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Bill Hillier’s space syntax method and theory enables us to describe the spatial properties of a sustainable city. Empirical testing of the space syntax method over time has confirmed the capacity and innovativeness of analyzing spatial relationships with the purpose of understanding and explaining the socio-spatial organization of built environments. However, the conceptual framework of space syntax elements is scattered around in various academic writings. This article, therefore, gives a holistic and compact overview of the various concepts that are used in space syntax, from its basic elements to various analytical techniques and theories. To achieve this compact overview, we reviewed all space syntax literature accessible since the 1970s for finding core references to various concepts used in space syntax. Following a short description of its foundation and evolution through the work of Bill Hillier, we explain its basic concepts and measures in the form of an extended glossary. Explanations are enriched with various space syntax analyses and scenario testing on various scales that were applied to the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. We conclude with a discussion about the advantages and limitations of space syntax and about how this method adds value to the creation of sustainable cities.

ContextNorway spruce (Picea abies) is one of the most widespread tree species in Europe’s forests. Due to its high economic value it has been strongly favored by management, especially at the trailing edge of its natural distribution. However, disturbances from wind and bark beetles are increasingly impacting these forests, and their resilience under climate change has been called into question recently.ObjectivesWe quantified the effects of landscape configuration and composition on (1) the risk from natural disturbances, and (2) on the overall resilience of Norway spruce to changing climate at the trailing edge.MethodsWe simulated the dynamics of a 9183 ha forest landscape in Eastern Austria over 190 years. We used the simulation model iLand to experimentally study a wide range of landscape compositions and configurations under five different climate scenarios.ResultsNatural disturbances increased considerably under all future climate scenarios. Dispersing Norway spruce throughout the landscape in mixed stands resulted in the highest levels of climate resilience. Reducing the percentage of Norway spruce on the landscape increased the resilience of the remaining Norway spruce trees, yet landscape configuration generally had a stronger effect on resilience than composition.ConclusionsThe resilience of Norway spruce at the trailing edge of its distribution is challenged by climate change, and considerable efforts are needed to sustain these ecosystems. While currently discussed adaptation measures focus largely on the stand level, we show that modifying landscape composition and configuration can be used to foster Norway spruce resilience while maintaining socio-economically relevant proportions of Norway spruce.

Visual perception of the urban landscape in a city is complex and dynamic, and it is largely influenced by human vision and the dynamic spatial layout of the attractions. In return, landscape visibility not only affects how people interact with the environment but also promotes regional values and urban resilience. The development of visibility has evolved, and the digital landscape visibility analysis method allows urban researchers to redefine visible space and better quantify human perceptions and observations of the landscape space. In this paper, we first reviewed and compared the theoretical results and measurement tools for spatial visual perception and compared the value of the analytical methods and tools for landscape visualization in multiple dimensions on the principal of urban planning (e.g., complex environment, computational scalability, and interactive intervention between computation and built environment). We found that most of the research was examined in a static environment using simple viewpoints, which can hardly explain the actual complexity and dynamic superposition of the landscape perceptual effect in an urban environment. Thus, those methods cannot effectively solve actual urban planning issues. Aiming at this demand, we proposed a workflow optimization and developed a responsive cross-scale and multilandscape object 3D visibility analysis method, forming our analysis model for testing on the study case. By combining the multilandscape batch scanning method with a refined voxel model, it can be adapted for large-scale complex dynamic urban visual problems. As a result, we obtained accurate spatial visibility calculations that can be conducted across scales from the macro to micro, with large external mountain landscapes and small internal open spaces. Our verified approach not only has a good performance in the analysis of complex visibility problems (e.g., we defined the two most influential spatial variables to maintain good street-based landscape visibility) but also the high efficiency of spatial interventions (e.g., where the four recommended interventions were the most valuable), realizing the improvement of intelligent landscape evaluations and interventions for urban spatial quality and resilience.

AIM: Millennia of human activity have drastically shaped the Earth's surface confining wildlife in ever more rare and sparse habitat fragments. Within the strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020, Aichi Target 11 aims at the expansion of the current protected area (PA) system and the maintenance and improvement of its connectivity. This study aims at providing the first overview of the functionality of the PA networks across the six continents at different dispersal distances relevant for terrestrial mammals. LOCATION: Global. METHODS: We used a graph theory approach to assess the connectivity of PA networks of different continents across a wide range of dispersal distances. We assessed the connectivity of country‐level PA networks, the connectivity of continental PA networks and the contribution of country‐level PA networks to continental connectivity. RESULTS: National and continental networks are characterized by very different spatial arrangements that translate into different levels of connectivity, ranging from networks where the reachable area is mostly determined by structural connectivity within PAs (e.g. Africa) to networks where connectivity mostly depends on animal dispersal among PAs (e.g. Europe). PA size correlates positively with connectivity for all species, followed by PA number; dispersal contributes less and positively interacts with number of PAs. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: Continental networks perform worse than national networks. Transboundary connectivity is often weak and should be improved, especially for countries that are important in promoting continental connectivity. Increasing PA coverage and size is a good strategy to improve multispecies connectivity.

Spatial interactions between individuals, society, and territory are crucial in shaping how space is navigated and claimed, resulting in unequal outcomes and occasional injustices. Soja's model, comprising first, second, and third spaces, emphasizes the pervasive influence of spatiality and its role in generating injustices. His spatial justice theory highlights the importance of understanding how the trialectical operation of space influences injustices. However, further study is needed to determine how practical tri-spatial interactions cause spatial injustices, despite prior research addressing these concepts. This study delves into the impact of the interplay between the three spaces on the realization of rights and the emergence of barriers hindering individuals from benefiting from state initiatives that are designed to provide for them. Using Chile as a case study, specifically for three communes and three state programs, this study employs structural qualitative sampling, engaging with users and public managers. Through semi-structured interviews and emotion maps with 51 participants, this study sheds light on the spatial, trialectical, and dynamic dimensions influencing the enjoyment of rights and the creation of spatial barriers to their realization. The findings revealed three spatial configurations, exclusion, abstention, and desertion, stemming from the triadic operation of spatial barriers in the first, second, and third spaces. These configurations prevent individuals from realizing their rights, emphasizing the critical role of tri-spatiality in shaping effective rights realization. The study concludes by stressing the importance of considering these spatial factors in future policies and planning to address spatial injustices and enhance justice promotion.

Urban green infrastructures (UGI) can effectively reduce surface runoff, thereby alleviating the pressure of urban waterlogging. Due to the shortage of land resources in metropolitan areas, it is necessary to understand how to utilize the limited UGI area to maximize the waterlogging mitigation function. Less attention, however, has been paid to investigating the threshold level of waterlogging mitigation capacity. Additionally, various studies mainly focused on the individual effects of UGI factors on waterlogging but neglected the interactive effects between these factors. To overcome this limitation, two waterlogging high-risk coastal cities—Guangzhou and Shenzhen, are selected to examine the effectiveness and stability of UGI in alleviating urban waterlogging. The results indicate that the impact of green infrastructure on urban waterlogging largely depends on its area and biophysical parameter. Healthier or denser vegetation (superior ecological environment) can more effectively intercept and store rainwater runoff. This suggests that while increasing the area of UGI, more attention should be paid to the biophysical parameter of vegetation. Hence, the mitigation effect of green infrastructure would be improved from the “size” and “health”. The interaction of composition and spatial configuration greatly enhances their individual effects on waterlogging. This result underscores the importance of the interactive enhancement effect between UGI composition and spatial configuration. Therefore, it is particularly important to optimize the UGI composition and spatial pattern under limited land resource conditions. Lastly, the effect of green infrastructure on waterlogging presents a threshold phenomenon. The excessive area proportions of UGI within the watershed unit or an oversized UGI patch may lead to a waste of its mitigation effect. Therefore, the area proportion of UGI and its mitigation effect should be considered comprehensively when planning UGI. It is recommended to control the proportion of green infrastructure at the watershed scale (24.4% and 72.1% for Guangzhou and Shenzhen) as well as the area of green infrastructure patches (1.9 ha and 2.8 ha for Guangzhou and Shenzhen) within the threshold level to maximize its mitigation effect. Given the growing concerns of global warming and continued rapid urbanization, these findings provide practical urban waterlogging prevention strategies toward practical implementations.

Context Mixedwood forests are typically defined using coarse measures of stand composition and do not account for spatial configuration or scale. Such definitions may oversimplify how birds perceive habitat, potentially biasing past attempts to identify mixedwood habitat associations. Objectives (1) Quantify how continuous gradients in tree species composition, spatial configuration, and forest age influence species’ abundance; (2) Identify the spatial extent and grain at which these relationships are strongest. Methods We analyzed ~ 9200 point counts across the forested region of Alberta, Canada. We used a multi-scale design to assess the influence of forest composition, configuration, and age within 150, 500, and 1000 m extents at 5 m and 30 m grains on species’ relative abundance. Results Spatial configuration was the strongest predictor for all three species. Black-throated green warbler and bay-breasted warbler responded most strongly to fine-grain, local (150 m) configuration, with abundance peaking in intimately–mixed stands. Tennessee warbler responded most to configuration at the broadest extent (1000 m), also favouring intimate mixtures. The proportion of conifer and forest age consistently emerged as the second and third most important predictors, respectively. Predicted abundance on synthetic landscapes showed consistently higher abundance (∼ 4–10 times higher) in intimate versus segregated mixedwoods. Conclusions Species-specific and spatially-explicit mixedwood definitions that include spatial configuration better capture bird habitat use than composition alone. Preserving or restoring intimate mixtures of coniferous and deciduous species at fine spatial scales may be particularly beneficial for our focal species.

Understanding the scale-dependent mechanisms linking landscape patterns to ecosystem services is crucial for sustainable land management, especially in fragmented hilly regions. This study, conducted in the hilly areas of southern China, aimed to quantitatively unravel these mechanisms at an optimal spatial scale. We first identified 14,400 km 2 as the scale where landscape metrics stabilized. Using Spatial Error Models (SEM) to control for spatial autocorrelation, we analysed the distinct effects of landscape configuration on key ecosystem services. At the class level, forest aggregation was a consistent positive driver for multiple services; for example, it maintained a stable, significant positive relationship with carbon sequestration across all study years (P < 0.01). Conversely, farmland edge (total edge) significantly promoted nutrient export (P < 0.001), highlighting a functional contrast with natural landscapes. At the landscape level, total edge exhibited a consistent positive effect on several ecosystem services (P < 0.001), whereas increased landscape evenness was a primary inhibitory factor, showing a significant negative correlation with habitat quality (P < 0.001) and a strengthening negative effect on nutrient retention over time (P < 0.01). These findings provide a scale-specific, quantitative foundation for spatial planning, underscoring the necessity of maintaining forest connectivity and strategically managing agricultural-natural land interfaces to enhance ecosystem services bundles in heterogeneous landscapes.

Previous evidence demonstrated that individuals can recall a target’s location in a search display even if location information is completely task-irrelevant. This finding raises the question: does this ability to automatically encode a single item’s location into a reportable memory trace extend to other aspects of spatial information as well? We tested this question using a paradigm designed to elicit attribute amnesia (Chen & Wyble, Psychological Science , 26 (2) 203-210, 2015a ). Participants were initially asked to report the location of a target letter among digits with stimuli arranged to form one of two or four spatial configurations varying randomly across trials. After completing numerous trials that matched their expectations, participants were surprised with a series of unexpected questions probing their memory for various aspects of the display they had just viewed. Participants had a profound inability to report which spatial configuration they had just perceived when the target’s location was not unique to a specific configuration (i.e., orthogonal). Despite being unable to report the most recent configuration, answer choices on the surprise trial were focused around previously seen configurations, rather than novel configurations. Thus, there were clear memories of the set of configurations that had been viewed during the experiment but not of the specific configuration from the most recent trial. This finding helps to set boundary conditions on previous findings regarding the automatic encoding of location information into memory.

Urbanization is a major driver of tropical biodiversity loss. In temperate regions avian species richness–urbanization intensity relationships typically exhibit unimodal patterns, with peak richness at intermediate urbanization levels. In tropical regions, the form of such relationships and the extent to which they are moderated by patches of seminatural habitat are unclear. We address these questions in Bangkok, Thailand (one of the largest and most rapidly expanding tropical mega-cities) and generate conservation recommendations for tropical biodiversity in urban locations. We use repeated point count surveys at a random location, and the largest available woodland patch, in 150 1 km × 1 km grid cells selected along the urbanization gradient. Woodland patches support higher species richness compared with randomized locations (except for non-natives), and avian species richness declines linearly with increasing urbanization. The contrast with unimodal patterns in temperate regions is probably driven by divergent patterns of habitat heterogeneity along tropical and temperate urbanization gradients. Moreover, we provide novel evidence that retaining patches of urban woodland moderates adverse impacts of urbanization on avian species richness. For most species groups, the benefits of woodland increase as urbanization intensifies, despite such woodland patches being very small (mean of 0.38 ha). Avian species richness in woodland patches is maximized, and community composition less similar to that in randomized locations, when woodland patches are larger and visited by fewer people. Assemblages of forest-dependent species (which provide additional ecological functions) have higher richness, and are less similar to those in randomized locations, in patches of woodland with higher tree species richness and biomass. Finally, species richness in randomized sites is greatest when they are closer to woodland patches, and such assemblages more closely resemble those of woodland sites. Our work highlights four strategies for tropical urban bird conservation: (1) conserving woodland patches across the urbanization gradient regardless of patch size, (2) improving the quality of existing woodland by increasing tree biomass and diversity, (3) creating additional woodland that is well distributed throughout the urban area to minimize effects of habitat isolation and (4) reducing human disturbance, especially in areas of the highest habitat quality, while ensuring that the benefits of connecting people to nature are realized in other locations.