Urban cooling strategies as interaction opportunities in the public space: a methodological proposal

In the context of global warming, cities promote temporary or permanent public space designs based on the integration of various cooling techniques, hereafter called spatio-climatic devices, to locally cool down the atmosphere and preserve urban liveability. Such public spaces create interaction opportunities for citizens to seek thermal pleasure outdoors. To inform about the citizens’ thermal experience of these spaces, this paper explores fieldwork and data analysis methods at the crossroads of urban climatology, environmental psychology and urban design. Four spatio-climatic configurations are investigated in the ‘Extraordinary Garden’ in Nantes (France) through mobile microclimate measurements and ethnographic observations. By applying an ‘urban transect’ approach, preliminary selected microclimate, behavioural and activity observation data is displayed together with spatial information. This allows to highlight thermal situations induced by urban design and to link them to specific citizen-environment interactions. As a result, this approach contributes to a better characterization of urban cool spots as a strategy for more resilient public spaces.

Quantifying the spatiotemporal patterns of urbanization along urban-rural gradient with a roadscape transect approach: a case study in Shanghai, China

Quantifying the landscape pattern change can effectively demonstrate the ecological progresses and the consequences of urbanization. Based on remotely sensed land cover data in 1994, 2000, 2006 and a gradient analysis with landscape metrics at landscape- and class- level, we attempted to characterize the individual and entire landscape patterns of Shanghai metropolitan during the rapid urbanization. We highlighted that a roadscape transect approach that combined the buffer zone method and the transect-based approach was introduced to describe the urban-rural patterns of agricultural, residential, green, industrial, and public facilities land along the railway route. Our results of landscape metrics showed significant spatiotemporal patterns and gradient variations along the transect. The urban growth pattern in two time spans conform to the hypothesis for diffusion–coalescence processes, implying that the railway is adaptive as a gradient element to analyze the landscape patterns with urbanization. As the natural landscape was replaced by urban landscape gradually, the urban fringe expanded radically. The results also showed that the desakota region expanded its extent widely. Satellite towns witnessed the continual transformation from the predominantly rural landscape to peri-urban landscape. Furthermore, the gap between urban and rural areas remained large especially in public service. More reasonable urban plans and land use policies should push to make more of an effort to transition from the urban-rural separation to coordinated urban-rural development. This study is a meaningful trial in demonstrating a new form of urban–rural transects to study the landscape change of large cities from a strategic viewpoint. By combining gradient analysis with landscape metrics, we addressed the process of urbanization both spatially and temporally, and provided a more quantitative approach to urban studies.

Paddle cilia fixation artefacts in palliai organs of adult Mytilus edulis and Placopecten magellanicus (Mollusca, Bivalvia)

To ascertain the nature of paddle cilia in adult marine bivalves, three scanning electron microscopic (SEM) fixation protocols were used to fix ciliated organs of the palliai cavity in the blue mussel, Mytilus edulis, and the giant scallop Placopecten magellanicus (Bivalvia: Mytilidae, Pectinidae). SEM examination concentrated on the various regions of the labial palps and gills in M. edulis, with supplementary observations of the osphradium and adjacent regions in P. magellanicus. A regular transect approach was used to examine all surfaces, both for thoroughness and to reveal any eventual patterns in distribution. Cilia with paddle-like expansions were observed on all surfaces when both hypotonic glutaraldehyde–cacodylate buffer and hypotonic Sörensen's buffer were used; no intra- or inter-individual pattern was evident. No expansions were present when isotonic glutaraldehyde–cacodylate was employed. We conclude that paddle cilia may be induced in adult marine bivalves by hypotonic fixation; this has wider implications for the other bivalve species in which such cilia have been reported, in addition to the numerous accounts of such structures in other taxa.