از فضای کالبدی تا کنش رفتاری: تحلیل کتاب‌سنجی رفتارهای طرفدار محیط‌زیست در برنامه‌ریزی فضایی

A B S T R A C T
This research revisits the role of the behavioral dimension — with emphasis on pro-environmental behaviors — in spatial planning literature, demonstrating how this field is transitioning from physical and structure-oriented approaches toward a human-centered, context-sensitive, and interdisciplinary understanding within spatial systems. To achieve this aim, a mixed methods approach was employed. Initially, using bibliometric analysis, 1,105 documents indexed in the Scopus database were examined to map the knowledge structure, intellectual clusters, and citation networks. Subsequently, in the second phase, through qualitative content analysis of the core articles within each cluster was conducted to extract theoretical potentials for explaining how spatial planning influences behavior. The findings indicate that over recent decades, attention to concepts such as spatial behavior, decision-making, sustainability, the built environment, and pro-environmental behaviors has grown, and the behavioral dimension has shifted from a peripheral component to one of the central axes of rethinking in spatial planning. The results also suggest that the built environment is not a reflection of planning policies and decisions, but acts as an active agent in shaping, facilitating, or undermining pro-environmental behaviors. From this perspective, contemporary spatial planning can no longer rely solely on the physical organization of space; rather, it must place the mechanisms of perception, meaning, choice, and human action at the center of analysis and intervention. Overall, this research demonstrates that attention to the behavioral dimension particularly in connection with strengthening pro-environmental behaviors is not merely an emerging trend, but constitutes part of a paradigmatic shift in the theoretical foundations of spatial planning.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Spatial planning has traditionally focused on physical, structural, and economic dimensions, treating space as a neutral container for the allocation of activities. However, the emergence of complex environmental challenges, climate change, and urban instability in recent decades has demonstrated that purely physical patterns are ineffective without an understanding of human behavior in space. Recent developments in this field indicate a behavioral and epistemological turn in which the analysis of the reciprocal relationship between the built environment and human spatial behavior has become a priority. Despite the growing importance of this issue, the global literature still lacks a comprehensive and systematic picture of how spatial planning is connected to behavioral approaches. To fill this gap, this study seeks to map and analyze the knowledge structure, evolutionary trends, major research foci, and the driving role of pro-environmental behaviors in redefining the behavioral dimension of spatial planning through a combined approach of bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review. Furthermore, this study contributes to the ongoing theoretical transition in spatial planning by examining how behavioral perspectives have expanded the scope of planning beyond physical interventions. By identifying emerging concepts, intellectual connections, and research trajectories, the study provides insights into the integration of behavioral knowledge for developing more adaptive, sustainable, and human-centered spatial planning frameworks.
 
Methodology
This study adopted a combined approach of bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review to map the knowledge structure of the field and trace its conceptual evolution. Data were collected from the Scopus database, selected for its thematic breadth, indexing quality, and citation retrieval capacity. The search strategy combined topic-related keywords — including spatial planning, territorial management, spatial behavior, and pro-environmental behavior — to capture a broad spectrum of studies at the intersection of spatial planning and human behavior. The integration of these methods was intended to overcome the limitations of single-method approaches by combining quantitative mapping of scientific knowledge with qualitative interpretation of theoretical developments. This methodological framework allowed the study to examine both the measurable patterns of knowledge production and the underlying conceptual shifts that have shaped the relationship between spatial planning and behavioral research.
The retrieved documents were then filtered through defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Inclusion was restricted to English-language research articles, review articles, and book chapters indexed under the subject areas of environmental sciences, social sciences, and agricultural and biological sciences. Open-access availability was applied as an additional criterion to ensure full-text accessibility and analytical transparency, yielding a final sample of 1,015 valid documents.
At the analysis stage, bibliometric data were examined to identify temporal trends, geographical distribution of scientific output, author collaboration networks, keyword co-occurrence patterns, and intellectual clusters. Bibliometric techniques - including co-authorship, keyword co-occurrence, and clustering analyses - were performed. In parallel, the systematic literature review provided qualitative interpretation of the findings, extracted dominant themes, and explained the field’s gradual shift from physical toward behavioral perspectives. Together, these two methods enabled not only a comprehensive mapping of the field’s scientific structure, but also a clarification of its theoretical transformations, knowledge gaps, and prospective research directions.
 
Results and discussion
The structural analysis of keywords indicates a deep interconnection between urban planning, sustainable development, and land-use management on the one hand, and behavioral patterns on the other. The keywords with the highest frequency and strongest link included, first, urban planning and land use, which, due to their highest level of connectivity, reflect the continued concentration of spatial interventions on physical structure; second, sustainable development and sustainability, which appear as the ultimate objective of integrating the behavioral dimension into spatial planning; third, travel behavior and walking, which indicate a strong emphasis on mobility-related behaviors and spatial dynamics; and fourth, decision-making, which highlights the importance of human choice processes in response to spatial interventions.
From a geographical perspective, the United States, with 183 documents and 7,223 citations, and the United Kingdom, with 131 documents and 5,425 citations, are the leading contributors to scientific production in this field, followed by China, Germany, and Spain. Findings from the intellectual clustering and trend analysis further show that pro-environmental behaviors have played an accelerating role in the theoretical transition of this field. The literature reveals that research has moved from simple and linear models of behavior explanation toward interactive models based on the relationship between the built environment and psychological characteristics. Within this framework, the built environment and urban green spaces are no longer viewed merely as decorative or ecological elements; rather, they function as enabling or constraining settings for green behaviors such as reducing energy consumption, walking, and recycling.
 
Conclusion
Rethinking the behavioral dimension in spatial planning reflects a paradigmatic shift from physical-spatial planning toward human-centered and context-sensitive planning. The results revealed that without understanding citizens’ perceptual mechanisms, preferences, and spatial behaviors, spatial policies are unlikely to succeed in accomplishing sustainable development goals. In this context, pro-environmental behaviors have served as an epistemological bridge, linking the psychological dimensions of human action with the objective structures of spatial planning. Contemporary spatial planning should therefore move beyond an exclusive focus on physical change and instead concentrate on creating appropriate spatial settings that encourage and facilitate sustainable behaviors. This study provides a pathway for planners, policymakers, and urban designers to adopt behavior-oriented spatial policies and thereby enhance the effectiveness of sustainable development interventions.
 
Funding
There is no funding support.
 
Authors’ Contribution
The author solely performed all aspects of this research, including study design, data collection, statistical analysis, and manuscript preparation.
 
Conflict of Interest
Authors declared no conflict of interest.
 
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to all the scientific consultants of this paper.