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Assessing how environmental change and social–ecological dynamics shape human well-being across spatiotemporal scales. Climate and environmental risk are not determined by hazard alone — they depend on what is exposed and how vulnerable it is, both of which are shaped by land use. This theme connects land-system change to exposure, risk, and quality of life.

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Topics

  • Exposure to environmental hazards — including urban heat, land-surface temperature, and air pollution, measured as long time series so that trends rather than single dates drive conclusions.
  • Vulnerability to climate and disaster risks — following established hazard–exposure–vulnerability framings, under alternative land-use futures.
  • Spatial inequalities — whether the benefits of urban green space and the burdens of heat and pollution are distributed equitably across neighbourhoods and populations.
  • Implications of land system change for quality of life and well-being — composite indicators that connect biophysical change to ecosystem services, quality of life, and well-being.

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Approach

We use multi-sensor Earth observation — optical imagery for vegetation indices and land cover, thermal bands for land-surface temperature, and satellite atmospheric products for air quality. These are combined with census and administrative data to link environmental conditions to population exposure, and analysed with spatial statistics and, increasingly, deep learning. We build spatially explicit scenarios of land-use change and combine them with climate projections and exposure data to assess risk under different futures. Work at national scale is emphasised, since this is where adaptation planning and land-use policy usually meet.

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Selected publications

Theme selections may include work published before the lab was established. See the lab publication list and individual faculty profiles for other work.
  • Tang, J., Hou, H., Estoque, R. C., Murayama, Y., Zhang, X., Wang, R. & Hu, T. (2026). Urban heat risk assessment: A machine learning analysis of multidimensional morphology in 293 Chinese cities. npj Urban Sustainability. DOI
  • Wang, R., Murayama, Y., Liu, F., Zhang, X., Hou, H., Morimoto, T. & Derdouri, A. (2025). Impact of urban morphology on land surface temperature: A case study of central Tokyo, Japan. City and Environment Interactions, 28, 100227. DOI
  • Derdouri, A., Murayama, Y., Morimoto, T., Wang, R. & Haji Mirza Aghasi, N. (2025). Urban green space in transition: A cross-continental perspective from eight Global North and South cities. Landscape and Urban Planning, 253, 105220. DOI
  • Estoque, R. C. & Wu, J. (2024). The resilience–sustainability–quality of life nexus. Science of the Total Environment, 912, 169526. DOI
  • Derdouri, A., Murayama, Y. & Morimoto, T. (2023). Spatiotemporal thermal variations in Moroccan cities: A comparative analysis. Sensors, 23(13), 6229. DOI
  • Derdouri, A., Wang, R., Murayama, Y. & Osaragi, T. (2021). Understanding the links between LULC changes and SUHI in cities: Insights from two-decadal studies (2001–2020). Remote Sensing, 13(18), 3654. DOI
  • Estoque, R. C., Ooba, M., Seposo, X. T., Togawa, T., Hijioka, Y., Takahashi, K. & Nakamura, S. (2020). Heat health risk assessment in Philippine cities using remotely sensed data and social-ecological indicators. Nature Communications, 11, 1581. DOI