ABSTRACT

Shanghai sits at the mouth of the Yangtze River in the middle of the Chinas east coast. The triangular shaped territory of Shanghai and the adjoining Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, called Yangtze River Delta, constitute one of Chinas major economic regions. The urban structure of Shanghai is characterized by three circular spatial units shaped by the inner and outer ring roads. Within the inner ring road, the four central districts make up the city core. Next to the city core are the five districts extending to but still within the outer ring road. With the explosion of urban population and private cars, household daily-travel carbon emissions have increased year by year. Therefore, policies to reduce daily-travel carbon emissions became an important topic in urban planning. Based on 1,054 questionnaires of Shanghai households travel characteristics and details of population and economic activity, it is apparent that household carbon emissions from daily-travel vary with different residential locations, housing types and income levels.