Urban low-carbon governance zoning coupled with urban attributes and spatial networks: Theoretical framework and practical path

• Published in: Journal of environmental management 2025-01, Vol.373, p.123865, Article 123865
• Main Authors: Feng, Xinhui, Wang, Sensen, Wu, Nengjun, Li, Yan, Yang, Jiayu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carbon; Carbon balance; Carbon emission; China; Cities; Climate Change; Social network analysis; Yangtze River Delta; Zoning
• ISSN: 0301-4797; 1095-8630; 1095-8630
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.123865

Carbon emissions from land-use change have accounted for approximately one-third of global carbon emissions since the 21st century. As an effective planning tool for climate change mitigation at the city scale, low-carbon zoning governance has become a hot topic in the global academic community. However, despite increasingly relevant research, this field suffers from weak foundations, single research perspectives, and limited methods. To address these issues, we proposed a new theoretical framework for urban low-carbon governance zoning that couples urban attributes and spatial association characteristics. China's Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region was selected as a case study, and a complete technical path integrating multidisciplinary methods was designed for implementing this framework. Cities in the YRD were categorized into nine low-carbon governance zones based on their internal attributes and position in the carbon emission network. All zones showed obvious “club” characteristics and were highly spatially clustered. Unlike previous single-view zoning methods, the comprehensive zoning method proposed herein considers a city's socio-economic characteristics and position in regional cooperation. As such, this approach can better solve the problem of urban heterogeneity and improve the universality of low-carbon planning schemes. Based on the results of this study, we propose low-carbon strategies covering four planning types according to the specific characteristics of different regions, which is conducive to accelerating the process of urban carbon neutrality. •A new theoretical framework was proposed for urban low-carbon governance zoning.•This framework couples urban attributes and spatial association characteristics.•A complete technical path integrating multidisciplinary methods was designed for implementing this framework.•Cities in the Yangtze River Delta region were categorized into nine low-carbon governance zones.•Low-carbon strategies covering four planning types were proposed for different zones.