A Novel Evaluation Approach of County-Level City Disaster Resilience and Urban Environmental Cleanliness Based on SDG11 and Deqing County’s Situation

Urban resilience under the COVID-19 pandemic: A quantitative assessment framework based on system dynamics

The COVID-19 pandemic, which lasted for three years, has had a great impact on the public health system, society and economy of cities, revealing the insufficiency of urban resilience under large-scale public health events (PHEs). Given that a city is a networked and multidimensional system with complex interactions, it is helpful to improve urban resilience under PHEs based on system thinking. Therefore, this paper proposes a dynamic and systematic urban resilience framework that incorporates four subsystems (governance, infrastructures, socioeconomy and energy-material flows). The composite index, system dynamics and epidemic simulation model are integrated into the framework to show the nonlinear relationships in the urban system and reflect the changing trend of urban resilience under PHEs. Then, urban resilience under different epidemic scenarios and response policy scenarios is calculated and discussed to provide some suggestions for decision-makers when faced with the trade-off between the control of PHEs and the maintenance of city operation. The paper concludes that control policies could be adjusted according to the characteristics of PHEs; strict control policies under a severe epidemic could lead to a significant decrease in urban resilience, while a more flexible control strategy can be adopted under a mild epidemic scenario to ensure the normal operation of urban functions. Moreover, the critical functions and impact factors of each subsystem are identified.

An Evaluation of the Coupling Coordination Degree of an Urban Economy–Society–Environment System Based on a Multi-Scenario Analysis: The Case of Chengde City in China

Sustainable urban development requires the coordinated development of economic, social, and environmental subsystems. Evaluating the coordination degree of different urban subsystems is of great significance to supporting sustainable urban development. This study explores the method of combining a scenario analysis with the coupling coordination degree model, proposing a new approach to measure the correlation between the level of urban sustainable development and the coupling coordination degree of urban subsystems. This method is used to analyze the correlation between the sustainable development level of 11 district-level and county-level administrative regions in Chengde City and the coupling coordination degree under different scenarios. The evaluation results show that, under different scenarios, the coupling coordination degree of the 11 administrative regions in Chengde City is at three levels: imminent imbalance, near coordination, and primary coordination. Compared with the business-as-usual scenario, the changes in the coupling coordination degree of all administrative regions in Chengde City under the economic-led scenario, social-led scenario, and environment-led scenario are in line with the level of sustainable development evaluation outcomes. The results confirm that there is a correlation between the level of urban sustainable development and the coupling coordination degree in different scenarios.

On Earth as It Is in Heaven: Proxy Measurements to Assess Sustainable Development Goals at the Company Level through CSR Indicators

In recent years, we have witnessed dramatic changes in the following two regards: First, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices have become ubiquitous in companies, and second, the challenge that Sustainable Development (SD) presents to society and to the planet has been illustrated in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this context, this study aims to identify the extent to which companies address the SDGs through their CSR practices. We conducted the present research by first performing a content analysis to determine the communalities between CSR practices and the SDGs. Then, we performed a quantitative analysis to assess the performance of various companies in terms of common aspects of CSR and SDGs. The main findings are as follows: (1) Not all SDGs are related to CSR practices; (2) companies perform differently in their CSR practices and, consequently, make different contributions to the SDGs; and (3) there is little difference among company profiles regarding their performances in CSR practices towards the SDGs. The main contributions of this study are, first, that it provides a new perspective on the relationship between CSR and SD and, second, the creation of a list of what can be considered the minimum requirements for CSR practices if the SDGs are to be reached.

Major European Stressors and Potential of Available Tools for Assessment of Urban and Buildings Resilience

Recent data show that there are intensifications of phenomena related to climate change, such as the increasing of heavy rains, more frequent and intense droughts connected with fires, and alterations of the local climatic conditions, including heat islands with consequent impacts on cities, districts, and buildings. Not only are natural hazards stressing Europe but also human-induced events like low-magnitude earthquakes as a direct cause of fracking or mining. This study aimed to investigate the significant stressors and summarize what impact is the most dangerous in each European country. There is a need to secure the operating conditions of urban infrastructures and to preserve a high-quality indoor environment of buildings. The main scope of this paper is to compare selected tools that evaluate the urban and building resilience and to assess their suitability, based on an analysis of natural and human-induced hazards in the European countries. The results represent a contribution to urban and architectural planning practice, and to the consistent implementation of measures to improve the resilience of the built environment by providing guidance as to which assessment tool is most suitable for each country.

How Can Climate Resilience Be Measured and Visualized? Assessing a Vague Concept Using GIS-Based Fuzzy Logic

As negative impacts of climate change tend to increase in the future, densely-populated cities especially need to take action on being robust against natural hazards. Consequently, there is a growing interest from scientists in measuring the climate resilience of cities and regions. However, current measurements are usually assessed on administrative levels, not covering potential hotspots of hazardous or sensitive areas. The main aim of this paper focusses on the measurement of climate resilience in the City of Dortmund, Germany, using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Based on a literature review, we identified five essential components of climate resilience and initially designed a theoretical framework of 18 indicators. Since climate resilience is still a vague concept in scientific discourses, we implemented local expert knowledge and fuzzy logic modelling into our analysis. The benefit of this study not only lies in the fine-scale application, but also in the relevance for multiple disciplines by integrating social and ecological factors. We conclude that climate resilience varies within the city pattern, with the urban core tending to be less resilient than its surrounding districts. As almost the entire geodata set used is freely available, the presented indicators and methods are to a certain degree applicable to comparable cities.