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Dr. MAHYAR MASOUDI
National University of Singapore

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Research Keywords & Expertise

0 Climatology
0 Spatial Analysis
0 Nature Based Solutions
0 Remote sensing & GIS applications
0 Urban Ecology, Urban Forestry, Green Infrastructure, Climate Change, Ecosystem Services, Resilient Landscapes, Landscape Urbanism, Urban Social-Ecological System, Ecosystem Service Assessment, Landscape Ecology, Ecological and Sustainable Design / Plannin

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Journal article
Published: 05 December 2020 in Urban Climate
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While both composition and configuration of urban green spaces (UGS) have been shown to affect the cooling effect of UGS, more studies have focused on how land use affects UGS composition and the subsequent impacts on UGS cooling ability. We used Singapore to fill this gap by comparing the interrelationships among land use, spatial pattern and cooling effect of UGS between 2005 and 2015. Landsat imageries and Singapore's Master Plans were used to produce UGS, land surface temperature (LST) and land use maps. Our findings demonstrate that almost all land uses increased in size and lost vegetation over time and showed increased LST as a consequence. Our results support the limited evidence that land use not only affects the UGS composition, but influences their configuration and their cooling effect. In both years, land uses with more, simpler shape, less fragmented, and more connected UGS patches had lower LST and higher cooling effect. How UGS pattern affects cooling effect in each land use was shown to be dependent on the existing UGS pattern in that land use, with four major patterns identified. Our results may help urban planners evaluate the thermal consequences of their land use proposals.

ACS Style

Mahyar Masoudi; Puay Yok Tan; Marjan Fadaei. The effects of land use on spatial pattern of urban green spaces and their cooling ability. Urban Climate 2020, 35, 100743 .

AMA Style

Mahyar Masoudi, Puay Yok Tan, Marjan Fadaei. The effects of land use on spatial pattern of urban green spaces and their cooling ability. Urban Climate. 2020; 35 ():100743.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Mahyar Masoudi; Puay Yok Tan; Marjan Fadaei. 2020. "The effects of land use on spatial pattern of urban green spaces and their cooling ability." Urban Climate 35, no. : 100743.

Journal article
Published: 27 October 2020 in Remote Sensing
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In the face of rapid urbanization and the growing burden of mental health disease, there is a need to design cities with consideration for human mental health and well-being. There is an emerging body of evidence on the importance of everyday environmental exposures regarding the mental health of city inhabitants. For example, contemplative landscapes, through a series of neuroscience experiments, were shown to trigger improved mood and restoration of attention. While the Contemplative Landscape Model (CLM) for scoring landscape views was applied to single images, its suitability was never tested for walking paths and areas with a diversity of viewpoints. This study aims to fill this gap using the high-density downtown of Singapore, also known as a “City in a Garden” for its advanced urban greening strategies, as a case study. In this study, 68 360° photos were taken along four popular walking paths every 20 m. A photo set of 204 items was created by extracting three view angles from each photo. Each of them was independently scored by three experts and average CLM scores for each view and path were obtained. The results were then fed into an open-source Quantum Geographic Information System (QGIS) for visualization. Cohen’s kappa agreement between experts’ scores was computed. The outcomes were mapped to facilitate the identification of the most contemplative viewpoints and paths. Moreover, specific contemplative landscape patterns have been distinguished and assessed allowing the recommendation of design strategies to improve the quality of viewpoints and paths. The inter-rater agreement reached substantial to perfect values. CLM is a reliable and suitable tool that enables the fine-grained assessment and improvement of the visual quality of the urban living environments with consideration of the mental health and well-being of urbanites. It can be used at a larger scale owing to 360° photos taken from the pedestrian’s point of view. Utilizing spatially explicit maps in QGIS platforms enables a wider range of visualizations and allows for spatial patterns to be revealed that otherwise would have remained hidden. Our findings demonstrate the usefulness of our semi-automated method. Furthermore, given the high inter-rater agreement observed, we suggest that there is potential in developing fully automated methods.

ACS Style

Hou Yanru; Mahyar Masoudi; Agnieszka Chadala; Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo. Visual Quality Assessment of Urban Scenes with the Contemplative Landscape Model: Evidence from a Compact City Downtown Core. Remote Sensing 2020, 12, 3517 .

AMA Style

Hou Yanru, Mahyar Masoudi, Agnieszka Chadala, Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo. Visual Quality Assessment of Urban Scenes with the Contemplative Landscape Model: Evidence from a Compact City Downtown Core. Remote Sensing. 2020; 12 (21):3517.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Hou Yanru; Mahyar Masoudi; Agnieszka Chadala; Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo. 2020. "Visual Quality Assessment of Urban Scenes with the Contemplative Landscape Model: Evidence from a Compact City Downtown Core." Remote Sensing 12, no. 21: 3517.

Short review
Published: 27 April 2020 in Landscape and Urban Planning
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Urban ecosystem service (UES) is becoming an influential concept to guide the planning, design, and management of urban landscapes towards urban sustainability. However, its use is hindered by definitional ambiguity, and the conceptual bases underpinning its application remain weak. This is exemplified by two different but equally valid interpretations of UES: “urban ecosystem services”, referring to ecosystem services from analogs of natural and semi-natural ecosystems within urban boundaries, and “urban ecosystem services”, a much broader term that includes the former group as well as urban services in a city. While we recognize that a single definition of UES is not possible nor necessary as its application is context-dependent, it is nevertheless useful to clarify the relationships between these interpretations to promote consistent use, and importantly, explore how a broader interpretation of UES might advance its applications in areas that have been neglected. We developed a conceptual framework that links UES to natural and human-derived capital to explain the relationships between the dual meanings of UES and proposed three normative propositions to guide its application: (1) integrate holistically multiple components of natural capital to provide UES, (2) reduce dependence on non-renewable abiotic resources and human-derived capital, and (3) enhance UES through technology. The framework we developed helps to resolve the current ambiguity in the meanings of UES, highlights the need to recognise neglected aspects of natural capital important for UES, and can be used to clarify relationships with related concepts conveying dependence of human well-being on nature.

ACS Style

Puay Yok Tan; Jingyuan Zhang; Mahyar Masoudi; Jahson Berhane Alemu; Peter J. Edwards; Adrienne Grêt-Regamey; Daniel R. Richards; Justine Saunders; Xiao Ping Song; Lynn Wei Wong. A conceptual framework to untangle the concept of urban ecosystem services. Landscape and Urban Planning 2020, 200, 103837 -103837.

AMA Style

Puay Yok Tan, Jingyuan Zhang, Mahyar Masoudi, Jahson Berhane Alemu, Peter J. Edwards, Adrienne Grêt-Regamey, Daniel R. Richards, Justine Saunders, Xiao Ping Song, Lynn Wei Wong. A conceptual framework to untangle the concept of urban ecosystem services. Landscape and Urban Planning. 2020; 200 ():103837-103837.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Puay Yok Tan; Jingyuan Zhang; Mahyar Masoudi; Jahson Berhane Alemu; Peter J. Edwards; Adrienne Grêt-Regamey; Daniel R. Richards; Justine Saunders; Xiao Ping Song; Lynn Wei Wong. 2020. "A conceptual framework to untangle the concept of urban ecosystem services." Landscape and Urban Planning 200, no. : 103837-103837.

Journal article
Published: 06 November 2019 in Sustainability
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Humans rely upon ecosystem services to regulate their environment and to provide resources and cultural benefits. As the world’s urban population grows, it becomes increasingly important to find ways of improving the provision of ecosystem services in urban areas. However, the kinds of ecosystem services that are most needed or demanded by urban populations, and the opportunities to provide these, vary widely in cities around the world. Here we explore variation in climate, Human Development Index (HDI), and population density, and discuss their implications for providing and managing urban ecosystem services. Using 221 published studies of urban ecosystem services, we analyse the extent to which existing research adequately covers global variation in climatic and social conditions. Our results reveal an under-representation of studies from tropical cities and from lower HDI countries, with implications for how we conceptualize and quantify urban ecosystem services, and how we transfer benefits across case studies. Future work should be aimed at correcting these deficits and determining the extent to which conclusions about urban ecosystem services are transferable from one city to another.

ACS Style

Daniel Richards; Mahyar Masoudi; Rachel R. Y. Oh; Erik S. Yando; Jingyuan Zhang; Daniel A. Friess; Adrienne Grêt-Regamey; Puay Yok Tan; Peter J. Edwards. Global Variation in Climate, Human Development, and Population Density Has Implications for Urban Ecosystem Services. Sustainability 2019, 11, 6200 .

AMA Style

Daniel Richards, Mahyar Masoudi, Rachel R. Y. Oh, Erik S. Yando, Jingyuan Zhang, Daniel A. Friess, Adrienne Grêt-Regamey, Puay Yok Tan, Peter J. Edwards. Global Variation in Climate, Human Development, and Population Density Has Implications for Urban Ecosystem Services. Sustainability. 2019; 11 (22):6200.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Daniel Richards; Mahyar Masoudi; Rachel R. Y. Oh; Erik S. Yando; Jingyuan Zhang; Daniel A. Friess; Adrienne Grêt-Regamey; Puay Yok Tan; Peter J. Edwards. 2019. "Global Variation in Climate, Human Development, and Population Density Has Implications for Urban Ecosystem Services." Sustainability 11, no. 22: 6200.

Journal article
Published: 03 January 2019 in Landscape and Urban Planning
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Urban greening is increasingly viewed by cities worldwide as an effective measure to mitigate adverse impacts of urban heat island (UHI) effect. Despite the recognition of the possible influence of spatial pattern of urban green spaces (UGS) on their cooling effect by a small, yet growing body of literature, the results are inconsistent and inconclusive. This may be due to varying numbers and types of landscape metrics, and different statistical methods used in different studies, as well as scale-dependency of metrics and contextual differences between cities. We believe that comparative study across time and space using consistent methodology may overcome these challenges. We examined the relationships between spatial pattern and cooling effect of UGS in Singapore from 1973 to 2015 using a range of statistical and spatial methods. Landsat images were used to derive land cover and land surface temperature (LST) maps. Our results showed that: (1) four metrics of PLAND, SHAPE_AM, PD, and ENN_AM could effectively quantify UGS pattern and its relationships with LST across the years; (2) in addition to the amount of UGS (composition), four aspects of UGS configuration significantly influenced LST across the years namely, patch size, shape complexity, aggregation and fragmentation, and connectivity; (3) relative importance of composition versus configuration may depend on the existing UGS pattern; (4) relatively larger patches that are simpler in shape, more connected, and less fragmented were associated with lower LST. We discuss the significance of the results and insights they provide on optimizing UGS pattern for higher cooling effects.

ACS Style

Mahyar Masoudi; Puay Yok Tan. Multi-year comparison of the effects of spatial pattern of urban green spaces on urban land surface temperature. Landscape and Urban Planning 2019, 184, 44 -58.

AMA Style

Mahyar Masoudi, Puay Yok Tan. Multi-year comparison of the effects of spatial pattern of urban green spaces on urban land surface temperature. Landscape and Urban Planning. 2019; 184 ():44-58.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Mahyar Masoudi; Puay Yok Tan. 2019. "Multi-year comparison of the effects of spatial pattern of urban green spaces on urban land surface temperature." Landscape and Urban Planning 184, no. : 44-58.

Journal article
Published: 07 November 2018 in Ecological Indicators
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Studies on the role of urban green spaces (UGS) in mitigating the urban heat island (UHI) effect demonstrate the influence of two related, but distinct attributes of UGS: the composition (amount), and configuration (spatial attributes and distribution) of UGS patches. While the positive role of UGS amount in providing cooling effect seems unequivocal, it is still not possible to develop a consensus on the role of UGS configuration from the small number of studies that have been conducted to-date. The latter observation could be due to different methodologies, such as choice of landscape metrics and statistical methods used in different studies, as well as differences in urban form of cities. This study addresses the current knowledge gap by using a same set of methodologies applied to four cities of different urban forms: Singapore and Hong Kong as compact cities, and Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur as sprawling cities. Landsat imageries were used to derive land cover and land surface temperature (LST) maps. Different statistical and spatial analysis techniques were also used. We report several novel findings from this study: (1) only four metrics of percentage of landscape (PLAND), area-weighted mean shape index (SHAPE_AM), patch density (PD), and mean Euclidean nearest neighbor distance (ENN_MN) were adequate to explain UGS pattern-LST relationships in all four cities; (2) the relative importance of composition versus configuration of UGS in determining LST seems to be a function of the existing UGS pattern: what the average per unit area of the city is like in terms of patch size (area-weighted mean patch size (AREA_AM)), shape complexity (SHAPE_AM), and distribution (skewness and kurtosis) of patches; and (3) decision tree classifier is a novel and effective method to unravel hidden patterns in complex UGS pattern-LST relationships. Our results also provide insights on UGS management in cities for higher cooling effects. Greening priorities may differ among cities. In cities where configuration is not a determinant of LST (e.g. Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong), greening may focus on providing conditions necessary for configuration to influence LST and adding greenery, and where configuration already affects LST (e.g. Jakarta and Singapore), the focus may be placed on optimization of UGS by providing larger, simpler in shape, more aggregated and connected, and less fragmented UGS patches.

ACS Style

Mahyar Masoudi; Puay Yok Tan; Soo Chin Liew. Multi-city comparison of the relationships between spatial pattern and cooling effect of urban green spaces in four major Asian cities. Ecological Indicators 2018, 98, 200 -213.

AMA Style

Mahyar Masoudi, Puay Yok Tan, Soo Chin Liew. Multi-city comparison of the relationships between spatial pattern and cooling effect of urban green spaces in four major Asian cities. Ecological Indicators. 2018; 98 ():200-213.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Mahyar Masoudi; Puay Yok Tan; Soo Chin Liew. 2018. "Multi-city comparison of the relationships between spatial pattern and cooling effect of urban green spaces in four major Asian cities." Ecological Indicators 98, no. : 200-213.