Download or read book Urban Water Trajectories written by Sarah Bell and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-10-22 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water is an essential element in the future of cities. It shapes cities’ locations, form, ecology, prosperity and health. The changing nature of urbanisation, climate change, water scarcity, environmental values, globalisation and social justice mean that the models of provision of water services and infrastructure that have dominated for the past two centuries are increasingly infeasible. Conventional arrangements for understanding and managing water in cities are being subverted by a range of natural, technological, political, economic and social changes. The prognosis for water in cities remains unclear, and multiple visions and discourses are emerging to fill the space left by the certainty of nineteenth century urban water planning and engineering. This book documents a sample of those different trajectories, in terms of water transformations, option, services and politics. Water is a key element shaping urban form, economies and lifestyles, part of the ongoing transformation of cities. Cities are faced with a range of technical and policy options for future water systems. Water is an essential urban service, but models of provision remain highly contested with different visions for ownership of infrastructure, the scale of provision, and the level of service demanded by users. Water is a contentious political issue in the future of cities, serving different urban interests as power and water seem to flow in the same direction. Cities in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and South America provide case studies and emerging water challenges and responses. Comparison across different contexts demonstrates how the particular and the universal intersect in complex ways to generate new trajectories for urban water.

Download or read book Women Urbanization and Sustainability written by Anita Lacey and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work considers the city as a gendered space and examines women’s experiences and engagement in both urbanization and sustainability. Such a focus offers distinctive insights into the question of what it means for a city to be sustainable, asking further how sustainability needs to work with gender and the gendered lives of cities’ inhabitants. Vitally, it considers women’s lives in cities and their work to forge more sustainable cities through a wide variety of means, including governmental, non-governmental and local grassroots and individual efforts towards sustainable urban life. The volume is transnational, offering case-studies from a wide range of city sites and sustainability efforts. It explores crucial questions such as the gendered nature and women’s experiences of current urbanization; the gendered nature of urban sustainability thinking and programmes; and local alternatives and resistances to dominant modes of addressing urbanization challenges.

Download or read book Privatizing Water written by Karen Bakker and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-15 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water supply privatization was emblematic of the neoliberal turn in development policy in the 1990s. Proponents argued that the private sector could provide better services at lower costs than governments; opponents questioned the risks involved in delegating control over a life-sustaining resource to for-profit companies. Private-sector activity was most concentrated—and contested—in large cities in developing countries, where the widespread lack of access to networked water supplies was characterized as a global crisis. In Privatizing Water, Karen Bakker focuses on three questions: Why did privatization emerge as a preferred alternative for managing urban water supply? Can privatization fulfill its proponents' expectations, particularly with respect to water supply to the urban poor? And, given the apparent shortcomings of both privatization and conventional approaches to government provision, what are the alternatives? In answering these questions, Bakker engages with broader debates over the role of the private sector in development, the role of urban communities in the provision of "public" services, and the governance of public goods. She introduces the concept of "governance failure" as a means of exploring the limitations facing both private companies and governments. Critically examining a range of issues—including the transnational struggle over the human right to water, the "commons" as a water-supply-management strategy, and the environmental dimensions of water privatization—Privatizing Water is a balanced exploration of a critical issue that affects billions of people around the world.

Download or read book Environmental Justice and Urban Resilience in the Global South written by Adriana Allen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-12-05 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume provides a fresh perspective on the important yet often neglected relationship between environmental justice and urban resilience. Many scholars have argued that resilient cities are more just cities. But what if the process of increasing the resilience of the city as a whole happens at the expense of the rights of certain groups? If urban resilience focuses on the degree to which cities are able to reorganise in creative ways and adapt to shocks, do pervasive inequalities in access to environmental services have an effect on this ability? This book brings together an interdisciplinary and intergeneration group of scholars to examine the contradictions and tensions that develop as they play out in cities of the Global South through a series of empirically grounded case studies spanning cities of Asia, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe.

Download or read book The Seine River Basin written by Nicolas Flipo and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-30 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book reviews the water-agro-food and socio-eco-system of the Seine River basin (76,000 km2), and offers a historical perspective on the river’s long-term contamination. The Seine basin is inhabited by circa 17 million people and is impacted by intensive agricultural practices and industrial activities. These pressures have gradually affected its hydrological, chemical and ecological functioning, leading to a maximum chemical degradation between the 1960s and the 1990s. Over the last three decades, while major water-quality improvements have been observed, new issues (e.g. endocrine disruptors, microplastics) have also emerged. The state of the Seine River network, from the headwaters to estuary, is increasingly controlled by the balance between pressures and social responses. This socio-ecosystem provides a unique example of the functioning of a territory under heavy anthropogenic pressure during the Anthropocene era. The achievements made were possible due to the long-term PIREN Seine research program, established in 1989 and today part of the French socio-ecological research network “Zones Ateliers”, itself part of the international Long-term Socio-economic and Ecological Research Network (LTSER). Written by experts in the field, the book provides an introduction to the water budget and the territorial metabolism of the Seine basin, and studies the trajectories and impact of various pollutants in the Seine River. It offers insights into the ecological functioning, the integration of agricultural practices, the analysis of aquatic organic matter, and the evolution of fish assemblages in the Seine basin, and also presents research perspectives and approaches to improve the water quality of the Seine River. Given its scope, it will appeal to environmental managers, scientists and policymakers interested in the long-term contamination of the Seine River.

Download or read book River Basin Trajectories written by François Molle and published by IWMI. This book was released on 2009 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains 11 papers which cover a range of vital topics in the areas of water, agriculture, food security and ecosystems - the entire spectrum of developing and managing water in agriculture, from fully irrigated to fully rainfed lands. They are about people and society, why they decide to adopt certain practices and not others and, in particular, how water management can help poor people. They are about ecosystems - how agriculture affects ecosystems, the goods and services ecosystems provide for food security and how water can be managed to meet both food and environmental security objectives. This is the eighth book in the series.

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Urban Resilience written by Michael A. Burayidi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-27 with total page 643 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a comprehensive discussion and overview of urban resilience, including socio-ecological and economic hazard and disaster resilience. It provides a summary of state of the art thinking on resilience, the different approaches, tools and methodologies for understanding the subject in urban contexts, and brings together related reflections and initiatives. Throughout the different chapters, the handbook critically examines and reviews the resilience concept from various disciplinary and professional perspectives. It also discusses major urban crises, past and recent, and the generic lessons they provide for resilience. In this context, the authors provide case studies from different places and times, including historical material and contemporary examples, and studies that offer concrete guidance on how to approach urban resilience. Other chapters focus on how current understanding of urban systems – such as shrinking cities, green infrastructure, disaster volunteerism, and urban energy systems – are affecting the capacity of urban citizens, settlements and nation-states to respond to different forms and levels of stressors and shocks. The handbook concludes with a synthesis of the state of the art knowledge on resilience and points the way forward in refining the conceptualization and application of urban resilience. The book is intended for scholars and graduate students in urban studies, environmental and sustainability studies, geography, planning, architecture, urban design, political science and sociology, for whom it will provide an invaluable and up-to-date guide to current approaches across these disciplines that converge in the study of urban resilience. The book also provides important direction to practitioners and civic leaders who are engaged in supporting cities and regions to position themselves for resilience in the face of climate change, unpredictable socioenvironmental shocks and incremental risk accumulation.

Download or read book Concepts of Urban Environmental History written by Sebastian Haumann and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In history, cities and nature are often treated as two separate fields of research. »Concepts of Urban-Environmental History« aims to bridge this gap. The contributions to this volume survey major concepts and key issues which have shaped recent debates in the field. They address unresolved questions and future challenges. As a handbook, the collection offers a comprehensive overview for researchers and students, both from a historical and an interdisciplinary background.

Download or read book Water Politics written by Farhana Sultana and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-09-06 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholarship on the right to water has proliferated in interesting and unexpected ways in recent years. This book broadens existing discussions on the right to water in order to shed critical light on the pathways, pitfalls, prospects, and constraints that exist in achieving global goals, as well as advancing debates around water governance and water justice. The book shows how both discourses and struggles around the right to water have opened new perspectives, and possibilities in water governance, fostering new collective and moral claims for water justice, while effecting changes in laws and policies around the world. In light of the 2010 UN ratification on the human right to water and sanitation, shifts have taken place in policy, legal frameworks, local implementation, as well as in national dialogues. Chapters in the book illustrate the novel ways in which the right to water has been taken up in locations drawn globally, highlighting the material politics that are enabled and negotiated through this framework in order to address ongoing water insecurities. This book reflects the urgent need to take stock of debates in light of new concerns around post-neoliberal political developments, the challenges of the Anthropocene and climate change, the transition from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as the mobilizations around the right to water in the global North. This book is essential reading for scholars and students of water governance, environmental policy, politics, geography, and law. It will be of great interest to policymakers and practitioners working in water governance, as well as the human right to water and sanitation.

Download or read book Sustainability or Collapse written by Robert Costanza and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-01-21 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars from a range of disciplines develop an integrated human and environmental history over millennial, centennial, and decadal time scales and make projections for the future. Human history, as written traditionally, leaves out the important ecological and climate context of historical events. But the capability to integrate the history of human beings with the natural history of the Earth now exists, and we are finding that human-environmental systems are intimately linked in ways we are only beginning to appreciate. In Sustainability or Collapse?, researchers from a range of scholarly disciplines develop an integrated human and environmental history over millennial, centennial, and decadal time scales and make projections for the future. The contributors focus on the human-environment interactions that have shaped historical forces since ancient times and discuss such key methodological issues as data quality. Topics highlighted include the political ecology of the Mayans; the effect of climate on the Roman Empire; the "revolutionary weather" of El Niño from 1788 to 1795; twentieth-century social, economic, and political forces in environmental change; scenarios for the future; and the accuracy of such past forecasts as The Limits to Growth.

Download or read book Climate Change 2022 Impacts Adaptation and Vulnerability written by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-06-22 with total page 3070 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Working Group II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides a comprehensive assessment of the scientific literature relevant to climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. The report recognizes the interactions of climate, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human societies, and integrates across the natural, ecological, social and economic sciences. It emphasizes how efforts in adaptation and in reducing greenhouse gas emissions can come together in a process called climate resilient development, which enables a liveable future for biodiversity and humankind. The IPCC is the leading body for assessing climate change science. IPCC reports are produced in comprehensive, objective and transparent ways, ensuring they reflect the full range of views in the scientific literature. Novel elements include focused topical assessments, and an atlas presenting observed climate change impacts and future risks from global to regional scales. Available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Download or read book Handbook of Quality of Life and Sustainability written by Javier Martinez and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-10-30 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook provides the latest research related to quality of life and sustainability, taking into account social, economic, environmental, and political/governance aspects as well as specific socio-spatial contexts. The volume includes contributions from established and upcoming scholars from various disciplines and geographical contexts (Global South and North). The varying cultural and socio-spatial contexts of the authors in the selected cases contribute to first-hand knowledge on the realities of sustainability issues affecting the quality of life. The authors apply a wide diversity of methods and tools, which facilitates a unique understanding of the interlinkages between quality of life and sustainability. The chapters are grouped in three main sections: concepts and foundations; tools, techniques, and applications; and innovations. The authors provide their own view and theoretical approximation of the dimensions of sustainability, in particular on how these dimensions play out in relation to quality of life. The combination of sustainability and quality of life concepts and perspectives is particularly important in unravelling the multi-faceted nature of human, urban, rural/spatial development.

Download or read book Paths of Inequality in Brazil written by Marta Arretche and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-04 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents multidisciplinary analyses of the historical trajectories of social and economic inequalities in Brazil over the last 50 years. As one of the most unequal countries in the world, Brazil has always been an important case study for scholars interested in inequality research, but in the last few decades has brought a new phenomenon to renew researchers’ interest in the country. While the majority of democracies in the developed world have witnessed an increase in income inequality from the 1970s on, Brazil has followed the opposite path, registering a significant reduction of income inequality over the last 30 years. Bringing together studies carried out by experts from different areas, such as economists, sociologists, demographers and political scientists, this volume presents insights based on rigorous analyses of statistical data in an effort to explain the long term changes in social and economic inequalities in Brazil. The book adopts a multidisciplinary approach, analyzing the relations between income inequality and different dimensions of social life, such as education, health, political participation, public policies, demographics and labor market. All of this makes Paths of Inequality in Brazil – A Half-Century of Change a very valuable resource for social scientists interested in inequality research in general, and especially for sociologists, political scientists and economists interested in the social and economic changes that Brazil went through over the last two decades.

Download or read book Advancements in Urban Environmental Studies written by Atiqur Rahman and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-03-03 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to UN estimates, approximately nearly half of the world's population now lives in cities and that figure is expected to rise to almost 70% by 2050. Cities now account for around 70% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, and this percentage is predicted to rise in the near future as a result of projected increases in global urbanization patterns. It is widely acknowledged that irrational urban planning and design can increase emissions while also exacerbating threats and risks, resulting in a slew of environmental issues such as urban heat islands, air pollution, flooding, amongst other issues, as well as environmental, social, and economic losses. Therefore, these concerns must be addressed promptly in order to cope up with these rising difficulties and make urban environments safer for residents. With the advancement of remote sensing technology and the use of current remote observation systems, urban data science, remote sensing, and artificial intelligence (AI), modeling and quantifying emergent difficulties in urban regions and urban systems have become easy. They aid in the quantitative analysis of urban shape, functions, and human behavior in cities. Harvesting data, developing models, and suggesting new methodologies will be aided by combining urban ecology with new breakthroughs in data science. This book is of great value to a diverse group of academicians, scientists, students, environmentalists, meteorologists, urban planners, remote sensing and GIS experts with a common interest in geospatial sciences within the earth environmental sciences, as well as human and social sciences.

Download or read book Water Science Policy and Management written by Simon James Dadson and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an in-depth look at science, policy and management in the water sector across the globe Sustainable water management is an increasingly complex challenge and policy priority facing global society. This book examines how governments, municipalities, corporations, and individuals find sustainable water management pathways across competing priorities of water for ecosystems, food, energy, economic growth and human consumption. It looks at the current politics and economics behind the management of our freshwater ecosystems and infrastructure and offers insightful essays that help stimulate more intense and informed debate about the subject and its need for local and international cooperation. This book celebrates the 15-year anniversary of Oxford University’s MSc course in Water Science, Policy and Management. Edited and written by some of the leading minds in the field, writing alongside alumni from the course, Water Science, Policy and Management: A Global Challenge offers in-depth chapters in three parts: Science; Policy; and Management. Topics cover: hydroclimatic extremes and climate change; the past, present, and future of groundwater resources; water quality modelling, monitoring, and management; and challenges for freshwater ecosystems. The book presents critical views on the monitoring and modelling of hydrological processes; the rural water policy in Africa and Asia; the political economy of wastewater in Europe; drought policy management and water allocation. It also examines the financing of water infrastructure; the value of wastewater; water resource planning; sustainable urban water supply and the human right to water. Features perspectives from some of the world’s leading experts on water policy and management Identifies and addresses current and future water sector challenges Charts water policy trends across a rapidly evolving set of challenges in a variety of global areas Covers the reallocation of water; policy process of risk management; the future of the world’s water under global environmental change; and more Water Science, Policy and Management: A Global Challenge is an essential book for policy makers and government agencies involved in water management, and for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying water science, governance, and policy.

Download or read book Coproducing Water Energy and Waste Services written by Luisa Moretto and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conventional services, such as water, energy and waste services, have been for a long time physically networked and centrally managed. Today, this delivery model appears increasingly inefficient in two respects. It often fails in guaranteeing its financial viability and equitable service access, and and it generally draws heavily on the natural resources conveyed by these services. The book aims thus at exploring how service coproduction, based on public-community collaborations, can represent a valuable alternative to the conventional service provision model. Contributions in this book look into service coproduction and its relationship with the conventional service model both in the Global North (Germany) and Global South (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, India, Tanzania). They also address a variety of different perspectives in coproducing conventional services, such as the role of service modernisation, the variety of non-networked solutions, the relationship with the commons, just to cite some of them. Eventually, this book provides a first comprehensive exploration of the service coproduction theory in relation to conventional services, such as water, energy and waste. The chapters originally published as a special issue in Urban Research & Practice.

Download or read book Clean Water and Sanitation written by Walter Leal Filho and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-07-09 with total page 1035 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The problems related to the process of industrialisation such as biodiversity depletion, climate change and a worsening of health and living conditions, especially but not only in developing countries, intensify. Therefore, there is an increasing need to search for integrated solutions to make development more sustainable. The United Nations has acknowledged the problem and approved the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. On 1st January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Agenda officially came into force. These goals cover the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. The Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals comprehensively addresses the SDGs in an integrated way. It encompasses 17 volumes, each devoted to one of the 17 SDGs. This volume is dedicated to SDG 6 "Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all". Water and sanitation are fundamental to human well-being. Integrated water resources management is essential to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all and to the realization of Sustainable Development. Concretely, the defined targets are: Achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all Achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations Improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally Substantially increase water-use efficiency across all sectors and ensure sustainable withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity and substantially reduce the number of people suffering from water scarcity Implement integrated water resources management at all levels, including through transboundary cooperation as appropriate Protect and restore water-related ecosystems, including mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes Expand international cooperation and capacity-building support to developing countries in water- and sanitation-related activities and programmes, including water harvesting, desalination, water efficiency, wastewater treatment, recycling and reuse technologies Support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving Uwater and sanitation management Editorial Board Ulisses M. Azeiteiro, Anabela Marisa Azul, Luciana Brandli, Dominique Darmendrail, Despo Fatta–Kassinos, Walter Leal Filho, Susan Hegarty, Amanda Lange Salvia, Albert Llausàs, Paula Duarte Lopes, Javier Marugán, Fernando Morgado, Wilkister Nyaora Moturi, Karel F. Mulder, Alesia Dedaa Ofori, Sandra Ricart