Alan March
Biographic Data
| ID | 3591091 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alan March |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alan |
| FAMILY NAME | March |
| SIGNATURE | MARCH A |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Melbourne |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9953-0615 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 31 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Does Metropolitan Policy Guide Urban Consolidation in Melbourne’s Greyfields? Assessing Policy and Development Outcomes in Reservoir
The influence of urban form on urban fire risk in Mandalay’s historical precinct
Purpose While there have been improvements to urban fire risk reduction in recent decades, these gains have not been experienced in all locations. Historical precincts in developing countries are still at high risk of urban fire due to their urban form features. However, research on how to reduce risk in this context is limited. This research aims to investigate how the urban form of the Mandalay historical precinct contributes to urban fire risk…
Australian urban designers’ experience of barriers and enablers to climate change action
Urban designers have considerable potential to take important climate change actions in the built environment. Based on interviews with urban designers across Australia, it was found that the main actions taken were: development and use of policies and strategies; education and research; appropriate project designs; reduction of carbon footprints; advocacy and lobbying; the use of sustainability measures and ratings; and taking on projects orient…
Australian urban planners’ preparedness to act on climate change
Develops a framework of climate change preparedness of Australian urban planners. • Describes the preparedness of urban planners to take climate change action. • Urban planning processes found to be important stimuli for climate action. • Indicates importance of mainstreaming climate change within urban planning policy. • Need for expansion of education and professional development programs. Land use and development patterns have a significant im…
Towards enhanced urban fire risk reduction through more effective urban policy – a case study of Mandalay city, Myanmar
Urban fire risk in developing countries is influenced by crowded urban environments and limited prevention measures. Planning tools and urban form management can reduce urban fire risk, but research assessing urban policies for urban fire risk reduction (UFRR) is limited. This paper develops a framework for analysing urban policies for UFRR, and applies it to the case study of Mandalay city. Interviews were undertaken with key stakeholders. Resul…
Facilitating Climate Change Action Across Planning Systems
In-depth interviews with Australian urban planners identified barriers to and facilitators of climate change action across Janin Rivolin’s model of planning systems, categorizing them against Healey’s theory of transformations in urban governance. Insights from everyday planning practice reveal four factors necessary to transform urban planning systems for effective climate change action: (1) planning education institutions and professional assoc…
Six principles to guide climate action in built environments
Climate change is a global problem, requiring collective action. Cities are central to human habitation and activity, and are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Despite global climate change goals such as The Paris Agreement , barriers exist to taking adequate action in cities to address climate change. Decision making processes and policy in cities must be transformed to meet global climate change mitigation goals and reduce the ris…
Facilitating climate change action across built environment life stages – perspectives from built environment professionals
Better policy to support climate change action in the built environment: A framework to analyse and design a policy portfolio
Climate change action in built environments has not been at the scale or pace required to achieve the global goal (Paris Agreement) to limit warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. Action towards climate change goals can be facilitated by effective policy design, and policy reform. However, this is challenging because built environment policy contexts are complex and include policy from multiple sectors (e.g. urban planning, construction, …
Long-established rules and emergent challenges: Spatial planning and wildfires in Chile
It is generally expected that spatial planning integrates wildfire risk reduction considerations in areas affected by this hazard. However, many spatial planning systems are challenged to adequately deal with this risk. There is a need for applied understandings of planning systems characteristics that facilitate or impede wildfire risk reduction. Accordingly, this research explores spatial planning limitations to the integration of wildfire risk…
Transforming the agency and influence of landscape architects in climate change actions: An empirical analysis of barriers and facilitators
Climate change preparedness across sectors of the built environment – A review of literature
Towards the transformation of cities: A built environment process map to identify the role of key sectors and actors in producing the built environment across life stages
Cities must transform in order to address the challenge of climate change and to achieve societal ambitions such as the sustainable development goals. However, a key impediment to achieving transformation is underdeveloped understandings of how key actors and sectors within the built environment work together to achieve goals. This paper addresses these gaps by developing and visually presenting a process map to describe: the key processes involv…
Integrating wildfire risk management and spatial planning – A historical review of two Australian planning systems
Recent wildfires burning throughout Australia highlight the vulnerability of settlements located in wildland urban interface (WUI) areas. Spatial planning has a critical role in operationalising wildfire risk reduction considerations in a territorial manner across the WUI. Accordingly, more integrated approaches to wildfire management and spatial planning are necessary. However, there is limited literature examining the historical interactions be…
Discretion versus prescription: Assessing the spatial impact of design regulations in apartments in Australia
The Victorian Government introduced the Better Apartment Design Guidelines in 2017. The introduction of these new regulations is a response to growing criticism over the quality of the large number of apartments recently constructed in Melbourne. This concern is shared in other Australian cities, but until now Victorian planning regulations have been the least prescriptive and most permissive in terms of apartment design parameters of any Austral…
Is climate change in the curriculum? An analysis of Australian urban planning degrees
The profession of urban planning contributes to the design and spatial arrangement of cities, and has been recognized as a key potential facilitator of action on climate change. Yet, there has been limited research to understand if, or how, urban planning students are being educated for climate change competency. This paper investigates the coverage of climate change in the curriculum of professionally accredited urban planning university degrees…
Establishing Design Principles for Wildfire Resilient Urban Planning
This study elaborates on the built and natural environment disciplines’ potential to develop applied understandings of resilience, using the example of land-use planning design guides in wildfire-prone areas. It argues that land-use planning can develop and apply spatial and physical resilience principles to disasters, contributing to developing meaningful ways of achieving resilience by bridging the space between overarching goals and the specif…
Institutional Adjustments and Strategic Planning Action: The Case of Victorian Wildfire Planning
This paper provides a critical analysis of the way that practice-based strategic planning in terms of disaster risk reduction occurs, highlighting the drivers and facilitators of change. It documents these in the context of other governmental systems. Examination the changes to wildfire planning policy in Victoria, Australia, following the 2009 Bushfire Season, provides an explanation of the realpolitik of policy formation, management and change,…
Integrated Education for Resilient Urban Adaptation: Wildfire Risk Reduction in Australia
Urban and regional planning education seeks, often through highly applied teaching, to develop students’ abilities allowing them to work meaningfully on emergent urban and regional issues. However, it is relatively uncommon that education itself develops alongside government policy and research agendas. This paper documents the development of a new tertiary wildfire management qualification prepared in partnership with planning and building agenc…
Reducing Bushfire Risk by Planning and Design: A Professional Focus
While links between planning and resilience are increasingly touted as fundamental to managing urban settlements, there are limited practical examples. This paper provides an example via regulatory processes, in parallel with the exercise of professional discretion. Using analysis of diverse urban planning proposals in bushfire prone areas of Victoria Australia, a systematic and site-specific approach for bushfire risk assessment is set out. A th…
Urban morphology as a tool for supporting tsunami rapid resilience: A case study of Talcahuano, Chile
University curriculum development – stuck in a process and how to break free
Changes to governance and funding of universities have placed increasing importance on teaching quality. Curriculum development is central to teaching quality. Yet, as research has shown, it is rarely given priority in university departments. We sought to identify key barriers and facilitators of curriculum development in four professionally accredited master's level degree programmes within the University of Melbourne, Australia. Our work progre…
Measuring Building Adaptability and Street Vitality
A long-standing urban design principle is that successful places exhibit vitality, being vibrant and diverse. This vitality depends on levels of economic and social success that sustain over time urban diversity including cafes, restaurants, delicatessens, bakeries, cinemas and galleries, grocery stores, pubs and clubs of varying sizes and types to suit individuals of varying taste, preference and socio-economic status. Accordingly, a successful …
The role of spatial planning in adapting to climate change
Spatial planning has been identified as a critical mechanism through which climate change adaptation can be facilitated. We review the role of spatial planning as a tool for adaptation to climate change. In doing so, we describe common planning processes and tools. Six capacities of spatial planning that have the potential ability to facilitate climate change adaptation are identified and discussed. These principally relate to spatial planning's …
Practising theory: When theory affects urban planning
This article starts from the premise that, for all its diverse ideals and technical bases, the core of planning is an ability to favourably influence collective spatial concerns. The location of practice within spatial governance means that the ‘worth’ of planning theories often depends upon the nature of governance itself in given places and times. In this article, three layered vignettes of practice in Victoria, Australia are presented to demon…
Urban morphology as a tool for supporting tsunami rapid resilience: A case study of Talcahuano, Chile
The role of spatial planning in adapting to climate change
Spatial planning has been identified as a critical mechanism through which climate change adaptation can be facilitated. We review the role of spatial planning as a tool for adaptation to climate change. In doing so, we describe common planning processes and tools. Six capacities of spatial planning that have the potential ability to facilitate climate change adaptation are identified and discussed. These principally relate to spatial planning's …
Knowing and Steering: Mediatization, Planning and Democracy in Victoria, Australia
Habermas suggests that democracy means that a society is able to know itself and steer itself. This article builds on Habermas’ conception that mediatization is a central impediment to the realization of democracy, while recognizing the locally particular resolution of democratic dilemmas represented by any planning system. Using Victoria, Australia as an example, the article seeks to demonstrate that Habermas’ project offers a means of critiquin…
Practising theory: When theory affects urban planning
This article starts from the premise that, for all its diverse ideals and technical bases, the core of planning is an ability to favourably influence collective spatial concerns. The location of practice within spatial governance means that the ‘worth’ of planning theories often depends upon the nature of governance itself in given places and times. In this article, three layered vignettes of practice in Victoria, Australia are presented to demon…
Facilitating climate change action across built environment life stages – perspectives from built environment professionals
Better policy to support climate change action in the built environment: A framework to analyse and design a policy portfolio
Climate change action in built environments has not been at the scale or pace required to achieve the global goal (Paris Agreement) to limit warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. Action towards climate change goals can be facilitated by effective policy design, and policy reform. However, this is challenging because built environment policy contexts are complex and include policy from multiple sectors (e.g. urban planning, construction, …
Is climate change in the curriculum? An analysis of Australian urban planning degrees
The profession of urban planning contributes to the design and spatial arrangement of cities, and has been recognized as a key potential facilitator of action on climate change. Yet, there has been limited research to understand if, or how, urban planning students are being educated for climate change competency. This paper investigates the coverage of climate change in the curriculum of professionally accredited urban planning university degrees…
Knowing and Steering: Mediatization, Planning and Democracy in Victoria, Australia
Habermas suggests that democracy means that a society is able to know itself and steer itself. This article builds on Habermas’ conception that mediatization is a central impediment to the realization of democracy, while recognizing the locally particular resolution of democratic dilemmas represented by any planning system. Using Victoria, Australia as an example, the article seeks to demonstrate that Habermas’ project offers a means of critiquin…
Practising theory: When theory affects urban planning
This article starts from the premise that, for all its diverse ideals and technical bases, the core of planning is an ability to favourably influence collective spatial concerns. The location of practice within spatial governance means that the ‘worth’ of planning theories often depends upon the nature of governance itself in given places and times. In this article, three layered vignettes of practice in Victoria, Australia are presented to demon…
Measuring Building Adaptability and Street Vitality
A long-standing urban design principle is that successful places exhibit vitality, being vibrant and diverse. This vitality depends on levels of economic and social success that sustain over time urban diversity including cafes, restaurants, delicatessens, bakeries, cinemas and galleries, grocery stores, pubs and clubs of varying sizes and types to suit individuals of varying taste, preference and socio-economic status. Accordingly, a successful …
The role of spatial planning in adapting to climate change
Spatial planning has been identified as a critical mechanism through which climate change adaptation can be facilitated. We review the role of spatial planning as a tool for adaptation to climate change. In doing so, we describe common planning processes and tools. Six capacities of spatial planning that have the potential ability to facilitate climate change adaptation are identified and discussed. These principally relate to spatial planning's …
University curriculum development – stuck in a process and how to break free
Changes to governance and funding of universities have placed increasing importance on teaching quality. Curriculum development is central to teaching quality. Yet, as research has shown, it is rarely given priority in university departments. We sought to identify key barriers and facilitators of curriculum development in four professionally accredited master's level degree programmes within the University of Melbourne, Australia. Our work progre…
Urban morphology as a tool for supporting tsunami rapid resilience: A case study of Talcahuano, Chile
Reducing Bushfire Risk by Planning and Design: A Professional Focus
While links between planning and resilience are increasingly touted as fundamental to managing urban settlements, there are limited practical examples. This paper provides an example via regulatory processes, in parallel with the exercise of professional discretion. Using analysis of diverse urban planning proposals in bushfire prone areas of Victoria Australia, a systematic and site-specific approach for bushfire risk assessment is set out. A th…
Integrated Education for Resilient Urban Adaptation: Wildfire Risk Reduction in Australia
Urban and regional planning education seeks, often through highly applied teaching, to develop students’ abilities allowing them to work meaningfully on emergent urban and regional issues. However, it is relatively uncommon that education itself develops alongside government policy and research agendas. This paper documents the development of a new tertiary wildfire management qualification prepared in partnership with planning and building agenc…
Establishing Design Principles for Wildfire Resilient Urban Planning
This study elaborates on the built and natural environment disciplines’ potential to develop applied understandings of resilience, using the example of land-use planning design guides in wildfire-prone areas. It argues that land-use planning can develop and apply spatial and physical resilience principles to disasters, contributing to developing meaningful ways of achieving resilience by bridging the space between overarching goals and the specif…
Institutional Adjustments and Strategic Planning Action: The Case of Victorian Wildfire Planning
This paper provides a critical analysis of the way that practice-based strategic planning in terms of disaster risk reduction occurs, highlighting the drivers and facilitators of change. It documents these in the context of other governmental systems. Examination the changes to wildfire planning policy in Victoria, Australia, following the 2009 Bushfire Season, provides an explanation of the realpolitik of policy formation, management and change,…
Discretion versus prescription: Assessing the spatial impact of design regulations in apartments in Australia
The Victorian Government introduced the Better Apartment Design Guidelines in 2017. The introduction of these new regulations is a response to growing criticism over the quality of the large number of apartments recently constructed in Melbourne. This concern is shared in other Australian cities, but until now Victorian planning regulations have been the least prescriptive and most permissive in terms of apartment design parameters of any Austral…
Is climate change in the curriculum? An analysis of Australian urban planning degrees
The profession of urban planning contributes to the design and spatial arrangement of cities, and has been recognized as a key potential facilitator of action on climate change. Yet, there has been limited research to understand if, or how, urban planning students are being educated for climate change competency. This paper investigates the coverage of climate change in the curriculum of professionally accredited urban planning university degrees…
Integrating wildfire risk management and spatial planning – A historical review of two Australian planning systems
Recent wildfires burning throughout Australia highlight the vulnerability of settlements located in wildland urban interface (WUI) areas. Spatial planning has a critical role in operationalising wildfire risk reduction considerations in a territorial manner across the WUI. Accordingly, more integrated approaches to wildfire management and spatial planning are necessary. However, there is limited literature examining the historical interactions be…
Climate change preparedness across sectors of the built environment – A review of literature
Towards the transformation of cities: A built environment process map to identify the role of key sectors and actors in producing the built environment across life stages
Cities must transform in order to address the challenge of climate change and to achieve societal ambitions such as the sustainable development goals. However, a key impediment to achieving transformation is underdeveloped understandings of how key actors and sectors within the built environment work together to achieve goals. This paper addresses these gaps by developing and visually presenting a process map to describe: the key processes involv…
Long-established rules and emergent challenges: Spatial planning and wildfires in Chile
It is generally expected that spatial planning integrates wildfire risk reduction considerations in areas affected by this hazard. However, many spatial planning systems are challenged to adequately deal with this risk. There is a need for applied understandings of planning systems characteristics that facilitate or impede wildfire risk reduction. Accordingly, this research explores spatial planning limitations to the integration of wildfire risk…
Transforming the agency and influence of landscape architects in climate change actions: An empirical analysis of barriers and facilitators
Better policy to support climate change action in the built environment: A framework to analyse and design a policy portfolio
Climate change action in built environments has not been at the scale or pace required to achieve the global goal (Paris Agreement) to limit warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. Action towards climate change goals can be facilitated by effective policy design, and policy reform. However, this is challenging because built environment policy contexts are complex and include policy from multiple sectors (e.g. urban planning, construction, …
Australian urban designers’ experience of barriers and enablers to climate change action
Urban designers have considerable potential to take important climate change actions in the built environment. Based on interviews with urban designers across Australia, it was found that the main actions taken were: development and use of policies and strategies; education and research; appropriate project designs; reduction of carbon footprints; advocacy and lobbying; the use of sustainability measures and ratings; and taking on projects orient…
Australian urban planners’ preparedness to act on climate change
Develops a framework of climate change preparedness of Australian urban planners. • Describes the preparedness of urban planners to take climate change action. • Urban planning processes found to be important stimuli for climate action. • Indicates importance of mainstreaming climate change within urban planning policy. • Need for expansion of education and professional development programs. Land use and development patterns have a significant im…
Towards enhanced urban fire risk reduction through more effective urban policy – a case study of Mandalay city, Myanmar
Urban fire risk in developing countries is influenced by crowded urban environments and limited prevention measures. Planning tools and urban form management can reduce urban fire risk, but research assessing urban policies for urban fire risk reduction (UFRR) is limited. This paper develops a framework for analysing urban policies for UFRR, and applies it to the case study of Mandalay city. Interviews were undertaken with key stakeholders. Resul…
Facilitating Climate Change Action Across Planning Systems
In-depth interviews with Australian urban planners identified barriers to and facilitators of climate change action across Janin Rivolin’s model of planning systems, categorizing them against Healey’s theory of transformations in urban governance. Insights from everyday planning practice reveal four factors necessary to transform urban planning systems for effective climate change action: (1) planning education institutions and professional assoc…
Six principles to guide climate action in built environments
Climate change is a global problem, requiring collective action. Cities are central to human habitation and activity, and are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Despite global climate change goals such as The Paris Agreement , barriers exist to taking adequate action in cities to address climate change. Decision making processes and policy in cities must be transformed to meet global climate change mitigation goals and reduce the ris…
Facilitating climate change action across built environment life stages – perspectives from built environment professionals
Does Metropolitan Policy Guide Urban Consolidation in Melbourne’s Greyfields? Assessing Policy and Development Outcomes in Reservoir
Environmental planning (17 works) · Engineering (15 works) · Geography (15 works) · Political science (15 works) · Environmental resource management (13 works) · Civil engineering (12 works) · Business (11 works) · Climate change (11 works) · Urban planning (11 works) · Computer Science (10 works)