Environmental research for sustaining quality and integrity of natural habitat and human settlement

Abstract

The research on the quality of natural habitats and human settlements has been paid attention to by academia, design professionals and policymakers in recent years. Most of the concern is driven by rapid spatial transformation of and ecological deterioration in both natural habitats and human settlement globally due to the rapid urbanisation process, climate change, and environmental disasters (Franklin, Anderson, Gutiérrez, & Burnham, 2000; Kareiva, Tallis, Ricketts, Daily, & Polasky, 2011; Zhu et al., 2020). Besides the spatial and environmental changes, various social-demographic and economic factors connected with concerns on gender, age and lifestyle also contribute to the evolution of public space and architectural space that influence the daily life of individuals and communities (Carmona, 2014; Moser, 2017). The questions raised here are, what is the status of habitat quality and the spatial quality in and around the human settlements? How can we assess the status? And to what extent can planners and policymakers develop strategies to better balance the need to sustain the quality of nature and human settlement based on quantitative and qualitative assessment and prediction?