In recent years, the deterioration of urban rivers, due to human activity, has been receiving increasing attention. Canalized rivers are being restored or rehabilitated to restore wildlife and bring back a more natural ecosystem. This shift in the way how we look at our rivers has also resulted in the …

Green roofs received increased scientific attention with respect to climate adaptation in urban environments for their hydrological, biodiversity and insulative capacities. Yet, the thermal properties of roofs with an additional water layer underneath the vegetation substrate (blue-green roofs) are not …

Promoting healthy and active lifestyles is an important objective for many governing agencies. The design of active urban environments can be an effective tool to encourage more active behaviors and water features can attract people, improving their experience of the urban space. To explore the potential …

In today’s city environments, extreme weather conditions are a fact of life. Amsterdam, Mumbai, Nairobi or Sydney… climate change issues need to be tackled all around the world. In the last couple of decades, Amsterdam has dealt with larger amounts of rainwater, severe heat stress and a decreased biodiversity. …

The childhood obesity epidemic has persisted for over three decades, which has presented serious social, economic and health consequences worldwide. For researchers and policy makers alike, cycling has been a promising focus over recent years for developing long-term physically active lifestyles in urban …

Older people are often over-represented in morbidity and mortality statistics associated with hot and cold weather, despite remaining mostly indoors. The study “Improving thermal environment of housing for older Australians” focused on assessing the relationships between the indoor environment, building …

The coronavirus pandemic highlighted the vital role urban areas play in supporting citizens’ health and well-being (Ribeiro et al., 2021). In times of (personal) vulnerability, citizens depend on their neighbourhood for performing daily physical activities to restore their mental state, but public spaces …

The current Covid-19 pandemic has underlined the importance of urban public spaces in achieving health and social well-being (Dobson, 2021; Poortinga et al., 2021), prompting policymakers and urban planners to rethink their approach to the design of these spaces. They now propagate adapting urban public …

Large floating projects have the potential to overcome the challenge of land scarcity in urban areas and offer opportunities for energy and food production, or even for creating sustainable living environments. However, they influence the physical, chemical, biological and ecological characteristics …

The development of ‘age-friendly cities’ has become a major area of work in the field of ageing and the built environment. This movement is driven by the observation that cities are home to an ever-increasing ageing population. Over the past decade, a multitude of age-friendly initiatives have been developed …