City and Environment Interactions

Climate – Sustainability – Resilience

City and Environment Interactions is an international and interdisciplinary rapid open access forum focusing on the interactions between cities and related environmental and climatic pressures. The outcome-related research we publish should tackle the challenges that densely-populated cities (and their wider regions) face in a changing world, as increasing populations live in conurbations.

We welcome full research papers, review articles, and are also keen to consider short communications that present original material for rapid dissemination. For more details, please see below for our different Article Types.

City and Environment Interactions also welcomes research on the urban environment from both the natural and social sciences, especially if it demonstrates the interface with urban policy making and other important stakeholders. It is important to note that the journal aims be useful reading not just for academics, but stakeholders within industry, urban government, and policymakers etc.

What topics will the journal cover?

Pressures from pollution, climate and the environment add to the demand cities place on resources, and difficult decisions are inevitable in making cities efficient, enjoyable and healthy places to live. The United Nations places great hope in local, city and regional governments taking responsibility to drive sustainable development.

Multi-disciplinary research from across both the natural and social sciences is urgently needed to inform the decision making required for better and more sustainable cities.

Our subject scope sits at the nexus of how the science of cities and regions (i.e. networks; processes and interactions; communities; and systems) interact with sustainability, resilience, resource limitation, pollution, climate/climate change, and global atmosphere and warming.

Some examples of potential topics in this field could be:

Environmental pressures on cities and their regions

Climate threats such as water shortages, urban runoff, urban heat island etc.

Urban greenhouse gas emission and decarbonisation in cities.

Impact of extreme weather in cities.

Poor air quality and population exposure

Air pollutant sensors and community monitoring

Transport networks and pollution or climate change

Problems of water supply

Environmental issues surrounding recycling and solid waste

Integrative concerns: electricity; food; water and waste; medicine; security

Cross-disciplinary studies; cities as complex systems

Community attitudes to urban environments; ethical dimensions and inequality

Public perception of climate change and urban pollution

Sustainability and resilience in the face of threat

Role of technology in enhancing urban resilience

Note: If you feel your paper is not covered by the above topics, but nevertheless relevant, please contact the Editor-in Chief, as it may still be considered for possible inclusion.

Submission Requirements

Submissions should appeal to the journal's broad and multi-disciplinary readership. As such, submissions should present research relevant not just to academics but also to multiple disciplines and be accessible to an audience outside of the field, or otherwise be within a cross-disciplinary or emerging field. This gives authors the opportunity to convey the importance of their work to a wider community (see stakeholders mentioned above) in addition to specialists in their field.

To assist the Editors in assessing your article, you are invited at submission to provide a brief justification statement in the letter accompanying your submission. This statement should outline how your article satisfies the publication criteria detailed above. The following questions should normally be addressed in your statement:

What are the new results or developments reported in your article?

In what way are these new results or developments timely?

Why are these new results or developments significant to policy?

How does your paper demonstrate some element of research outcome as it pertains to the wider stakeholder community?

Article Types and word limits

Original Research Papers: no word limit

Original Review Papers: no word limit

Short Communications: not normally more than 3000 words of main text, making a timely and significant contribution to the Journal and deserving of rapid publication. There should be no more than three figures or tables in total. These articles focus on distilling, synthesising or commenting on the outcomes of research - for example as they relate to an end goal of policy, planning, infrastructure, or industry. We also accept Short Communications commenting on the next stage iterations that look beyond the scope of a current research project. Short Communication should also focus on a specific aspect of a problem. One example would be a new finding that is expected to have a significant impact. In addition, we invite Short Communications that combine, interpret and communicate knowledge from diverse scientific disciplines to policymakers and wider stakeholders. Specific cases of Co-production of research would fall into this category.

Invited Viewpoint: To add to the Original Research submitted, the Journal will also publish Invited Viewpoints; articles written by experts to assess and curate the vast amount of research undertaken globally in this field. Invited Viewpoints may also include innovation insights (short communications on innovative scientific ideas for demand creation and/or field-based demand) and science status (i.e. overviews of the status of research in this field globally, regionally and nationally as small opinion pieces). If you have an idea for an invited viewpoint, please contact the Editor-in Chief in the first instance.

Invited Viewpoint articles:

Short papers ~ 2500-3000 words in main text (though longer can be possible in some cases. Discuss with the Editor-in Chief).

At least one figure, possibly a graphical abstract, to summarise the main concepts discussed

At least 10% of the references should be selected and annotated as being papers of special interest (*)outstanding interest (**) or key reviews (R)

Annotated references must be from the past three years, and the annotation should provide a brief description of the major findings and the importance of the study.

Policy Forum: (maximum 1500 words) present analyses of the policy implications of recent scientific results or studies or discuss the intersection of science and society.

Technical Comment: (maximum 1500 words) present critical technical comments made on a recently published research article in the journal. A comment article must pertain to the original article, be timely, focussed, factually-based, and of clear value to readers, be measured and professional in tone, provide a significant and useful addition to the scientific literature and on-going scholarly discussion (i.e. not simply identifying error(s) in the original published article) and be of interest, not only to specialists in the field, but to the Journal's broader readership.

We also publish a small number of Letters to the Editor, and Opinion Pieces: maximum 2000 words.

This journal welcomes contributions that support and advance the UN's sustainable development goals, in particular SDG 7 (Affordable and clean energy) and SDG 13 (Climate Action)