Connecting the Dots between Urban Morphology and the Air Quality of Cities under a Changing Climate: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

The expected increase in urbanization changes the morphology of urban areas. These changes affect the urban environment and impact several aspects, such as climate, energy, air quality, and socioeconomic factors, among others. Therefore, it is important to lead cities towards sustainable development. The goal of this paper is to understand which domains should be considered to assess the sustainability of cities, at an environmental level and with a focus on air quality, and how those domains are connected, based on a comprehensive literature review, which resulted in 1479 articles. The results show that “Urban Climate”, “Air Quality”, “Urban Morphology”, “Health”, “Energy” and “Mobility” are the most common domains in research, and that 39% of articles only assess one domain. It is possible to understand that though 96% of articles contain up to three domains, the great majority do not assess those domains in an integrated way. There are many studies that evaluate important domains of urban areas; however, they mostly evaluate these effects in isolation, and rarely in tandem. Moving forward, it is important to understand how to best connect the most relevant domains, under an integrated multicriteria approach, thus allowing a more complete assessment of the sustainability of urban areas.