Environmental Risks or Costs? Exploring Flooding and the Urban Heat Island Effect in Planning for Policymaking: A Case Study in the Southern Taiwan Science Park

Peiwen Lu, Yang-Ting Shen and Tang-Huang Lin
Additional contact information
Peiwen Lu: Department of Geography, National Changhua University of Education, Changhua 50007, Taiwan
Yang-Ting Shen: School of Architecture, Feng Chia University, Taichung 40724, Taiwan
Tang-Huang Lin: Centre for Space and Remote Sensing Research, National Central University, Taoyuan 32001, Taiwan

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 12, 1-18

Abstract: This study examined a specific case of planning for policymaking in response to two physical environmental issues: flooding and the urban heat island effect (UHI). The Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) was selected as a case study. Data were primarily collected through interviews as well as through policy review. The assessment showed significant differences in policymaking when comparing these two issues. The issue of flooding was considered and managed well. The UHI, however, was poorly considered or ignored altogether in policymaking, even though it has shown an increasing trend over the last decades, to a greater degree in the STSP than in the city centre. The results implied that the neoliberal approach to planning of decision-making performed better in managing risks (i.e., flooding and relevant disasters which had occurred in the past) than costs (i.e., the UHI and the future threats resulting from development). The STSP’s spatial development strategy, underpinned by the neoliberal approach with an agenda for maximising economic growth, was questionable for environmental management toward resilience.

Keywords: flooding; planning policymaking; Tainan; Taiwan; the urban heat island effect (UHI) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/12/2239/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/12/2239/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:12:p:2239-:d:121595

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().