About the conference

 The 9th national conference and the 2nd international conference on Urban Management and Planning (UMP) is being held on the eve of the 13th anniversary (the first national conference in 2006), while not only the world sees unpredictable changes in the social, political and especially in climate change and its effects on the cities but Iran, also witnessed climate change (unpredictable rainfall) in early spring of this year (2019), which has resulted in the nationwide flooding and displacement of tens of thousands of people, destroying tens of thousands of agricultural land and caused up to $2.5 billion of damage to infrastructure in urban and rural areas. In addition to the political, social and climate changes that require the holding of such specialized meetings and the gathering of scholars and experts, the prospects of sustainable development also promises to bring about incredible and unbelievable changes in urban planning and management, including the entrance of the world into the era of ecological civilization, interaction with the nature and the environment instead of overcoming it, the urbanization of the world population and the globalization of cities, the entry of unmanned vehicles and self-propelled into urban transport networks, the role of air taxis and the dominance of clean-fuel vehicles in the city, smart urban growth, urban waste reduction, the prevention of waste landfill, green cities and etc. are among the issues that necessitate such periodic and scheduled conferences. The urban planning and management conference with an awareness about these changes is seeking to bring together hundreds of scholars, researchers, and managers from all over the world and Iran to present their scientific findings and their managerial and practical experience and provides a suitable platform for improving urban planning and management methods in dealing with urban challenges.

It is our great pleasure to welcome you to the 9th National Conference and the 2nd International Conference on Urban Planning and Management which will be held in the holy city of Mashhad during Novaber 18-19, 2020 at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (Iran) by the co-organization of Islamic city council, Municipality of Mashhad Metropolis (ICMMM), and Ferdowsi university of Mashhad with the cooperation of the network of universities, national and international scientific research centers, national and provincial executive and administrative organizations of Mashhad City.

Hence, we are pleased to invite all researchers and experts in various fields of geographical sciences, urban planning and management, urban planning, urban design and architecture, natural and environmental resources, economics, management, natural and environmental sciences, transportation, energy and new technologies to submit their most recent scientific achievements with regard to the contexts of conference topics. Papers should be sent via the conference website to the secretariat of the conference. In line with the main conference, different workshops, roundtables and specialized exhibitions will be held with the participation of academics and industry experts and related organizations including representatives and municipal staff in the subject areas. Due to the emphasis of the permanent committee of conference and the need for greater communication between the university and the community, the organizing committee intends to pay particular attention to communication and society, pparticularly to municipalities and city councils. To this end, a specific section of the conference venue will be dedicated to identifying and developing applied research related to urban affairs in order to negotiate and encourage researchers to communicate with urban managers. Practitioners, city managers and municipalities and applied research researchers are expected to contribute more and more to this field as well as to other areas of applied research.

Finally, we wish all conference participants and organizers to have a very pleasant and interesting time in Mashhad city and we wish you all the best of luck.