Find your working group.
Working groups are the core of the APRU Sustainable Cities and Landscapes conferences. Working groups represent an important opportunity for delegates to participate in collaborative research in partnerships with members of the APRU network, develop new researcher collaboration and cross-disciplinarity and contribute towards finding solutions to the pressing problems of this century.
Please click the links below to apply to working groups by July 15, 2022 (deadline extended!). You will be contacted directly by working group leaders to participate. Once you have been accepted, you will be able to register for the conference. Everyone who is accepted to a working group will get a chance to present their work.
Some working groups will be participating entirely remotely in a limited capacity. Please contact the working group leaders for more information.
Water and sanitation are becoming ever more essential to stopping the spread of disease and improving sustainability as urban populations rapidly increase around the global. Traditional grid-based water and sanitation systems are failing to meet the challenge in many locations. Worse, traditional systems are significant contributors to climate change. Over consumption of water, lost nutrients, and the failure to expand services to underrepresented and vulnerable populations all indicate the need for a water and sanitation revolution. This working group aims to address how wastewater and sanitation services can evolve to meet the Sustainable Development Goal in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.
Previously, this working group examined how urban areas could take tangible first steps towards reducing the demand for water resources in urban water and sanitation systems. In 2020, the working group examined how off-grid wastewater and sanitation solutions can be integrated into a city-wide inclusive water and sanitation framework, with a specific focus on rapidly growing informal settlements and resource constrained settings.
Civic Engagement and Community Design
Throughout the Pacific Rim, the rise of civic engagement and citizen actions is transforming the governance of cities and landscapes. Even in countries with limited democracy, citizens and communities have played an important role in mutual aid and self-help, particularly in times of crisis and emergency. However, despite the growing practices of civic engagement, there are continued challenges in forms of tokenism, conflicts, and resistance from society and state institutions. How can citizens and communities participate effectively and meaningfully in matters concerning sustainable landscapes and cities in the Pacific Rim? What are the lessons and insights from current experiments and practice?
This working group is formed through the Pacific Rim Community Design Network, established originally at the University of California, Berkeley in 1998. Through conferences and joint projects, the network has provided a vehicle for collaboration and mutual support, as well as a forum for a comparative understanding of community design in the fast-changing political and social context of the Pacific Rim. As a working group, its goal is to engage in the advancement and critical assessment of civic engagement and community design practices across the Pacific Rim. Recent activities included a webinar series on bottom-up resilience during the COVID-19 Pandemic and a virtual gathering to share lessons and insights on civic engagement practices during the Pandemic.
Smart Cities
Working Group Leaders:
Dr. Mohsen Mohammadzadeh, University of Auckland
Dr. Mohammed Ali Berawi, University of Indonesia
Smart Cities is relatively a new concept that embeds in the fourth industrial revolution and the advancement of various technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoTs), Big Data and Digital Twining. Emerging smart technologies generate new capacities to better understanding, management and development of cities. The primary objective of Smart Cities initiative is to create sustainable, resilience, environmentally friendly city that can provide services to its residents more effectively and efficiently. The emerging smart technologies could be deployed to improve on existing services and infrastructures such as transportation, waste and water management, power network, and asset management and building services, to manage natural disasters, and to mitigate pollution via real-time monitoring natural and built environments.
The Smart Cities working group focuses on thematic issues, including water, energy, climate, oceans, urbanization, transport, science and technology.
Vulnerable, Resilient and Climate Change Justice Communities
Initiated in 2019, this formerly named Vulnerable Community Work Group (WG) discussed the root cause of vulnerability in mega cities in the Pacific Rim region and challenges in addressing vulnerability in communities. In 2020, the WG embraced critical topics of resilience and climate justice, and investigated the theory of resilience and vulnerability in community development. Transdisciplinary in nature, this working group encompasses diverse disciplines including but not limited to landscape architecture, urban planning and design, geography, landscape and urban ecology, disaster management, environmental and civil engineering, anthropology, governance and public policy, environmental psychology, and sustainability studies, to understand the root cause of risks to communities and innovative solutions to address systemic injustice and equity in sustainable development under climate change impacts. This Working Group aims to develop strategies to enhance transdisciplinary research and practice capacity to allow social-ecological-technological systems resilience building in vulnerable communities and their built environment. In addition, we discuss innovations in building transformative capacity to address climate justice and sustainable development goals for SDG 11-Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, SDG 9-Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation, and SDG 13-Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
Future Energy Landscapes
Working Group Leaders:
Dr. Alessandro Premier, University of Auckland
Dr. Ali Ghaffarianhoseini, Auckland University of Technology
Dr. Amirhosein Ghaffarianhoseini, Auckland University of Technology
While decarbonization is a necessity, the spread of low-carbon emission technologies and related policies affects the design of our cities and landscapes. The Working Group on Future Energy Landscapes aims to discuss research pathways towards the achievement of UN SDG No. 7 (affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all) and related SDGs within the Pacific Rim. The work will be articulated in three interconnected streams: climate actions, urban greening, and clean energy. Our goal is to understand better the impacts and the evolution of the uptake of technology and advanced processes on our territory. The WG aims to involve (but not only) researchers in urban design, architecture, environmental engineering, regeneration, economy, and ecology.
Landscape and Human Health
Working Group Leaders:
Dr. Chun-Yen Chang, National Taiwan University
Dr. Po-Ju Chang, National Taiwan University
In 2022, the Landscape and Human Health working group will continue to focus on the studies of the landscape and human health. Two core concepts in landscape and human health: "evidence" and "applications" such as landscape features and health, health (psychological and physical) indicators, updating technologies in landscape research, therapeutic landscape design, age-friendly environments, healthy green infrastructure, healthy evidence-based design processes, etc., and bridges the current issues of SDGs Goals 3, 11, 15, and Goal 17 to fill the “knowledge-action” gap in landscape planning and design.
Sustainable Urban Design
Working Group Leaders:
Dr. Paola Boarin, University of Auckland
Dr. Dr. Manfredo Manfredini, University of Auckland
The Sustainable Urban Design (SUD) Working Group gathers experts from around the world to research and discuss sustainable urban design issues and approaches. The aim is to share knowledge so that we can better understand the particularities of context as well as help identify more general, universally applicable solutions and ways of thinking about urban sustainability. The working group invites researchers and practitioners from built environment disciplines including urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and engineering, to name a few.
At previous conferences we have focused discussion around case studies of sustainable urban design for people and places around the Pacific Rim. This has been presented and discussed, and aspects of this work now being published in the proposed APRU Handbook. Among the issues that remain relevant is better understanding the drivers-of-change across the Pacific, impacted by disruptive technologies, while enhancing well-being, living at higher densities, responding to climate change and being environmentally responsible.
We are now moving the discussion towards what actions need to be taken in cities around the Pacific to give effect to sustainable urban design policies and practices. We also aim to align the discussions to the relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and better understand the challenges involved. Of special interest is identifying what actions and consequences may be universal across the Pacific, and what may be shaped by the particular contexts of peoples and places.
Urban-Rural Linkages
Working Group Leaders:
Dr. Yizhao Yang, University of Oregon
Dr. Anne Taufen, University of Washington, Tacoma
Dr. Sara Padgett Kjaersgaard, University of New South Wales, Sydney
The urban-rural linkage (URL) working group embraces research on various approaches to establishing “positive economic, social and environmental links between urban and areas”, one of the targets underlying UN’s sustainable development goal 11 (SDG 11, Target a). These linkages can bring about benefits in all three areas of sustainable development: reducing regional equity, enhancing economic synergies, and strengthening environmental protection.
Participants of the URL working group at this year’s APRU SCL annual conference are invited to contribute to a Research Topic, entitled “Sustainable Urbanization Through Urban-Rural Co-Development”, hosted by Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, a Frontiers journal committed to tackling SDG11 towards sustainable cities and communities. All articles accepted for publication will be indexed in Web of Science’s ESCI, Scopus, DOAJ, CrossRef, CLOCKSS, and Google Scholar. Articles published within Frontiers Research Topics are highly visible, gathering on average 28% more citations, 27% more downloads and 16% more views than stand-alone articles. Articles published in this Research Topic will undergo a rigorous peer review process with an average turnaround time of 90 days and if accepted, will be published online immediately without having to wait for all articles in the collection to finish the peer review process. Click here to see more about this Research Topic.
This Research Topic welcomes empirical research about pragmatic strategies and actions demonstrating supportive mechanisms for integrated and inclusive governance, as well as exploration of policy study frameworks that are cognizant of inter-place differences and facilitate knowledge-transfer. The types of manuscripts can include original research, community case study, policy brief, and conceptual analysis.
We will use our gatherings (in-person or on zoom) during the upcoming APRU SCL conference to support participants working on paper ideas, abstracts, and/or manuscripts.
Urban Landscape Biodiversity
Since the establishment of the Biodiversity Convention in 1992, many countries have developed strategies and action plans to protect the biodiversity of the plant. Urban areas, which have a large population than the countryside, have lost many habitats in the process of urban development. Landscape studies have played a crucial role in protecting urban biodiversity, as they directly worked on greenspace planning and design. How to enhance biodiversity net gain while improving people’s relationship with nature has become a key challenge to urban landscape development. It is significant to balance environmental protection while providing the society with more opportunities for public recreation, environmental education and green economy development.
The topics are identified based on current scholarship and frontier practices:
Environmental strategies to improve biodiversity net gain in the cities
Site-based habitat conservation through landscape planning and design
Green capital calculation and visualization in biodiversity conservation
Recovery of historical habitats of the cities through integrated historical and ecological approaches
Soft strategies to enroll public engagement in urban biodiversity conservation to enhance public recreation and environment education
Green transportation strategies to facilitate biodiversity conservation
Housing development to link home ecology and biodiversity protection at a micro scale.
Biodiversity index assessment in different cities and countries
Children, Youth and Environment
Working Group Leaders:
Dr. Kate Bishop, University of New South Wales
Prof. Linda Corkery, University of New South Wales
This working group will meet entirely online and may meet outside of scheduled session times. Please contact the working group leaders for more information.
This working group brings together academics from around the Asia Pacific region interested in the role of physical environments in children’s health, wellbeing and development, and the relationships between the social and physical environments of children’s lives. The group’s aim is to enhance research and policy work in this field, lifting its profile to benefit children and youth and, ultimately, creating more sustainable cities and landscapes. The APRU-SCL reach spans nations with diverse cultural challenges and rapidly changing urban environments, all of which affect children’s lives. Cross-cultural collaborations highlight shared experience and expertise. Key environmental issues include: prioritising the needs of children and young people in cities with increased urbanisation; addressing the impact of poverty and poor housing; ensuring the quality of educational environments; increasing opportunities for contact with nature and active play; ensuring safe, walkable neighbourhoods. Social issues with environmental dimensions include: poverty; mental health; obesity and gender equity.