Geography Commons^™

Casual Killing In The Home: Ecological Citizenship And The Micro-Geopolitics Of Mosquito Cohabitation, Orlando Woods, Junxi Qian

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This article explores how the visceral acts of being bitten by and killing mosquitoes can underpin the formation of ecological citizenship. This form of citizenship is premised on human-nature entanglement and raises questions concerning how the rights and responsibilities stemming from such entanglement become distributed across the public and private domains. As a space in which mosquito cohabitation is contested daily, the home is a key site through which ecological citizenship can be forged and theoretical debates concerning urban political ecology can be extended. Human-mosquito entanglements in the home can reveal the limits of public pest management strategies, the partiality …

Potential Recyclable Materials In Buildings: A Framework For Greenhouse Gas Emissions Assessment Of Residential Buildings In Singapore, Pradeep Alva, Riccardo Talami, Wanyu Pei, Goran Sibenik, Martin Mosteiro-Romero, Clayton Miller, Rudi Stouffs

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

As countries aim to reduce resource consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Whole Life Carbon Assessment (WLCA) has become a vital method for quantifying embodied and operational GHG emissions. However, few studies have conducted WLCA on an urban scale, often addressing operational or embodied GHG emissions in isolation without considering their cumulative impact. This study introduces a city-wide WLCA framework to assess the potential recyclable materials of urban building stock, using Singapore as a case study with 5915 public residential buildings. Upfront GHG emissions are calculated from material intensity and building information, while operational emissions are based on energy use …

Engineering Immunity? Biotechnical Governance And The Experimental Failures Of Project Wolbachia In Singapore, Siew Ying Shee, Orlando Woods, Sayd Randle

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper introduces the idea of ‘experimental failure’ to critically interrogate the limits of engineering biological systems for urban governance. Whilst experimentation through projects related to smart cities and eco-cities has garnered significant attention, biotechnical experiments––which manipulate living organisms through technology––remain underexplored. Unlike interventions leveraging non-living, inanimate systems, engineering life must contend with ecological ‘unruliness’ and social uncertainties. These complexities often resist straightforward quantification and exceed conventional evaluation frameworks, demanding a rethinking of what constitutes ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in such interventions. Drawing on ethnographic research with public health officers, pest management professionals and residents in Singapore, we analyse the government-led …

Public Pool Usage As Adaptation Against Urban Heat, Stefan Borsky, Eric Fesselmeyer

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This paper examines the relationship between urban heat and outdoor public pool usage. Using attendance data from all 53 outdoor public pools in New York City, we analyze nonlinear effects of heat on pool usage across socioeconomic contexts. Pool attendance rises sharply with heat, especially in low-income neighborhoods where alternative coping options are likely limited. We also find that public pools reduce heat-related emergency medical service calls. Our findings highlight the need for equitable investment in blue infrastructure to enhance urban climate resilience and demonstrate how this type of adaptive infrastructure can play a critical role in managing urban heat.

Using Satellite-Observed Geospatial Inundation Data To Identify The Impacts Of Floods On Firm-Level Performance: The Case Of China During 2000–2009, Pao-Li Chang, Fan Zheng

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper compiles high-resolution geospatial inundation areas of China for the period 2000–2009 based on satellite imagery repositories filtered by the Global Flood Database (GFD). In parallel, we geocode a comprehensive firm-level dataset of China and combine these two sets of geospatial data to identify the set of inundated firms in each year of flood events, as well as the distances of all non-inundated firms from the inundated areas. Given the high-resolution inundation data, we adopt a generalized dynamic-panel specification to estimate dynamic and spatial spillover effects of floods on firm-level production activities (including outputs, capital and labor inputs, and …

Spiritual Gentrification Amid The Rise Of Platform Urbanism: "Wanghong Temples" And Emerging Buddhist Cultural Economies In Tianzhu Road, Hangzhou, China, Han Zhang, Junxi Qian, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study scrutinizes how the Tianzhu Road in the Lingyin Community - a peri-urban area in Hangzhou ringed by a cluster of temples that constitutes a distinct spiritual enclave - has been reworked through a two-phase gentrification process driven by the spiritual aesthetics and platform logics. Drawing on a two-month ethnography and media content analysis, this study conceptualizes spiritual gentrification as a spiritual aesthetics and culture-oriented recalibration of urban space in which spiritual elements operate as symbolic capital, attracting culturally motivated entrepreneurs and aligning the spiritual atmosphere with slow-life values as an alternative to urban modernity. In particular, platform urbanism …

Weather Rescue At Sea: Recovering Historical Weather Observations From 19th Century British Naval Ships, Praveen Teleti, Ed Hawkins, Clive Wilkinson

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Ship logbooks represent a critical source of historical meteorological data, providing valuable observations of barometric pressure, air temperature, sea surface temperature, wind force and direction, and other variables. Substantial quantities of these records are unavailable to climate science as they have not yet been transcribed. We present ‘Weather Rescue at Sea’, a citizen-science project which transcribed millions of weather observations contained in 19th Century UK Royal Navy ship logbooks. We describe the logbook structure and weather observation-taking instructions and discuss significant challenges with the translation of handwritten text into accurate data due to errors arising from ambiguous handwriting, historical terminology, …

Geopolitical Ecologies Of Cloud Capitalism: Territorial Restructuring And The Making Of National Computing Power In The Us And China, Justin Kollar, Sol Andrew Stokols

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

As computing power becomes central to geopolitical rivalry, cloud infrastructure is increasingly framed as critical to national security, economic resilience and technological sovereignty. Current debates often focus on global competition – especially between the U.S. and China – highlighting strategic investments, export controls and infrastructure diplomacy abroad. Yet far less attention has been paid to the domestic territorial transformations that make such geopolitical projection possible. This paper argues that national strategies for AI and cloud dominance depend on the reorganization of land, energy and regulatory systems to sustain large-scale computation. Using a geopolitical ecology framework, we examine how the U.S. …

The Affective Economy Of Toxic Atmospheres: Sensory Governance, Ecological Intelligences And The Performative Politics Of Urban Mosquito Management, Orlando Woods, Creighton Connolly

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This paper considers how atmospheres can play a powerful role in troubling the management of nature in the multispecies city. It brings the cyclical nature of atmospheric effects, the affective values and il/logics that determine human responses to non-human threats, and the misguided and potentially deleterious health outcomes that ensue into one analytical frame. Drawing on the empirical case of urban mosquito management in Singapore, it considers how the creation of toxic atmospheres through fogging – blowing insecticides into the air in a bid to kill mosquitoes – is ineffective and sets in motion a cascading series of socio-environmental consequences. …

Beyond Resilience: The Case For Regenerative, Restorative Cities, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In a commentary, SMU President Professor Lily Kong mentioned that at the City Dialogues event, co-convened by SMU and Urban Innovation Vienna, participants agreed that cities must equip their residents to withstand shocks and thrive in an evolving urban environment. Prof Kong said resilient cities anticipate, adapt and respond effectively to disruptions, which involves attention not only to physical infrastructure, but also to social cohesion and institutional foresight. She said that embedding sustainability into urban design is fundamental to ensuring cities flourish in a world of climate uncertainty and resource constraints. She added that the value of urban resilience lies …

Asia’S Future Will Be Won By Soft Power, Not Force, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Lily Kong argues that while force remains essential to deter aggression and manage worst-case scenarios, military strength may prevent defeat, but it rarely produces legitimacy. When hard power dominates the strategic imagination, volatility rises and markets suffer. Soft power – the ability to influence countries through persuasion, attraction and legitimacy – has become a strategic asset, she writes. It shapes expectations, lowers baseline tensions, and creates off-ramps in moments of crisis, often determining whether tensions escalate, how long crises last, and how much economic damage they inflict. Prof Kong believes that in a nuclear-armed, economically interdependent Asia, the real test …

How Do You Fix Knowledge In Place? Digital Nomads And Infrastructural Stickiness, Emma Grimley, Prerona Das, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Remote work has become increasingly accessible due to the growing acceptance of remote work arrangements following the COVID-19 pandemic. Some state actors, especially in countries which face a shortage of digital talent and have reputations as leisure-tourism destinations, have begun considering the opportunities for digital transformation or workforce upskilling that highly skilled remote workers may offer. This paper develops the case of remote workers in Thailand to argue that infrastructural stickiness is a critical determinant for effective knowledge transfer to occur. By infrastructural stickiness we refer to the regulatory and socio-material infrastructures that both attract and retain international remote workers …

Multidimensional Analysis Of Human Outdoor Comfort: Integrating Just-In-Time Adaptive Interventions (Jitais) In Urban Digital Twins, Binyu Lei, Pengyuan Liu, Kunihiko Fujiwara, Mario Frei, Clayton Miller, Xuan Yun Chua, Filip Biljecki

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

How can bidirectional information exchange be enhanced in urban digital twins, and support human-centric data and processes? Their key characteristic is the nearly real-time exchange of information, allowing adjustments to physical environments based on simulations and analytics within virtual models. Yet, achieving such interaction remains challenging, particularly regarding device deployment and infrastructure development. Embracing the concept of humans as sensors, this work develops a two-way framework based on the emerging concept of just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAIs), exploring how urban digital twins can play a role in understanding and enhancing human comfort outdoors. Human comfort outdoors is inherently spatio-temporal and personalised, …

An Ex-Post Analysis Framework For Assessing The Effectiveness And Driving Factors Of Green Building Certification Adoption: A Case Study Of Singapore, Hao Gu, Xiaoyu Jin, Fu Xiao, Maomao Hu, Clayton Miller

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Cities worldwide are adopting green building certification policies to meet sustainability and decarbonization targets in the building sector. However, the effectiveness of green certifications remains contested due to the difficulty of decomposing multiple influencing factors on building energy consumption. This study proposes an econometrics-based ex-post analysis framework to assess the effectiveness of green building certification policies in energy savings and identify driving factors by decomposing multiple influential factors. The proposed framework incorporates time-fixed effect models to examine factors driving the adoption of green building certifications, and causality analysis to quantify the effectiveness. Applying the framework to analyze a panel dataset …

Local Problems, Global Solutions? Making It Rain In Hong Kong C. 1890-1930, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The late nineteenth to early twentieth century saw a small but dedicated rise in experimental rainmaking. The possibility that humanity might one day be able to control the weather – especially to alleviate drought – was very attractive to governments and private investors. The late nineteenth century was an era of scientific optimism and a number of rainmaking experiments across the world had brought the potential for weather control out of the realms of discourse and literature and further into tangible near-future science. There has been a small but thorough historiographical literature on this subject, focusing largely on American, British, …

Pilot-C: Physics-Informed Low-Distortion Optimal Trajectory Compression, Kefei Wu, Baihua Zheng, Weiwei Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Location-aware devices continuously generate massive volumes of trajectory data, creating demand for efficient compression. Line simplification is a common solution but typically assumes 2D trajectories and ignores time synchronization and motion continuity. We propose PILOT-C, a novel trajectory compression framework that integrates frequency-domain physics modeling with error-bounded optimization. Unlike existing line simplification methods, PILOT-C supports trajectories in arbitrary dimensions, including 3D, by compressing each spatial axis independently. Evaluated on four real-world datasets, PILOT-C achieves superior performance across multiple dimensions. In terms of compression ratio, PILOT-C outperforms CISED-W, the current state-of-the-art SED-based line simplification algorithm, by an average of 19.2%. For …

The Pluralistic Natural Capital Values Of A Tropical City, Adrienne Gret-Regamey, Et Al.

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Nature in cities is essential for human well-being. Quantifying and valuing the goods and services provided by nature to city dwellers is missing in tropical contexts. Yet, as cities worldwide face similar challenges, understanding the services provided by tropical urban ecosystems becomes imperative for effective management. Here, we present the first Natural Capital Assessment of a tropical city, unveiling three critical insights. Firstly, we demonstrate the vital reliance of a developed tropical city on nature, particularly for climate change mitigation through regulating services. Secondly, we identify intact natural areas as Singapore’s most valuable assets, stressing the significance of the quality …

Global Cooling Watch 2025, Omar Abdelaziz, Ray Gluckman, Ian Hamilton, Radhika Khosla, Lily Riahi

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The second edition of UNEP’s Global Cooling Watch Report takes a deep dive into one of the decade’s most urgent challenges: surging heat, soaring cooling demand, and stark inequalities in access. Produced by the UNEP-led Cool Coalition, the report provides a comprehensive assessment of the rapidly growing global demand for cooling and the need for climate-friendly solutions to the issue. The 2025 report builds on the first Global Cooling Watch (2023), which established the Sustainable Cooling Pathway framework. The new edition deepens analysis of intensifying extreme heat and its effect on cooling demand, improved assessment of passive cooling, and coverage …

Seeing Beyond The State: Private Sector-Led Smart City Governance In Bsd City, Indonesia, Prerona Das, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

In recent decades new cities have sprung up at a rapid pace, aided by private sector funding (Hogan et al., 2012). Within the realm of smart city development, private sector influence over urban governance has substantially increased, particularly through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). However, in Indonesia, there is an emerging trend of the private sector exerting significant control over ‘independent’ greenfield smart cities beyond state-led frameworks. This paper develops the idea of seeing beyond the state which involves looking past conventional state-centered approaches to urban governance. It considers instead how power and control are exercised outside or beyond the usual boundaries …

A Debt To Whom? The Nature Questions In Sino‑Sri Lankan Development Narratives, Orlando Woods, Kanchana Ruwanpura, Loritta Chan, Barnabas Mah

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This chapter critically examines dominant narratives around Sri Lanka’s debt and development in the context of Sino‑Sri Lankan relations and the Belt and Road Initiative, questioning assumptions about “debt‑trap” explanations and highlighting how narratives about development, nature and agency shape understanding of the country’s economic and ecological futures.

Can Singapore Be A City That Bounces Back And Gives Back?, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In a commentary, SMU President Professor Lily Kong called for a widened definition of sustainability in city-making. She proposed that cities must be resilient, regenerative and restorative (3Rs) — able to withstand shocks, replenish ecosystems, and restore human well-being. Prof Kong cited Singapore’s Draft Master Plan 2025 as an illustration of balancing technical innovation with inclusive engagement, stressing that trust is the “invisible infrastructure” of resilience. She also emphasised the role of universities as conveners of dialogue and innovation, spotlighting SMU’s co-convening of the City Dialogues in Vienna and its hosting of the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition, …

The Cool, Quiet City Machine Learning Competition: Overview And Results, Clayton Miller, M. Ibrahim, I.S. Akbar, B. Picchetti, Y.X. Chua, M. Frei, F. Biljecki, A. Chong, M. Quintana, C. Fu

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The prediction of thermal and noise-based preferences in the urban context is valuable in characterizing interventions to mitigate the challenges of health, productivity, and satisfaction of urban dwellers. The growth of crowd-sourced data and data-driven techniques provides an opportunity to increase the understanding of which machine learning models are most accurate and applicable for this context. This paper outlines the results of a machine learning competition aiming to enhance the accuracy of predicting human comfort in the city context. The competition asks contestants to use contextual data to predict noise distraction and thermal preference in various indoor and outdoor spaces. …

What Are The Limits To Smart Innovation? The Digital Underground Initiative And New Frontiers Of “Smartness” In Singapore, Prerona Das, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This paper argues that the emergence of new frontiers of smart transformation, such as underground spaces, can pose significant challenges to the implementation of “smart” technological solutions. Exploring the case of Singapore’s Digital Underground initiative, we show that elements such as material complexity, co-ordination between stakeholders, and the availability of appropriate regulatory and administrative frameworks can problematize the implementation of subterranean smart initiatives. By considering multistake-holder perspectives on these “more-than-technological” factors, this paper offers lessons for urban planners, policymakers, and developers in cities around the world that are keen to leverage technology to unlock the potential of underground space.

3r-Stadte Furs Leben Gestalten [Designing 3r Cities For Life], Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

What does it mean for a city to be resilient in today’s world? In July this year, over 100 city leaders, scholars, and industry partners gathered at City Dialogues in Vienna, co-convened by Singapore Management University and Urban Innovation Vienna, to reflect on the critical question of urban resilience. Held alongside the Mayors Forum of the World Cities Summit 2025, the dialogue provided a timely opportunity to share how cities can navigate complexity—not only in response to disruption, but also in pursuit of sustainable and inclusive futures. Inspired by SMU City Dialogues, I explore here how cities can bounce back, …

Political Ecologies Of Storage For The 21st Century, Sayd Randle, Matthew Archer

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

New resource storage arrangements are proliferating rapidly both in terms of physical infrastructures-for the storage of things like "clean" energy, nuclear waste, carbon dioxide, fresh water, and data-and as part of a set of discursive moves that reinforce a vision of a near future world in which problems of climate change mitigation and adaptation in particular (but also issues like energy security, water security, industry growth, etc.) are solved through eco-modernist techno-fixes. This Symposium sketches the contours of a framework we term political ecologies of storage. In doing so, we treat storage as both a potent imaginary and a concrete …

A New City For A New Era: Xiong'an As Showcase Of China's Evolving Urban Ideology, Andrew Stokols

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Cities have long been expressions of political ideology in China and elsewhere. During China’s rapid urbanization over the past few decades, “new areas” became popular strategies to promote urban growth, following the success of Shenzhen, widely regarded as China’s first special economic zone. Today under Xi, Xiong’an New Area has become the latest “new area of national significance.” But unlike previous new areas in China, Xiong’an has become wedded to a distinct vision of the urban in Xi Jinping’s China, one in which the excesses of reform-era urbanization are controlled through new forms of affordable housing and finance, new ecological …

Singapore At 60: Home Truly Is An Idea That Never Stands Still, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

There are many new stories to embrace but also quiet distances between us that we must bridge.

In a National Day op-ed published in The Straits Times, SMU President Professor Lily Kong reflects on what ‘home’ means as Singapore marks its 60th year of independence — and how that meaning continues to evolve across generations. Prompted by a walk through a familiar playground now transformed, Prof Kong considers how Singapore’s changing physical and social landscape mirrors shifts in national identity. While progress and policy evolution signal a society in transition, she also notes the emergence of quieter divides – between …

Assessing Equity In Heat Mitigation Ecosystem Services Of Urban Green Space In Singapore, Ronghua Xu, Perrine Hamel, Youu Ming, Aikeen Lim, Tingting He

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Urban green space provides ecosystem services such as heat mitigation, which are associated with improved resident health and welfare. While estimating the disparity in ecosystem services is essential to improve equity, little guidance is available as to which indices and indicators should be used. Here, we assess the distributional equity in heat mitigation benefits as measured by two indicators – land surface temperature reduction and wet-bulb temperature reduction – in the city-state of Singapore, and compare three inequality indices: Gini coefficient (GC), Atkinson index (AI), and Theil entropy index (TE). We include scenarios with and without migrant construction workers to …

Entangled Exclusions: Borders, Frontiers And Urban Geopolitics From Northeast India, Prerona Das, Gaurav Mittal, Jasnea Sarma

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

An epicentre of ethnicity-based identity politics and exclusions, India's northeastern region has long been politically imagined as both a ‘frontier’ and ‘borderland’ for state control, territorialization, extractive economies and (re)developments by colonial and subsequent post-colonial regimes. In post-independence India, the region experienced many territorial assertions made on ethnic grounds. With the rise of religio-national and neoliberal politics, new urban ‘developments’ and connectivity projects in the region have deepened exclusions based on class, caste, ethnic and religious borders. These have, in turn, led to further displacement, enclavization, and ghettoization of minority communities who are deemed ‘non-native’ along ethnocentric lines. Taking two …

Infrastructuring Planetary Rural Geographies: A View From China’S Rural Construction Movement, Ningning Chen, Lily Kong, Yurui Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This commentary responds to Wang et al.'s (2023) call for planetary rural geographies by attending to the neglected infrastructural dimensions. In so doing, we show how China's rural construction movement demonstrates Wang et al.'s (2023) three geographies of planetary rurality: as spaces of crisis, conflict, and hope. Simultaneously, we address how planetary rural thinking can foreground infrastructural geographies and their destabilization of urban-centered discourses, leading to a reconsideration of rural–urban relationality. We then identify new insights that critical infrastructural studies offer to planetary rural geographies. This includes an emphasis on the material grounds, hidden politics, and non-linear temporal patterns of …