GeoDiskurse in cooperation with: Transient Spaces Lecture Series. Lecture is on 13th June 2024,10:15 until 11:45 at Hörsaal 5, University of Innsbruck. Title: Urban public spaces as catalysts for empowerment and social inclusion. By Hooshmand Alizadeh.

Research on Informality: German-Sino Collaboration, Research in China and Global Cooperation in the Future

This lecture reviews the research on informality in the past two and half decades. Desheng XUE started to know the theory of informality in 1999-2000 during his postdoctoral research in Canada. Since then his research has undergone three stages. There was different focus in each period, while there is a clear sequence and close connection among them. (1) 2000-2010. Participating in two German-Sino joint projects, he studied the informal dynamics of megacity development in Asian countries mainly including China, India and Bangladesh, etc. (2) 2008-2020. Supported by NSFC project, he revealed the role of informal employment in China’s rapid urbanization, found the different governance model of informal spaces in China compared to the main stream way in most other countries, the linkage of informal production to the global manufacturing system, etc. (3) 2021-now. He explored the role of informal employment to the urbanization in the world. He is trying to set up a research network on global informal settlement research, planning and governance based on the Commission on Informality, Social Change and Development of International Geographical Union in the future.

Poster for the consecutive lectures:

First Speaker

Prof. Dr. Desheng XUE

School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University

Desheng XUE is a professor and the dean of the School of Geography and Planning Sun Yat-sen University. Chairman of the Commission on Informality, Social Change and Development of the International Geographical Union (IGU), Fellow of European Centre for Living Technology; Chairman of Commission on Social Geography of the Geographical Society of China (GSC), Chairman of Working Committee of International Communication and Cooperation of GSC. He has led 6 international research projects (as the leader from Chinese side), 3 key projects, 3 general projects and 1 youth project of the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), more than 30 projects funded by the provincial, municipal governments and urban planning firms. He has published 9 books, more than 240 papers and book chapters. He has won the prizes of Science and Technology, Urban Planning and Design of Guangdong Province, and the excellent research papers of GSC. He is the editor of 2 English journals “Journal of Global Humanities and Social Sciences”, “Chinese Geographical Science” and 5 Chinese journals.

Local Climate Zones as an Analytical Framework for Urban–Rural Gradients and Metropolitan Environmental Change

Urban–rural gradients are central to the study of metropolitan environmental change, yet they remain difficult to define, compare, and model in a consistent way. This lecture argues that the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) framework provides a tractable basis for addressing this problem by linking urban morphology, land-surface properties, and ecological response within a common spatial framework. Using evidence from a series of studies, I show how improved LCZ mapping enables more robust gradient analysis, how thermal environments and neighbouring effects are organised across urban–rural space, and how these thermal patterns shape vegetation phenology. I also examine how future LCZ transitions under alternative development pathways can be simulated to evaluate the long-term evolution of urban form and climate-related risk. More broadly, the lecture positions LCZs not simply as a classification system, but as a scalable framework for analysing the interaction between urban structure, climate processes, and ecological change.

Date for the consecutive lectures: 23.04.2026, 16:15 – 17:45 CEST

Second Speaker

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jing XIE

School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University

Jing XIE is Associate Professor at Sun Yat-sen University, where his research focuses on urban climate, environmental gradients, and ecological processes using remote sensing, GIS, and machine learning. He earned his doctorate in Earth Observation from the University of Zurich and has previously worked at the University of Hong Kong and the University of Glasgow. His recent work examines local climate zones, land-surface thermal dynamics, vegetation phenology, and future urban environmental change. He currently leads several funded research projects and has published widely in international journals across urban studies, landscape ecology, and environmental science.