ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Built Environ.
Sec. Urban Science
Volume 11 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbuil.2025.1678169
This article is part of the Research TopicSocial-Ecological Urban Transformation for Climate Resilience: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and InnovationsView all articles
Street-Level Climate Action: A Landscape Based Approach to Investigate Transportation Emissions and Green Infrastructure Solutions
Provisionally accepted
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, United States
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While climate change demands urgent global action, emission reduction effectiveness hinges on local implementation. This study develops a landscape planning framework for analyzing street-level transportation emissions using integrated geospatial analysis, transportation analytics, and landscape metrics. Using 2016 NLCD land cover data, 2021 census data, and 2023 IDOT traffic data for Cook County, Illinois, we quantify transportation emissions at a fine scale and identify local mitigation opportunities. Our results indicate that arterial roads generate 52.04% of transportation emissions despite lower per-meter intensity than highways. Shannon's entropy (land use fragmentation measure) reveals downtown districts (0.586) have lower per-capita emissions than fragmented suburban areas (0.951). Married households correlate with higher emissions (r=0.302, p<0.001) while renter-occupied areas show lower emissions (r=-0.294, p<0.001). We also find that strategic green infrastructure implementation along arterial corridors could sequester at least 360,000 tons CO₂ annually. This framework provides actionable strategies for translating global climate goals into neighborhood-scale interventions by integrating transportation planning with ecosystem services.
Keywords: transportation emissions, Landscape infrastructure, Spatial analytics, Urban-Suburban Dynamics, Socio-spatial patterns, Localized Climate Action
Received: 01 Aug 2025; Accepted: 29 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Tao and Deal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Brian Deal, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, United States
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