Ongoing projects

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many aspects of urban life, raising questions regarding the desirability of the past and present patterns of urban planning and development. Among other things, it has exposed some of the long-lasting problems such as the unsustainable human–environment interactions, the ever-growing environmental footprint of cities, deep-rooted urban inequalities, and the fragmented urban governance systems. This is not the first time in the human history that pandemics have hit cities and will probably not be the last. In fact, previous pandemics have provided incentives to enhance public health and improve quality of urban life by, for instance, restructuring infrastructure systems. The COVID-19 pandemic unraveled at a historical juncture when unprecedented scientific and technological advances provide opportunities to develop transformative solutions towards more sustainable and resilient forms of urban planning and development. It is essential to seize these opportunities to recover from the crisis in a more just, sustainable, and resilient manner. This will also ensure alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and may enable planners and policymakers to deal with more complex and challenging issues such as climate change that are looming over cities.

The need for building better is already acknowledged by many researchers and policymakers. In fact, there are already ongoing discussions in science and policy circles regarding the need for new urban planning/design paradigms and models in the post-COVID era that reflect the lessons learned from the pandemic. Against this background, there is an urgent need to advance our understanding of the evolving dynamics of the pandemic in cities, synthesize the existing knowledge, discuss the lessons that can be learned, and explore strategies for transformative solutions towards more sustainable and resilient cities in the post-COVID era. This research stream aims to address various issues, including, but not limited to:

  • social, economic, and environmental impacts of the pandemic on cities;

  • impacts of the pandemic on the future of compact cities

  • the evolving patterns of COVID-19 spread in cities;

  • success and failure cases of pandemic control in cities;

  • pandemic-resilient cities;

  • lessons learned from the pandemic;

  • short-, medium- and long-term implications of the pandemic for urban planning and design;

  • implications of the pandemic for achievement of the SDGs and climate change adaptation/mitigation targets;

  • post-COVID urban planning and development scenarios;

  • new urban planning/design paradigms and models in the post-COVID era;

  • promotion of smart cities for enhancing resilience to future pandemics;

  • sustainable and resilient recovery strategies.

Assessing Content, Structure, and Implementation of Urban Climate Action Plans

Cities are home to most of the world population and account for over 70% of global CO2 emissions. This share is expected to further increase as urbanization trends continue. Meanwhile, the high concentration of population in cities renders them more susceptible to environmental externalities caused by emissions, and to the climate change impacts. Accordingly, cities are key foci for adaptation and mitigation efforts.

This research stream is focused on various issues related to urban climate change adaptation and mitigation, including, but not limited to:

  • typology of urban climate action plans;

  • assessment of the content and structure of urban climate action plans;

  • interlinkages between climate adaptation and mitigation efforts (including co-benefits, synergies, conflicts, and trade-offs);

  • implementation of climate change adaptation and/or mitigation plans in cities;

  • barriers to climate action in cities.

Assessment of the Actual and Potential Contributions of Smart City Projects to Climate Resilience in Selected Asia-Pacific Cities


Smart city initiatives enabled by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are deemed essential for helping cities to develop transformative solutions to address the challenges of global change and to create just, sustainable, and resilient communities. Several countries in the Asia-Pacific region (e.g., Japan, Taiwan, China, Australia, and India) are at the forefront of designing/implementing smart city projects. While a vast body of knowledge exists on the contributions of such projects to sustainability and quality of life, little is known about their contributions to climate resilience and climate action planning. As many cities in the region are exposed to a broad array of climate-related disasters, enhancing resilience is expected to be at the center of smart city development efforts. Accordingly, the main aim of the proposed project is to investigate the contributions of selected smart city projects to climate resilience. Through inter- and trans- disciplinary methods and workshops that involve a wide range of stakeholders, we will develop a smart city resilience assessment toolkit and use it to examine actual and/or potential performance of selected cases in Australia, China, Taiwan, India, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and the United States. Results will provide useful scientific and policy knowledge on how to integrate resilience thinking into smart city developments and will also highlight lessons that can be transferred to less developed countries.

Development and Pilot Testing of a Standardized Method to Map Urban CO2 Emissions


Cities are responsible for a significant proportion of global CO2 emissions. However, few cities have accurate and detailed knowledge about their emission patterns. This is partly because mapping CO2 emissions at the city level is a resource- and data- intensive process, requiring efforts that are often beyond the capacities of cities. This lack of capacity remains an important barrier to mitigation action. As an effort towards filling this gap, in this research I will pilot test a method aimed at standardizing urban carbon emission mapping. I will utilize the Local Climate Zones (LCZ) classification system, that is a universal description of urban landscape, as a basis for standardizing CO2 emissions mapping, Then, I will pilot test the proposed method for several cities including Bangkok, Hiroshima, and Taipei. The outcomes expected to help streamline urban CO2 emissions mapping that, in turn, enables an improvement/expansion of CO2 reduction activities.