Objective Innovation of the theory and method for compact and low-carbon urban planning from the perspective of climate resilience has become a strategic direction to meet the needs of future spatial management and development. The compact and low-carbon urban spatial planning guided by the climate resilience concept has broader research connotation, which not only contains a single theoretical unit, but could be regarded as a comprehensive system including quantitative evaluation and practical guidance. Emphasizing the coordination organization and comprehensive regulation among complex urban systems, the aforesaid spatial planning approach aims to enhance the structural adaptability of urban synthesis.

Methods This research takes the climate resilience planning as the objective, reviews the foundational research and development trends of climate-resilient cities, compact cities, and low-carbon cities, as well as their intersection. Following the workflow of evolution description – mechanism analysis – simulation optimization, the research constructs a theoretical framework and technical path for optimizing the multi-scale comprehensive evaluation system for urban space from the perspective of climate resilience, and proposes compatible optimization strategies for different scales.

Results Climate resilience is an emerging concept, whose connotation and application have been widely discussed in the planning research field in recent years. A review existing research reveals that, the application of interdisciplinary research, comprehensive quantitative assessment and technical innovation to promote the development of spatial practice of climate resilience theory has become the main research direction in the planning field to cope with the climate dilemma. The multi-scale and systematic evaluation indicator system of compact cities, the quantification of the development efficiency of compact cities, and the integration of low-carbon development will remain the focus of future research. Calculating the level of urban low-carbon development, construction, economy or efficiency based on the panel data of cities or urban agglomerations, and adopting emerging measurement methods or models to carry out research on spatial form and adaptive strategies have become essential contents for realizing low-carbon cities. Therefore, the cross-direction development with economics, ecology and other disciplines, covering multiple urban construction elements, and the construction of operable evaluation technology under multi-scale planning still need to be further expanded and improved. The theoretical framework for comprehensive evaluation of urban space from the perspective of climate resilience could be summarized as three progressive steps including characteristic description, mechanism analysis and simulation optimization. The evaluation indicator system integrates the typical indicators of climate-resilient cities, low-carbon cities and compact cities, and relevant highly overlapped indicators, which is divided into five categories including spatial structure, functional layout, social economy, balanced carbon emission and carbon sink, and ecological environment. In terms of work flow, firstly, according to the indicator evaluation table, a comprehensive evaluation is carried out based on quantity and spatial pattern, as well as temporal trend. Secondly, the internal collaborative development trend is reflected, and the external driving factors affecting the overall evaluation to fully reflect the internal and external interaction, with a focus on the influence relationship of different scales. Finally, the results are compared with the predictions of natural development and climate resilience development scenarios, based on which multi-level optimization strategies are proposed.

Conclusion As for specific optimization strategies, spatial planning from the regional scale to the community scale is interrelated and collaborative. At the regional scale, the spatial optimization strategy is the regulation of the total scale and the construction of security pattern. Based on the current resource condition and with the total scale control of urban construction and carbon emissions as the preset goals, the ecological security network barrier is constructed by important blue and green nature resources, and the basic stability ability to cope with climate change is comprehensively improved by the scale constraint of construction expansion and total carbon emissions, and the soft constraint of natural ecology. At the urban scale, the optimization strategy is climate risk prevention and resource flow assurance. By responding to and connecting macro-regulation at the regional level, governance at the urban scale is more complex, and could be delimited from boundary demarcation, land use, functional layout, infrastructure facility coverage and other planning construction aspects to support climate resilience. Focussing urban central areas for economic development and population aggregation, aligning various planning and construction efforts with emergency measures against extreme climate conditions can ensure the timely allocation and flexible supply of facilities and services, thus better preventing and coping with climate risks. At the community scale, the optimization strategy is pilot innovative construction and spatial system transformation. Blocks are the units of urban spatial construction, and spatial optimization at the block scale is more feasible to improve the timeliness and accuracy of responding to climate change through pilot construction and spatial order organization, and to carry out relevant planning work from the aspects of technological innovation, digital management, space utilization and public participation. By building a theoretical framework, refining work processes, integrating multi-scale evaluation indicators and technical methods, and bridging cross-scale optimization content, the research expands the research perspectives and application scenarios of spatial governance from the perspective of climate resilience under the support of compact and low-carbon development, which may provide a scientific and technical basis for achieving urban sustainable development.