This paper presents a work in progress on how to visualize the impact of vegetation on urban air quality in a virtual city model, explorable using virtual reality (VR). The transdisciplinary project CityAirSim - Visualizing and modelling urban air quality - influence of vegetation, building morphology and traffic emissions develops a modelling framework to simulate the effects of vegetation, buildings and traffic strategies on air pollution, in order to understand the synergies and conflicts between these factors. The resulting data will be visualized in a VR-application allowing interactive exploration. Two primary target groups for the VR-application are high school students and urban planners. We aim for the tool to be used in teaching, e.g., in environmental science, as well as in communication with the public in exhibition environments, such as science centers. This paper focuses on how we should visualize invisible air pollution in an otherwise realistic urban setting to facilitate understanding. One important aspect to consider is to create a visual balance between data visualization and the visualization of the built environment in the model. Another aspect is to define the appropriate levels of data visualization and abstraction of representation to use, without losing richness of information.
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China’s urbanisation in the past decades has been mirrored by large scale rural-urban migration. During this process, hundreds of millions of rural inhabit-ants move to cities for better employment opportunities while leaving their children behind in rural villages. The separation with parents causes negative transformation of family welfare supply structure. As a result, many “left-behind” children (LBC) display characteristics include loneliness, misconduct, low self-esteem, and crime tendencies. Based on welfare pluralism theory, this paper uses GIS-based planning and design approaches to improve social welfare for LBC in rural China. Using a case study in Hubei Province, we demonstrate that LBC welfare can be improved by increasing community social capital through the provision of functional and child-friendly public space in rural villages. This study provides useful insights to issues surrounding LBC through the lens of planning and design. We hope it will inform similar endeavours aiming at improving LBC welfare in other villages in rural China.
