第二屆城市系統科學國際研討會The 2nd International Symposium on Urban Systems Science

One of the most visible signatures of the Anthropocene is the rapid urbanisation of the Earth’s surface. By mid-century, more than 68% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas, while the global extent of urban built-up land could expand roughly threefold. Urbanisation is not only a demographic and economic process; it is also a geological force. It reorganises land surfaces, climate, hydrology, ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles at multiple scales.

Cities are also increasingly exposed to the consequences of these transformations. Heatwaves, floods, pollution, infrastructure failures and emerging infectious diseases converge in dense urban spaces, often amplifying social and spatial inequalities. This dual reality makes disciplinary fragmentation increasingly untenable: cities cannot be understood solely as engineered systems, economic spaces, ecological patches or social containers.

Urban Systems Science responds to this challenge by bringing systems thinking into an Earth-system perspective. It treats cities as complex adaptive, coupled human-natural-technological systems and integrates insights from systems science, Earth system science, geography, ecology, computer and data science, engineering, economics, public health and the social sciences. Its purpose is to reveal the structures, processes, dynamics and multi-scale feedbacks that shape urban evolution and to convert that knowledge into better planning, policy, management and collective action.

The 2nd International Symposium on Urban Systems Science will consolidate this emerging field, connect communities that rarely meet in the same scientific forum and focus their combined expertise on the ecological, climatic, health, mobility, economic and governance challenges of urban transformation.