Yuliang Jiang

Mine closure extends beyond individual sites as a regional transition issue, with implications for community livelihoods and long-term wellbeing. Yet community input is often gathered separately from technical decision-making, limiting shared spatial negotiation around post-mining futures. Grounded in landscape urbanism, interpretive mapping has long been used to represent layered spatial knowledge. This study applies that capacity through an exploratory co-design workshop to examine how expert knowledge and community priorities can be brought together amid the staged coal phase-out in Australia’s Latrobe Valley. Through individual assessment, collective mapping, and discussion, participants prioritised three proposals that consolidated key concerns: wetland recovery, industrial heritage, and biodiversity rehabilitation. Within this process, participants positioned the proposals in specific locations and timeframes, while final reassessment showed that views on proposal value remained varied after negotiation. The study advances interpretive mapping beyond knowledge layering and visualisation, translating diverse knowledge and deliberation into shared judgement about post-mining futures. It also exposes a critical implementation gap: prioritised proposals are difficult to advance without governance clarity, technical feasibility, and funding pathways. The paper argues that accessible co-design must be embedded within an adaptive transition framework aligning rehabilitation decisions with regional development agendas, so design proposals can move toward staged delivery.

Mapping socio‐ecological dynamics reveals how human and natural systems interact over time, supporting informed planning and balanced regional development. By detecting patterns in these interactions, mapping supports policymakers in navigating complex transitions and guiding sustainable regional planning. These transitions are particularly evident in regions experiencing synchronised coal mine and coal‐fired power plant closures. Despite ongoing rehabilitation efforts worldwide, few studies explore how socio‐ecological factors interact and evolve or employ mapping as an integrative tool. Directly addressing this gap, this study innovatively introduces a framework that treats coal mines and power plants as a connected nexus, analysing their regional impacts through an integrated mapping approach. This framework combines geospatial mapping with exploratory, causal, and predictive modelling to analyse spatiotemporal shifts in post‐mining landscapes. Applied to the Latrobe Valley in Australia, the framework reveals the closure caused sharp declines in income and nighttime light intensity, with no immediate recovery in native vegetation. Projections indicate that without early intervention, the Valley risks deepening regional socioeconomic decline. Translating multifaceted data into an analytical format enables stakeholders to see through complexity, understand interconnected socio‐ecological dynamics across phases, and coordinate governance to manage regional changes for balanced development strategies.

Climate change has become a pressing issue in cities around the globe, especially those in dry regions. Despite these cities’ cultural vitality, water shortages are among the central problems impacting society. The aim of this study was to recapture, record, and rethink the world’s traditional water systems with two objectives. The first objective was to scrutinize the mechanics, social functions, and spatial organization of these systems. The second objective was to develop novel adaptations of these old technologies for new discourses and apply them to the water-stressed urban landscapes of Los Angeles. The intent was to build a greater capacity for resilient landscape and infrastructure design in a post-carbon world by constructing a more robust lexicon of pre-carbon drylands design. Notable similarities surfaced among the systems despite their distinct cultural backgrounds and historical origins, indicating commonalities across the evolution of water infrastructure in human history. The output of this study established the basis for a systematic drylands atlas as a resource for research-informed design of the built environment. The outcomes make fundamental water-centric climate change adaptation strategies accessible through visual communication techniques for professional practices and pedagogic purposes.

Environmental justice advocates that all people are protected from disproportionate impacts of environmental hazards. Despite this ideal aspiration, social and environmental inequalities exist throughout greater Los Angeles. Previous research has identified and mapped pollutant levels, demographic information, and the population’s socioeconomic status and health issues. Nevertheless, the complex interrelationships between these factors remain unclear. To close this knowledge gap, we first measured the spatial centrality using sDNA software. These data were then integrated with other socioeconomic and health data collected from CalEnvironScreen, with census tract as the unit of analysis. Finally, structural equation modeling (SEM) was executed to explore direct, indirect, and total effects among variables. The results show that the White population tends to reside in the more segregated areas and lives closer to green space, contributing to higher housing stability, financial security, and more education attainment. In contrast, people of color, especially Latinx, experience the opposite of the environmental benefits. Spatial centrality exhibits a significant indirect effect on environmental justice by influencing ethnicity composition and pollution levels. Moreover, green space accessibility significantly influences environmental justice via pollution. These findings can assist decision-makers to create a more inclusive society and curtail social segregation for all individuals.