Download or read book The Effects of Agriculture and Urbanization on the Natural Environment written by W. C. Mahaney and published by Toronto, Ont., Canada : Department of Geography, Atkinson College, York University. This book was released on 1974 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Impact of Urbanization Industrial Agricultural and Forest Technologies on the Natural Environment written by Miklós Neményi and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Environmental Advantages of Cities written by William B. Meyer and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-03-15 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An analysis that offers evidence to challenge the widely held assumption that urbanization and environmental quality are necessarily at odds. Conventional wisdom about the environmental impact of cities holds that urbanization and environmental quality are necessarily at odds. Cities are seen to be sites of ecological disruption, consuming a disproportionate share of natural resources, producing high levels of pollution, and concentrating harmful emissions precisely where the population is most concentrated. Cities appear to be particularly vulnerable to natural disasters, to be inherently at risk from outbreaks of infectious diseases, and even to offer dysfunctional and unnatural settings for human life. In this book, William Meyer tests these widely held beliefs against the evidence. Borrowing some useful terminology from the public health literature, Meyer weighs instances of “urban penalty” against those of “urban advantage.” He finds that many supposed urban environmental penalties are illusory, based on commonsense preconceptions and not on solid evidence. In fact, greater degrees of “urbanness” often offer advantages rather than penalties. The characteristic compactness of cities, for example, lessens the pressure on ecological systems and enables resource consumption to be more efficient. On the whole, Meyer reports, cities offer greater safety from environmental hazards (geophysical, technological, and biological) than more dispersed settlement does. In fact, the city-defining characteristics widely supposed to result in environmental penalties do much to account for cities' environmental advantages. As of 2008 (according to U.N. statistics), more people live in cities than in rural areas. Meyer's analysis clarifies the effects of such a profound shift, covering a full range of environmental issues in urban settings.
Download or read book Environmental Problems in an Urbanizing World written by Jorge E. Hardoy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New edition of Environmental Problems in Third World Cities Cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America contain some of the world's most life- and health-threatening human environments. Environment-related diseases and injuries cause millions of preventable deaths each year. In many squatter settlements, children are 40 to 50 times more likely to die before the age of five than they would be in Europe or North America and most such deaths are environment-related. Many cities also cause serious environmental degradation to their surroundings and increasingly contribute to global warming. This updated and much expanded edition of the classic Environmental Problems in Third World Cities describes environmental problems and their effect on human health, local ecosystems and global cycles. It points to the political causes that underpin many of these problems - including ineffective, unaccountable governments, and aid agencies' reluctance to work with the urban poor. It also highlights innovative solutions such as: * High-quality, low-cost homes and neighbourhoods developed by urban poor groups working with local non-governmental organizations * Local Agenda 21s developed by municipal governments in partnership with community organizations.* In their analysis, the authors show that cities can meet sustainable development goals. There are practical, affordable solutions to their environmental problems, but most of these depend on more competent and accountable city governments and on more support for low-income households and their organizations. The book also outlines the changes needed international aid agencies to support this. PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION 'It's rare to encounter a work as authoritative and accessible as this. It is a mine of useful information from cities in every corner of the Third World, which does not shy away from the immensity of the problems, but says as much about the solutions to them as about the problems themselves' Jonathon Porritt 'Well written and very accessible' The Geographical Journal 'Of value to students, teachers, practitioners, policy makers and aid agencies' Third World Planning Review 'A valuable resource for understanding the underlying problems[this book offers] practical alternatives' Cities International.
Download or read book Urban Agriculture Cities and Climate Change written by Remi Adeyemo and published by Cuvillier Verlag. This book was released on 2011-07-15 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although 40 million people lived in West Africa with 4% in cities in 1930, in 1990 there were about 190 million with 40% being in cities. Projected figures for 2020 indicate that 63% of the estimated population of 430 million will be found in urban cities. Nigeria is not exempted from this scenario. Providing food and fiber for the population will be a burden to all. This publication contains selected refereed research papers from the Alexander Von Humboldt international conference held in Nigeria in December, 2010. The research papers cover several disciplines from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities to policy studies. The first chapter contained the paper on urban governance. It dealt with urban resources and their environment to problems with Nigeria cities and prescribed the way forward. The paper that followed was on the role of primary agriculture in processing and nutrition in urban food security. It looked at the historical antecedents of urbanization and the strategies for improved food and nutrition security in urban cities. About four papers examined the issues surrounding climate change and building green productive cities. Case studies were presented and their implications were analyzed. There were other papers on urban waste management in different parts of Nigeria. The challenges of thermal discomfort and heat stress were highlighted with implication for building design. There were research reports on urban health complications in cities which gave comprehensive analysis of the magnitude of such burden if associated constraints were not tackled. There were other papers dealing with environmental hazards which drew attention to the environmental sanitation level and the nature or water and food hygiene. Finally there was a paper that examined the issues surrounding desertification and lessons to be learnt from experiences of Israel, Turkey and Egypt.
Download or read book Agrobiodiversity written by Karl S. Zimmerer and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-10-31 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts discuss the challenges faced in agrobiodiversity and conservation, integrating disciplines that range from plant and biological sciences to economics and political science. Wide-ranging environmental phenomena—including climate change, extreme weather events, and soil and water availability—combine with such socioeconomic factors as food policies, dietary preferences, and market forces to affect agriculture and food production systems on local, national, and global scales. The increasing simplification of food systems, the continuing decline of plant species, and the ongoing spread of pests and disease threaten biodiversity in agriculture as well as the sustainability of food resources. Complicating the situation further, the multiple systems involved—cultural, economic, environmental, institutional, and technological—are driven by human decision making, which is inevitably informed by diverse knowledge systems. The interactions and linkages that emerge necessitate an integrated assessment if we are to make progress toward sustainable agriculture and food systems. This volume in the Strüngmann Forum Reports series offers insights into the challenges faced in agrobiodiversity and sustainability and proposes an integrative framework to guide future research, scholarship, policy, and practice. The contributors offer perspectives from a range of disciplines, including plant and biological sciences, food systems and nutrition, ecology, economics, plant and animal breeding, anthropology, political science, geography, law, and sociology. Topics covered include evolutionary ecology, food and human health, the governance of agrobiodiversity, and the interactions between agrobiodiversity and climate and demographic change.
Download or read book Towards greener urbanization Resource environmental effects and sustainable land use written by Guanghui Jiang and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2023-04-11 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Lean Farm written by Ben Hartman and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2015 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A practical, systems-based approach for a more sustainable farming operation To many people today, using the words "factory" and "farm" in the same sentence is nothing short of sacrilege. In many cases, though, the same sound business practices apply whether you are producing cars or carrots. Author Ben Hartman and other young farmers are increasingly finding that incorporating the best new ideas from business into their farming can drastically cut their wastes and increase their profits, making their farms more environmentally and economically sustainable. By explaining the lean system for identifying and eliminating waste and introducing efficiency in every aspect of the farm operation, The Lean Farm makes the case that small-scale farming can be an attractive career option for young people who are interested in growing food for their community. Working smarter, not harder, also prevents the kind of burnout that start-up farmers often encounter in the face of long, hard, backbreaking labor. Lean principles grew out of the Japanese automotive industry, but they are now being followed on progressive farms around the world. Using examples from his own family's one-acre community-supported farm in Indiana, Hartman clearly instructs other small farmers in how to incorporate lean practices in each step of their production chain, from starting a farm and harvesting crops to training employees and selling goods. While the intended audience for this book is small-scale farmers who are part of the growing local food movement, Hartman's prescriptions for high-value, low-cost production apply to farms and businesses of almost any size or scale that hope to harness the power of lean in their production processes.
Download or read book Land Use Problems and Conflicts written by John C. Bergstrom and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-08-02 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The causes, consequences and control of land use change have become topics of enormous importance in contemporary society. Not only is urban land use and sprawl a hot-button issue, but issues of rural land use have also been in the headlines. Policy makers and citizens are starting to realize that many environmental and economic issues have the question of land use at their very core. Comprising papers from a conference sponsored by the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development, Land Use Problems and Conflicts draws together some of the most up-to-date research in this area. Sections are devoted to problems in the United States and Europe, the consequences of such problems, land use-related data and alternative solutions to conflict. With a lineup including some of the best scholarship on this subject to date, this volume will be of use to those studying environmental and land use issues in addition to policy makers and economists.
Download or read book Agrarian Landscapes in Transition written by Charles Redman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-18 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agrarian Landscapes in Transition researches human interaction with the earth. With hundreds of acres of agricultural land going out of production every day, the introduction, spread, and abandonment of agriculture represents the most pervasive alteration of the Earth's environment for several thousand years. What happens when humans impose their spatial and temporal signatures on ecological regimes, and how does this manipulation affect the earth and nature's desire for equilibrium? Studies were conducted at six Long Term Ecological Research sites within the US, including New England, the Appalachian Mountains, Colorado, Michigan, Kansas, and Arizona. While each site has its own unique agricultural history, patterns emerge that help make sense of how our actions have affected the earth, and how the earth pushes back. The book addresses how human activities influence the spatial and temporal structures of agrarian landscapes, and how this varies over time and across biogeographic regions. It also looks at the ecological and environmental consequences of the resulting structural changes, the human responses to these changes, and how these responses drive further changes in agrarian landscapes. The time frames studied include the ecology of the earth before human interaction, pre-European human interaction during the rise and fall of agricultural land use, and finally the biological and cultural response to the abandonment of farming, due to complete abandonment or a land-use change such as urbanization.
Download or read book Effects of urban development on stream ecosystems in nine metropolitan study areas across the United States written by James F. Coles and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rethinking Global Land Use in an Urban Era written by Karen C. Seto and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-03-14 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, global land use is affected by a variety of factors, including urbanization and the growing interconnectedness of economies and markets. This book examines the challenges and opportunities we face in achieving sustainable land use in the twenty-first century. The contributors, from a range of disciplines and countries, present new analytical perspectives and tools for understanding key issues in global land use.
Download or read book Economics of Rural Land Use Change written by Kevin J. Boyle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public concern over land management has never been greater. This book provides a broad overview of the economics of rural land-use change, drawing attention to the meaningful role economic analysis can play in resolving public concern and supporting future, pro-active land management strategies in rural areas. The book's breadth distinguishes it from other recent texts, as it jointly offers rigorous treatments of theoretical and empirical models of rural land-use change and practical discussions of applications and relevant methods. Chapters are specifically designed to demonstrate the types of land-use questions economic analysis can answer, the types of methods that might be employed to answer these questions, and the types of public policy decisions that may be supported by such analysis. The book makes a significant contribution to contemporary land-use research, highlighting the key methodological and public policy issues that will be central to future research on the economics of rural land-use change.
Download or read book The Security of Water Food Energy and Liveability of Cities written by Basant Maheshwari and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The population of cities around the world is growing at an alarming rate, and as a result the landscapes of most cities are going through enormous changes. In particular, fertile agricultural lands at the periphery of cities are being developed without consideration of holistic planning. As such, peri-urban areas, zones of transition from rural to urban land uses located between the outer limits of the urban and the rural environment are experiencing significant losses of agricultural land, increased runoff, and water quality degradation. Concurrently, the demands for water, food and energy are increasing within cities, and unless a balance is struck the liveability of these cities will soon be compromised. The current water and land use changes have serious consequences on lifestyle, environment, health and overall well-being of urban communities. This book therefore helps readers to understand the current issues and challenges and examines suitable strategies and practices to cope with current and future pressures of urbanisation and peri-urban land-use changes. The book examines a number of critical aspects in relation to the future of cities and peri-urban regions, including the suitability of policies and institutions to sustain cities into the future; impact of current trends in land use change, population increase and water demand; long term planning needs and approaches to ensure the secured future for generations ahead; and strategies to adapt the cities and land uses so that they remain viable and liveable. The readership of the book will include policy makers, urban planners, researchers, post-graduate students in urban planning and environmental and water resources management and managers in municipal councils.
Download or read book Rural Sustainability written by Qing Tian and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-05-22 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume applies the science of complexity to study coupled human-environment systems (CHES) and integrates ideas from the social sciences of climate change into a study of rural development amid flooding and urbanization in the Poyang Lake Region (PLR) of China. Author Qing Tian operationalizes the concept of sustainability and provides useful scientific analyses for sustainable development in less developed rural areas that are vulnerable to climatic hazards. The book uses a new sustainability framework that is centered on the concept of well-being to study rural development in PLR. The PLR study includes three major analyses: (1) a regional assessment of human well-being; (2) an empirical analysis of rural livelihoods; and (3) an agent-based computer model used to explore future rural development. These analyses provide a meaningful view of human development in the Poyang Lake Region and illustrate some of the complex local- and macro-level processes that shape the livelihoods of rural households in the dynamic process of urbanization. They generate useful insights about how government policy might effectively improve the well-being of rural households and promote sustainable development amid social, economic, and environmental changes. This case study has broader implications. Rural populations in the developing world are disproportionally affected by extreme climate events and climate change. Furthermore, the livelihoods of rural households in the developing world are increasingly under the influences of macro-level forces amid urbanization and globalization. This case study demonstrates that rural development policies must consider broader development dynamics at the national (and even global) level, as well as specific local social and environmental contexts. By treating climate as one of many factors that affect development in such places, we can provide policy recommendations that synergistically promote development and reduce climatic impacts and therefore facilitate mainstreaming climate adaptation into development.
Download or read book Human Impact on the Earth written by William B. Meyer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-02-23 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a level accessible to the general reader, this balanced and non-polemical book describes the changes human activities have produced in the global environment from 300 years ago to today.
Download or read book Examining International Land Use Policies Changes and Conflicts written by Hasnat, G. N. Tanjina and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2020-11-06 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though conflicts continue to arise over land use and land cover changes, the conversion of forest land to cropland or other land uses such as housing and urban development have been on the rise in recent years. Decisions regarding land use and land cover influence climate change as well as various natural processes. While proper changes can minimize the effects and speed of climatic changes, the continued adverse changes may be accelerating the deterioration of the world’s condition. Examining International Land Use Policies, Changes, and Conflicts presents the latest research on the present status of land use and land cover changes throughout the world in order to determine appropriate land use policies that can protect earth’s present and future condition. The findings of the studies investigate the conflicts behind the land tenure and land uses in different countries of the world and examines existing policies and the reasons behind changes in them. Ultimately, the book provides readers with knowledge on how land can be managed in a sustained manner, how landscape models are helpful for predicting and determining future land uses, how land can be managed with the best architectural measures, and how urban forestry is helpful for better environmental management and adapting or mitigating climate change effects. Land users, agriculturalists, urban planners, policymakers, government officials, researchers, academicians, and students looking to improve their understanding of this topic for better use of land in the future will find this book to be an asset to their current research.
