressure in planted surfaces were evident. There are four plants that account for 72.54% of contribution signal, namely Ginkgo biloba, Cinnamomum camphora, Celtis australis and Araucaria columnaris. Their functional replacement would lead to decreasing \(IUGZA\) from 0.39 to 0.107, while their partial replacement would decrease this value to 0.249. Overall, Santa Catarina Park shows less realised pressure, although it has higher latent biological activation, indicating surveillance needs there, rather than broad interventions.
- Research article
by
1College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
- Volume 114 Issue 2
- Pages: 52
- - 65
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20241142-04
Green roofs with large areas can contribute towards reducing roof level temperatures, although their effectiveness in densely populated urban environments is conditional upon the extent to which this cooling is experienced at pedestrian height and influenced by nearby high-rises. This study evaluates the impact of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center green roof and the adjacent Hudson Yards area in New York City for 2014, 2018, and 2021 urban geometries. The numerical framework consists of a 27316 m2 extensive green roof, a horizontal grid of 6 m by 6 m, vertical grid spacing of 2 m, building heights of 82 m and 740.08 m, and typical weather conditions. The maximum roof-level cooling decreases from 0.75 K in 2014 to 0.65 K in 2018 and 0.64 K in 2021, whereas the maximum pedestrian-level cooling reduces from 0.52 K to 0.45 K and 0.44 K. The transfer fraction of roof to street cooling stays almost the same at roughly 0.69, implying reduced cooling capacity without the disruption of vertical transport of thermal energy. Maximum median sky view factor is 0.184 for 2018 and 0.194 for 2021. For the 2021 form, the mean radiant temperature reduction during the day is estimated to be 1.65 °C, while the increase.
- Research article
by
1Harbin Inst Technol, Sch Civil Engn, Harbin 150090, Peoples R China
- Volume 114 Issue 2
- Pages: 34
- - 51
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20241142-03
Urban green infrastructure controls heat, stormwater, air quality, biodiversity, energy use, and human well-being via vegetation, soil, water, and interconnectivity. This paper constructs IMPACT-GI, an approach to scale-resolved weightage for climate-smart green infrastructure design. The data comprise 290 instances of indicators concerning air quality, biodiversity and ecological sustainability, energy performance, human well-being, heat-island mitigation, and water management; 66 instances of objective-scale and 60 instances of model-use. The balance of the indicators is evaluated based on normalised entropy of green-infrastructure indicators, specific to objectives and geospatial factors. Scale dispersion is calculated with respect to building scale, street scale, district scale, and urban scale. In heat-island mitigation, the indicator balance (0.987), scale dispersion (0.953), and transfer caution (0.040) values indicate high cross-scales. Energy efficiency has maximum transfer caution value of 0.607 because all scale observations are at building scale only. These weights help in replicable indicator selection, algorithm choice, and scale interpretation for urban green infrastructure planning.
- Research article
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1Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Missouri–Rolla, 1870 Miner Circle, Rolla, MO 65409, USA
- Volume 114 Issue 1
- Pages: 18
- - 33
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20241141-02
Nearby natural settings are often used for psychological recovery, yet their restorative value may change when specific animals are expected along paths, woodland edges, or rural walking routes. This paper examines species-specific changes in perceived restorative potential for roe deer, squirrel, wild boar, and wolf in Swedish local natural settings. The material includes 223 adults from J”onk”oping, Falun, and “Ostersund, with residence, gender, age, outdoor experience, domination orientation, and mutualism orientation included as respondent characteristics. Restorative change was measured as the difference between frequent expected encounter and no expected encounter. Roe deer and squirrel increased restorative potential by 0.94 and 0.96, respectively, while wild boar and wolf reduced it by -0.82 and -0.80. Mutualism orientation contributed most to roe-deer and squirrel responses, gender to wild boar responses, and domination orientation to wolf responses. The findings show that wildlife presence has no single restorative meaning: familiar low-threat animals can strengthen restorative appraisal, whereas conflict-associated animals may reduce relaxed use through vigilance, perceived loss of control, and value-based disagreement.
- Research article
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1The University of Sheffield
- Volume 114 Issue 1
- Pages: 1
- - 17
- https://doi.org/10.70517/la20241141-01
Green infrastructure assessment in an urban context should make clear whether the problem in the vicinity of buildings concerns vegetation quality, accessibility to any relevant public green space or urban parks that foster daily activity. Such distinct problems imply separate meanings for green infrastructure planning when the distribution of extensive green areas in the periphery, neighbourhood vegetation, and amenity-rich parks in the urban fabric is unbalanced. The present article looks at Bratislava in Slovakia using five classes of values for close-neighbourhood green quality, wider-neighbourhood green quality, public green-space accessibility, urban-park accessibility, and vegetation-temperature association. The study investigates which of these green-service qualities constitutes the constraint in the vicinity of buildings, and whether Forest Index–land surface temperature connection influences interpretation of neighbourhood vegetation. The shares of ordinal classes are transformed to the service means, residual deficit, lower tail, share of high services, grid-building displacement measure, public green space/park separation measure, and heat-induced vegetation pressure. Public green-space accessibility scores the highest mean value of 0.473 in relation to buildings while urban-park accessibility receives the lowest mean value of 0.226. In turn, the share of low and very-low-value categories of urban-park accessibility constitutes the largest lower-tail proportion with 81.5%. Close-neighbourhood green quality and wider-neighbourhood green quality reveal service means of 0.358 and 0.380, respectively, together with corresponding proportions of lower tails of 64.8% and 62.6%, respectively. Forest Index possesses the mean Spearman absolute association coefficient with land surface temperature of 0.762, indicating strong association between vegetation deficit and thermal environment. In conclusion, Bratislava faces major problems concerning lack of urban park access and poor vegetation quality in the close vicinity of buildings.
Call for Papers
Landscape Architecture invites submissions for Volume 2026, Issue 3, scheduled for publication in September 2026. The journal welcomes high-quality scholarly contributions that advance research, theory, criticism, and applied knowledge in landscape architecture and related fields.