It is essential to understand how urban plans affect urban growth patterns in order to improve current urban planning and management systems. Few studies have been conducted to analyse urban growth patterns of Shenzhen, an international megacity located in southern China, but none of them revealed the relationships between urban planning and urban growth patterns. This study explores the effects of urban master plans on urban growth patterns in different plan periods in Shenzhen. We first quantified the urban growth patterns comparing pixel- and patch-based methods.

Much of the research on urbanization has focused on how rural populations move to cities for work opportunities. This paper takes a different perspective on the relations between rural populations and urbanization. The livelihoods of rural dwellers on the outskirts of the city of Bogotá in Colombia are increasingly affected by the expansion of urban activities and infrastructure. Therefore, urbanization takes place in the areas of residence of the rural populations; these people do not migrate to the city but, rather, the city migrates to them.

Cities often don’t appreciate the benefits of green infrastructure (GI) enough. To recognise the extent to which green infrastructure and nature-based solutions (NbS) are present in the urban policy, we conducted a review of planning, strategic and programming documents of Poznań City as a Case Study.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) is the latest contribution to the green concept family. NBS is defined as actions based in nature addressing societal challenges. In this study, we lean on the concept boundary object, broken down into three analytical categories: use, core ideas and granularities, to explore the cohesive and fragmenting powers of the NBS concept, and discuss its future role in green space governance. The study is based on a structured, qualitative review of 112 scientific peer-reviewed publications that use the term NBS.

Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) measures have been increasingly promoted in the literature, as well as in policies and practices, for their environmental and socio-economic co-benefits. The recent scientific literature has shown a growing interest to assess climate adaptation plans at the urban level, in recognition of the important role played by urban areas in addressing climate change challenges. However, little information is available on the combination of these two issues, i.e., the actual inclusion of EbA measures in climate adaptation plans at the urban level.

Blue-green infrastructure (BGI) is becoming a more popular means of dealing with climate change and climate change-related events. However, as the concept of BGI is relatively new, many urban and rural planners are unfamiliar with the barriers they may face during the lifecycle of a BGI project. As a result, some have been hesitant to adopt BGI solutions. The literature has unveiled many of the barriers that inhibit the successful development of BGI, however, this information has yet to be presented in a manner that allows for easy identification.

The design of efficient Green Infrastructure —GI— systems is a key issue to achieve sustainable development city planning goals in the twenty-first century. This study’s main contribution is the identification of potential GI elements to better align the environmental, social and economic perspectives in the GI design by including information about the use, activities, preferences and presence of people. To achieve this, user generated content from Location Based Social Network —LBSN— Foursquare is used as a complementary data source.

Land is a scarce resource increasingly affected by the competition of mutually exclusive uses. Fertile land in rural areas becomes scarcer due to population growth, pollution, erosion and desertification, effects of
climate change, urbanization etc. On the remaining land, local, national and international users with different socioeconomic status and power compete to achieve food security, economic growth, energy supply, nature

Shaping an enabling environment for Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) calls for integrated land use planning, inclusive and environmentally sound land access and governance, major reconfigurations of current institutional settings, financial backing, and ongoing dialogue between policy-makers, practitioners, and the scientific community.

These guidelines support GEF project developers in formulating projects that contribute to the LDN ambitions of countries and in ensuring that other projects not directly targeting LDN are compatible with LDN objectives and approaches. The guidelines complement and expand the Checklist for Land Degradation Neutrality Transformative Projects and Programmes.They are intended to be applied during project development and at the problem definition and intervention design stages; they are also relevant to monitoring the achievement of LDN goals.

In the effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to food, health, water, and climate, an increase in pressure on land is highly likely. To avoid further land degradation and promote land restoration, multifunctional use of land is needed within the boundaries of the soil-water system. In addition, awareness-raising, a change in stakeholders’ attitudes, and a change in economics are essential. The attainment of a balance between the economy, society, and the biosphere calls for a holistic approach.