Aims and scope

Nakhara: Journal of Environmental Design and Planning (NJEDP) is an open-access, double-blind peer-reviewed journal. Published in a continuous publication model, NJEDP aims to provide an international forum for exchanging academic perspectives and research outcomes in the multidisciplinary field of environmental design and planning. NJEDP intends to promote dialogue among scholars and practitioners who seek to understand social, cultural, economic, political, and technological aspects of environmental change, particularly in the built environment. Derived from the Sanskrit word nagara, the word nakhara means "city," the cornerstone of which is the built environment. The term was originally adopted to reflect the general scope for the journal that focused on the built environment in the Asian context. 

NJEDP publishes original articles that cover a wide range of topics related to the built environment, spanning the traditional fields of architecture, urban design and planning, landscape architecture, housing development, and community development. The contributions are often multidisciplinary and expand across the arts and design, humanities, social sciences, and environmental science. Although NJEDP’s focus has been on environmental design and planning in the Asian settings, the journal also encourages and receives contributions that present various facets and contexts of environmental design and planning in other parts of the world.  

Types of Articles

NJEDP accepts three types of articles: research articles, review articles and case reports. A research article presents a full report of outputs from original research, typically including introduction, methodology, findings/results, and discussion/conclusion sections. A review article presents a comprehensive summary of the body of knowledge on a specific topic or issue, providing perspectives on the state of the field and future research directions.  

History of the journal

NJEDP started initially in 2005 as a journal dedicated to publishing academic exchanges in the field of oriental design. In 2010, the journal name was changed from Nakhara: Journal of Oriental Design & Planning to Nakhara: Journal of Environmental Design and Planning to reflect the deliberate effort to expand the scope of the journal in response to the rapidly-evolving nature of environmental design and planning.

In 2018, NJEDP increased its publishing frequency from one to two issues a year.  In 2021, NJEDP will publish in a continuous publication model.  As soon as an article is ready to be published, it is immediately released online rather than waiting for other articles in the issue to be completed, resulting in faster access to the final version of the article.  The double-blind, peer-reviewed journal is now published in both hard copy and as an online, open-access e-journal. Our Editorial Board consists of outstanding researchers in the field of environmental design and planning from around the world.

The journal has been included in the Thai Journal Citation Index (TCI) since 2013, the ASEAN Citation Index (ACI) since 2015, and Scopus since 2019.  As NJEDP is an open-access journal, no publication fee is charged once the submissions are accepted.

ISSN: 2672–9016 (print) and 2651–2416 (online)

Language: English

Continuous Publication