About the Journal

Delta Urbanism is a line of work in which flood protection, soil and water management strategies are synergized with urban design, landscape architecture and spatial planning. The specific aim of this approach is to improve spatial forms and structures and innovate urban systems in urban and metropolitan delta regions. The group Delta Urbanism at the TU Delft develops research, design and planning approaches and methods that contribute to the making of more sensible and informed decisions within the fragile context of urban delta landscapes.

Founded on an interdisciplinary approach in which designing and engineering disciplines activate innovation in design, technology and governance the Delta Urbanism approach has international impact as specific interdisciplinary field. This field is characterized by a firm body of knowledge organized into four research premises, which emphasize the agency of design and technology and the development of specific methods of analysis, design, visualization and interdisciplinary work. 

As this is a journal in an extremely interdisciplinary and constantly adapting and innovating field, contributions expressed in diverse modes are welcomed and a variety of forms and stages of design and knowledge development, e.g.; design renderings, drawings or maps with annotations; essays; position papers; columns; representations of practical exercises; and of course traditional academic papers will be accepted. A contribution will be susceptible for review as long as it adds a new perspective, insight, tool or reflexive practice to the field of Delta Urbanism. 

Focus, Scope and Aims

The Journal of Delta Urbanism (JDU) is dedicated to discussing future design as a collaborative enterprise of the disciplines of spatial design, ecology, engineering and policy and as a leading method within the research premises of the Delta Urbanism research community. 

The journal aims at exploring the scope, representation and future of delta design in times of climate crisis, looking through the lens of four research premises: ‘Land-Water-Atmosphere Continuum, ‘Drawing the Delta’, ‘Reversed Engineering with Nature’, and ‘Extremes’.

These research premises examine the multi-layered phenomenon of urbanization between land and water and thus the scope of design in highly dynamic landscapes. What we are now experiencing as the era of climate crisis – the effects of the Anthropocene – aggravates this condition, requiring to look at urbanization in delta, coastal and river landscapes as a formative, operational and performative process. Therefore delta design is discussed here not only as an approach to highly dynamic landscapes but rather as a fundamental shift in the way urbanization is addressed by design, technology and policy — as drivers of environmental change. 

The expectations of submitted papers are the following: First and foremost, we are a scholarly journal. This implies that only papers that explicitly contribute to relevant academic literature, as documented in international peer-reviewed journals are taken into consideration. The introduction of every paper submitted to JDU is expected to contain a review of past work on the paper's topic, which is used to explicitly identify an academic knowledge gap. In addition, submitted papers should clearly mention in the introduction the aimed for contribution in terms of filling the identified knowledge gap. 

Beyond contributing to the academic debate, the journal aims to reach out and contribute to practice. Primary interest lies in publishing research that makes a real difference in addressing the immense and growing challenges of today’s urban deltas and coastal areas. This means that JDU encourages submission of scholarly papers that explicitly aim to support design, technology, decision-making and policy-making in the field of delta urbanism. 

Article Processing Charges

Publishing in JDU is entirely free, so neither Submission Charges nor Article Processing Charges are required from the authors. The resources needed to run the journal are covered by the institutions where the (associate) editors are employed, mainly in the form of time invested.

Open Access Policy

JDU is an Open Access journal licensed under a CC-BY 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) licence. This means that all content is available without paywalls.  Anyone is free to share (copy, distribute, and transmit the work) to remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions:

  • The original authors must be given credit.
  • For any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are
  • Any of these conditions can be waived if the copyright holders give permission.
  • Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.

Copyright Policy

  • Authors retain their copyrights.
  • if you use published images, text or other materials, please be aware of copyright regulations. The TU Delft Copyright helpdesk can provide further information and answer your copyright questions.
  • In case of (alleged or proven) copyright breaches or scientific misconduct (e.g. fabrication of data), JDU will follow the guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Review Policy

The journal follows a double anonymous review process. JDU is committed to a transparent review process that adheres to the COPE policy. Editors and reviewers are encouraged to join COPE individually and agree to declare any conflict of interest.

The Editors-in-Chief and the editorial board may contribute to the published content. Still, a rigorous review workflow is implemented to ensure the integrity and quality of the review process. If one of the Editors-in-Chief or an editorial board member is listed as a (co)author, they will not be involved in the review process. They will not access the reviewers' identity. When an Editor-in-Chief is a (co)author, selecting the editor who will handle the paper will fall on the (Co)editor-in-chief or another editor to maintain a fair and unbiased review process.

JDU has an editorial board and an advisory board. The advisory board is a lineup of scholars in the field of Delta Urbanism who provide the framework of the journal. The editorial board is alike but also performs the review of the papers.

Research Data

TU Delft OPEN Publishing strongly supports that the data underlying the journals are archived in a recognised research data repository in line with the TU Delft Research Data Framework Policy and will support data citation. Please visit this page for more information on policies. 

Research Software

TU Delft OPEN Publishing strongly encourages the adoption of the TU Delft Research Software Policy. This policy facilitates best practices on management and sharing of research software and facilitates proper recognition of the contribution of TU Delft researchers to software.

Publication Ethics

Editors, authors, and publisher adopt the guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the fair data principles. The journal adheres to the COPE Core Practices and the principles of transparency described in the Declaration on transparent editorial policies for academic journals.

Code of Conduct

Check TU Delft OPEN Publishing code of conduct and integrity policy.

Similarity Check

A similarity check is part of the TU Delft OPEN Publishing standard publication procedure. Authors submitting their article to the JDU should expect their work to go through a similarity analysis at any workflow stage. All articles submitted are checked with iThenticate software. The editor and publisher carefully analyse the reports. In case of suspected plagiarism, the authors will have two weeks to explain.

The journal also checks for AI-generated content. Articles will only be accepted if using AI-generated tools is part of the work.

Use of AI

The use of AI technologies in writing/summarising is gaining popularity and is expanding. When used responsibly and appropriately in research, it can facilitate innovation. However, authors/editors remain fully responsible and accountable for the quality and content of their manuscripts. With this in mind and with reference to the COPE Position Statement of 13 February 2023, authors are required not to list AI tools as a co-author because these tools cannot take responsibility for the submitted work, and they need to be transparent in disclosing in the materials and methods of the manuscript how the AI tool was used and which tool was used (such as ChatGPT and other generative (language-based) AI tools for generation of images, etc.) in the writing of their manuscripts. If applicable, disclosure needs to take place at the bottom of the References section, in the Acknowledgements section, and separately in the cover letter submitted before the review process. This policy is subject to review based on new developments to include the COPE Position Statement.

Complaints

Complaints such as misconduct, authorship dispute or suspected conflict of interest should be brought to the attention of the publisher (publishing-lib@tudelft.nl) or the editorial board.

Author Appeal

If an author wishes to appeal an editorial decision, the author may contact the journal's Editors-in-Chief. Their appeal decisions are final. This means that discussing or negotiating the final decision will be without effect and can be ignored.  

Conflict of interest

All COIs will be handled as follows by the journal in the first instance, then the publisher:

  • Disclosure: Anyone (editors, reviewers, authors and any other relevant parties) involved in the publishing process should disclose any potential conflicts of interest they may have
  • Evaluation: After disclosing the potential COI, it needs to be examined to determine its importance and possible impact on the publication process.
  • Management: An identified COI requires appropriate steps. Those steps may include stepping back from specific duties or decisions, removal from the publication process, or taking other actions to reduce the conflict.
  • Transparency: Any identified conflicts of interest should be transparently disclosed to relevant parties, including readers, authors, and reviewers.
  • COI can be mentioned after the section Acknowledgment of the publication.

Publication notices and changes

Any changes to the published content will be accompanied by a post-publication notice that will be permanently linked to the original content.

Publication notices include errors introduced by the journal (erratum), an author error (corrigendum), adding a (small) document to a published work to provide additional information (addendum), and retraction.

The Editors-in-Chief and the publisher handle publication notices through the following steps:

  • Review the proposed changes to the published content to determine if they are necessary and appropriate.
  • Preparing a post-publication notice that accurately reflects the changes made to the content.
  • Linking the post-publication notice to the original content clearly and prominently.
  • Distributing the updated content and the post-publication notice to relevant parties, including subscribers, indexers, and other databases.
  • Monitoring the impact of the changes on the academic record and making any necessary further updates or corrections.

Authorship

All co-authors must agree to submit the work to the journal. For authors’ disputes, see the “Complaints and Appeals” section.

How to add extra authors before publication:

  • All co-authors must agree to add new (co)authors to the publication.
  • Agreement must be collected and sent to the editor with an explanation.

Guest Editors/ Special Issues

JDU requires an agreement between the Guest Editor(s) and the Editors-in-Chief where the Guest Editor(s)’s role is clearly defined. Guest Editors are subject to the same rules as journal editors and adhere to TU Delft OPEN Publishing policies.

Metadata

JDU grants you the right to publish the metadata of the series, its issues and articles under the terms of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0).

Indexing

JDU with ISSN 2666-7851 is indexed by Directory of Open Access scholarly Resources (ROAD), Sherpa Romeo, The Keepers, Google Scholar and WorldCat.

Archiving

This journal utilises the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries. It permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

Authors can deposit a Submitted version, an Accepted version (Author Accepted Manuscript) and a Published version (Version of record) of their work in an institutional or any other repository they choose.

ISSN 

2666-7851 online

Publisher

TU Delft OPEN Publishing