Urban growth management for sustainable urbanization : examples from Asia-Pacific city regions

During the past three decades cities in the Asia-Pacific region have undergone massive transformations, characterised by rapid population growth and urbanisation. The rapid pace of globalisation and economic restructuring has resulted in these cities receiving the full impact of urbanisation pressures. In attempting to ease these pressures, major cities have advocated growth management approaches that give particular interest to sustainable urbanization and emphasise compact and optimum development of urban forms. This paper seeks to provide an insight into sustainable urbanisation practice, particularly on the promotion of compact urbanisation within Asia-Pacific’s fastest growing regions. The finding shows that within the context of resource constraints, sustainable urbanisation has been a key factor in the adoption of urban growth management initiatives promoting viable use of scarce resources for urban expansion.

Managing growth in the sunshine states : urbanization and planning in Queensland and Florida

This paper compares the urbanization and planning in the two sunshine states of Florida and Queensland highlighting the similarities and differences, evaluates how effective the growth management programs have been, and examines the recent changes and the challenges they bring to the respective states.

Application of a hybrid Entropy–McKinsey Matrix method in evaluating sustainable urbanization : a China case study

Although urbanization can promote social and economic development, it can also cause various problems. As the key decision makers of urbanization, local governments should be able to evaluate urbanization performance, summarize experiences, and find problems caused by urbanization. This paper introduces a hybrid Entropy–McKinsey Matrix method for evaluating sustainable urbanization. The McKinsey Matrix is commonly referred to as the GE Matrix. The values of a development index (DI) and coordination index (CI) are calculated by employing the Entropy method and are used as a basis for constructing a GE Matrix. The matrix can assist in assessing sustainable urbanization performance by locating the urbanization state point. A case study of the city of Jinan in China demonstrates the process of using the evaluation method. The case study reveals that the method is an effective tool in helping policy makers understand the performance of urban sustainability and therefore formulate suitable strategies for guiding urbanization toward better sustainability.

Population, globalization and urbanization: Trends and underlying prosesses

Third World hinterlands provide most of the settings in which the quality of human life has improved the least over the decade since Our Common Future was published. This low quality of life promotes a desire for large number of offspring, fuelling population growth and an exodus to the urban centres of the Third World, Enhancing the quality of life of these people in ways compatible with the health of their environments is therefore the most significant of the challenges from the perspective of sustainable development. Human quality of life may be viewed in terms of access to goods, services and a satisfying social role. The ongoing processes of globalization are enhancing flows of goods worldwide, but these hardly reach the poor of Third World countrysides. But processes of globalization have also vastly improved everybody's access to Information, and there are excellent opportunities of putting this to good use to enhance the quality of life of the people of Third World countrysides through better access to education and health. More importantly, better access to information could promote a more satisfying social role through strengthening grass-roots involvement in development planning and management of natural resources. I illustrate these possibilities with the help of a series of concrete experiences form the south Indian state of Kerala. Such an effort does not call for large-scare material inputs, rather it calls for a culture of inform-and-share in place place of the prevalent culture of control-and-command. It calls for openness and transparency in transactions involving government agencies, NGOs, and national and transnational business enterprises. It calls for acceptance of accountability by such agencies.

Monitoring urbanization and its implications in a mega city from space: Spatiotemporal patterns and its indicators

Rapid and invasive urbanization has been associated with depletion of natural resources (vegetation and water resources), which in turn deteriorates the landscape structure and conditions in the local environment. Rapid increase in population due to the migration from rural areas is one of the critical issues of the urban growth. Urbanisation in India is drastically changing the land cover and often resulting in the sprawl. The sprawl regions often lack basic amenities such as treated water supply, sanitation, etc. This necessitates regular monitoring and understanding of the rate of urban development in order to ensure the sustenance of natural resources. Urban sprawl is the extent of urbanization which leads to the development of urban forms with the destruction of ecology and natural landforms. The rate of change of land use and extent of urban sprawl can be efficiently visualized and modelled with the help of geo-informatics. The knowledge of urban area, especially the growth magnitude, shape geometry, and spatial pattern is essential to understand the growth and characteristics of urbanization process. Urban pattern, shape and growth can be quantified using spatial metrics. This communication quantifies the urbanisation and associated growth pattern in Delhi. Spatial data of four decades were analysed to understand land over and land use dynamics. Further the region was divided into 4 zones and into circles of 1 km incrementing radius to understand and quantify the local spatial changes. Results of the landscape metrics indicate that the urban center was highly aggregated and the outskirts and the buffer regions were in the verge of aggregating urban patches. Shannon's Entropy index clearly depicted the outgrowth of sprawl areas in different zones of Delhi. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Stormwater runoff - modeling impacts of urbanization and climate change

Development pressure throughout the coastal areas of the United States continues to build, particularly in the southeast (Allen and Lu 2003, Crossett et al. 2004). It is well known that development alters watershed hydrology: as land becomes covered with surfaces impervious to rain, water is redirected from groundwater recharge and evapotranspiration to stormwater runoff, and as the area of impervious cover increases, so does the volume and rate of runoff (Schueler 1994, Corbett et al. 1997). Pollutants accumulate on impervious surfaces, and the increased runoff with urbanization is a leading cause of nonpoint source pollution (USEPA 2002). Sediment, chemicals, bacteria, viruses, and other pollutants are carried into receiving water bodies, resulting in degraded water quality (Holland et al. 2004, Sanger et al. 2008). (PDF contains 5 pages)

The effects of urbanization on populations of grass shrimp Palaemonetes spp. in small, high salinity estuaries

High salinity estuaries in the southeastern U.S. have experienced increased inputs of contaminants from nonpoint source (NPS) urban runoff and decreases in habitat due to filling of wetlands and dock/bulkhead construction. Urbanization may pose significant risks to estuarine fauna, particularly crustaceans. The grass shrimp of the genus Palaemonetes, is one of the dominant species found in estuarine tidal creeks, accounting for greater than 50% of all macropelagic fauna on an annual basis. Spatial analytical and geographic information system techniques were used to determine which factors influenced the Palaemonetes population structures in a South Carolina bar-built estuary surrounded by urban development. Impacts from land use practices were investigated using concentric circular buffers around study sites. Factors investigated included sediment-associated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons concentration, land use classification, percent impervious surfaces, and other selected urban factors. Geographic information system and statistical modeling showed quantitative relationships between land use class and impacts on Palaemonetes density. The study suggests that habitat loss is a major factor influencing grass shrimp densities. Multiple regression modeling suggests a significant relationship between habitat alterations and Palaemonetes densities.

Estimating water quality pollution impacts based on economic loss models in urbanization process in Xi'an；China

IEECAS SKLLQG

Discussion on Sustainable Urbanization in Tibet

National Natural Science Foundation of China [40830741]