AI-Driven Sustainable Spatial Planning: Advancing Climate-Neutral Cities through Digital Innovation

This is an ambitious project aimed at helping cities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and achieve climate neutrality. The project will combine world-leading research on climate action, the use of AI in urban planning, and nature-based solutions (NBS) to create a tool which supports cities in implementing effective climate action strategies through spatial planning.

Objectives and Vision

We will build upon the work and learnings from the project AI-powered knowledge integration to Carbon-neutral Cities , in which we have developed an AI-supported decision support tool (AI-DSS) for handling complex socio-physical interactions, their implications, and potential feedbacks. We will further this research and development in three key directions:

We will integrate our research on NBS for climate action with the AI-DSS, to create a tool which supports planners in implementing these promising findings ;
In the past 1-2 years, there have been significant advances in the development and availability of AI technologies. The current DSS, with its early integration of AI, is ripe for further development to take advantage of these advances. Our team is leading the research frontier in analyzing how AI tools can be harnessed sustainably in urban systems planning and will to continue that exploration and test the implementation of new AI technologies in our modelling and engagement work;
Well will extend the application of our AI-DSS (currently calibrated for large cities) to accommodate medium and small urban contexts. Through collaborative engagement with local planning authorities, we aim to identify context-specific variables and constraints to develop an innovative framework supporting climate-conscious spatial planning initiatives.

Consortium and Collaborative Expertise

The consortium brings together an interdisciplinary team led by researchers at KTH (Sweden), bringing together researchers from MIT (USA), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA), Shanghai Jiao-Tong University (China) with planners from Region Stockholm (Sweden) and Trelleborg Kommun (Sweden).

This collaboration harnesses diverse expertise in AI, decision support systems, climate change mitigation, NBS, practical planning at various scales, and stakeholder participation, ensuring a comprehensive approach to climate action planning. The PI for the project is Zahra Kalantari (KTH).

Methodology and Innovative Approaches

This project employs a multifaceted methodology that includes stakeholder engagement, innovative research, and cutting-edge socio-ecological systems modeling to co-develop tools for climate action through spatial planning. This innovative approach emphasizes the importance of engaging planners and other stakeholders in the tool development to ensure that the results are useful and useable in a variety of practical planning contexts.

Impact and Significance

The project aims to provide actionable insights and tools for urban and regional planners to design effective climate action strategies. By fostering co-learning and exchange of experiences across regions, we will contribute to achieving climate neutrality in cities in Sweden and across the EU, USA, and China.