China's urbanization is going into a fast development stage. This paper focuses on the recent evolution of an urbanized area – Sunan, the southern part of Jiangsu province in the Yangtze River Delta in China – by means of complementary approaches, especially different fractal and autocorrelation measures. The research shows that Sunan's urban clusters are becoming more and more homogenous and compact and are growing up along the important transportation axes. The enriching discussion of the findings establishes the links between the morphology of urban sprawl and recent socio-economic changes in China.

Dronova, (2016). Energy saving potential of fragmented green spaces due to their temperature regulating ecosystem services in the summer. Applied Energy. 183, pp.1428-1440. Highlights  The thermal environment was simulated with a validated ENVI-met model.  Daily 3D spatial temperature variation was identified with and without green spaces.  Green spaces below mean building height provided variable cooling benefits.  The temperature reduction through fragmented green spaces was translated into cooling energy equivalents.

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Rooftop photovoltaics (RPVs) are crucial in achieving energy transition and climate goals, especially in cities with high building density and substantial energy consumption. Estimating RPV carbon mitigation potential at the city level of an entire large country is challenging given difficulties in assessing rooftop area. Here, using multi-source heterogeneous geospatial data and machine learning regression, we identify a total of 65,962 km2 rooftop area in 2020 for 354 Chinese cities, which represents 4 billion tons of carbon mitigation under ideal assumptions. Considering urban land expansion and power mix transformation, the potential remains at 3-4 billion tons in 2030, when China plans to reach its carbon peak. However, most cities have exploited less than 1% of their potential. We provide analysis of geographical endowment to better support future practice. Our study provides critical insights for targeted RPV development in China and can serve as a foundation for similar work in other countries.