Unplanned Development Research Articles

Impacts of Land-use Transformation on Agriculture land in Afghanistan, Kabul city as case study

The change in land-use over a certain period of time is inevitable. This paper investigates the issue of land use change on agricultural land that has become a phenomenon affecting the economy and environment in Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan. Agriculture is the main economic source of Afghan cities, however, due to rapid population growth, population densification, and inability to apply Kabul city’s master plan and regulations, a large portion of land cover transformed from agricultural areas to unplanned developments and have shifted the function of communities from productive societies into consumer and dependent societies. The study sheds light on Yakatoot as a study farmland area in Kabul city to present an alive example of what is happening in the reality of agricultural land in Kabul. Therefore, approaches for sustainable conversion of agricultural land in Kabul city is a vital quest that needs to be followed seriously. The study illustrates Afghanistan's land laws. It identifies the social, economic, and environmental impacts of land-use change. This paper applies qualitative methods, where data and analysis worked by using field surveys, aerial photographs from Google Earth, and data collected from CRIDA. It also investigates international experience regarding land-use change and sustainable solutions. Therefore, due to positive implications of urban agriculture practice as a feasible and sustainable approach to tackle the ongoing challenges related to land-use change in Kabul city, this paper suggests inducing this approach in Kabul city’s master plan and other urban initiatives because it will not only lead to environmental protection, but also, it will re-establish economic stability, enhance social welfare, revive city’s historic identity.

WATER SUPPLY FOR NEWLY INCLUDED EIGHTEEN WARDS IN DHAKA NORTH CITY CORPORATION: AN INTROSPECTION

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh and a city with 20 million inhabitants, faces numerous challenges such as water logging, ground water depletion, inadequate sanitation, polluted river water, unplanned urban development, and the existence of large slums where more than one third of its population lives. Residents of Dhaka enjoy one of the lowest water tariffs in the world, which limits the utility's capacity to invest. The utility in charge of water and sanitation in Dhaka, DWASA, addresses these challenges. By this way, operating costs are more than covered, and a reduction of water losses from 53% in 2003 to 29% in 2010. For these achievements DWASA, got a Performer of the Year Award at the Global Water Summit 2011 in Berlin. The award selection was made by participants based on presentations by the managers of seven invited utilities from Algeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Poland, Romania and the United States. In the future DWASA plans massive investment to replace dwindling groundwater resources with treated surface water from less polluted rivers located up to 160 km from the city. In 2011 Bangladesh's capital development authority, Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (RAJUK), made rainwater harvesting for new houses mandatory in an effort to address water scarcity and reduce flooding. The inclusion of Eighteen wards in DNCC aims to improve the availability, safe and quality of water in a sustainable way. There are number of studies found, where the water supply in Dhaka City areas are considered as main focus. This study found the gap of water supply in DNCC after Eighteen wards were included in the corporation.

Floral diversity in the central part of Chattogram city, Bangladesh

Purpose This study/paper aims to evaluate the floral richness of the central part of Chattogram city, Bangladesh. Chattogram is recognized as the largest port city and the commercial capital of Bangladesh, which confronts faster urbanization and swift infrastructure development. Green spaces in and around Chattogram city are shrinking sharply, which resulted in rapid loss of floral and faunal resources in this area. The present study was carried out from February 2018 to January 2019 to enumerate the vascular plant species of the Sulakbahar ward located in the central part of Chattogram City, Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach The study area was categorized into 10 habitats to assess the variation of floral composition. The extensive whole area survey method was applied to record the flora from all sorts of plant habitats of the research area. Findings The study enumerated 418 vascular plant species under 315 genera and 120 families including natural, planted and cultivated from the study area. The habit form of the recorded plant composition indicated that herbs (35%) constitute the major plant category followed by trees (34%), shrubs (17%), climbers (12%), ferns (1%) and orchids (1%). The study also indicated that exotic species (50.3%) became dominant than native species (49.7%) in Chattogram city because of their scenic beauty, easy propagation and ornamental value to the city planners and inhabitants. Originality/value It appeared that floral resources of the Chattogram city area are in great threat due to aggressive and unplanned infrastructure development for housing, offices and institutions by replacing the green spaces. The study recommended that urgent protection measures should be taken to conserve and protect the existing floral resources for the well-being of the urban people.

Geologic hazards of the Ocoña river valley, Peru and the influence of small-scale mining

The Ocona River Valley, in the Arequipa Department in southern Peru, extends over 150 km from the Pacific coast to its headwaters in the Andes Mountains. While traditionally sparsely populated with farmers and crawfish fishermen, the valley has seen a large population growth in the last 20 years as small gold mines have developed. This change poses the opportunity to evaluate three research questions: How do geologic hazards and risks increase from mining activity? How does unplanned urban development affect risks? How do landforms restrict development and thereby increase risks? The combination of climate, topographic, and hydrologic conditions result in widespread hazards from debris flows, collapsible soils, erosion, rockfall, flooding, and liquefaction. We have developed maps of these hazards for three communities where mines have recently developed, Secocha, Alto Molino, and San Juan de Chorunga, and then we conducted a risk analysis for changing conditions, termed “Risk–Risk” analysis. Because of the lack of vegetation on mountain slopes, mining operations typically only affect rockfall hazards, mostly in the immediate vicinity of the mines and in the nearby runout zones. However, increased population and associated settlement infrastructure is constrained by steep slopes and regularly-flooded valleys, so residents live in fan and terrace areas with substantially increased risks from debris flows and collapsible soils and moderately increased risks from flooding and rockfall.

Simulation of groundwater flow using meshfree collocation method with Cubic Spline function

Groundwater is a long term reservoir of the natural water cycle. India is the largest user of groundwater in the world. There are many areas in the country facing scarcity of water primarily due to unplanned groundwater development resulting in fall of water levels. If measures to ensure sustainable groundwater usage are not taken consequences may include a collapse of shortages of potable water, conflict and suffering. Therefore it is necessary to identify the groundwater resources and predict the groundwater flows at different locations in the aquifers. Numerical methods can simulate the groundwater flows for the delineated aquifers. In this study, the simulation of groundwater flow is carried out using Meshfree Collocation Method (CM) with Cubic Spline (CS) function and moving support domains. The results are compared with the analytical solution and found satisfactory. The sensitivity analysis is carried out for Courant number, simulation scheme, spatial and temporal variation.

Land Use and Land Cover Change Assessment in the Context of Flood Hazard in Lagos State, Nigeria

Incessant flooding is a major hazard in Lagos State, Nigeria, occurring concurrently with increased urbanization and urban expansion rate. Consequently, there is a need for an assessment of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) changes over time in the context of flood hazard mapping to evaluate the possible causes of flood increment in the State. Four major land cover types (water, wetland, vegetation, and developed) were mapped and analyzed over 35 years in the study area. We introduced a map-matrix-based, post-classification LULC change detection method to estimate multi-year land cover changes between 1986 and 2000, 2000 and 2016, 2016 and 2020, and 1986 and 2020. Seven criteria were identified as potential causative factors responsible for the increasing flood hazards in the study area. Their weights were estimated using a combined (hybrid) Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Shannon Entropy weighting method. The resulting flood hazard categories were very high, high, moderate, low, and very low hazard levels. Analysis of the LULC change in the context of flood hazard suggests that most changes in LULC result in the conversion of wetland areas into developed areas and unplanned development in very high to moderate flood hazard zones. There was a 69% decrease in wetland and 94% increase in the developed area during the 35 years. While wetland was a primary land cover type in 1986, it became the least land cover type in 2020. These LULC changes could be responsible for the rise in flooding in the State.

Spatial Analysis of Urbanization Patterns in Four Rapidly Growing South Asian Cities Using Sentinel-2 Data

The rapid and dominant urbanization in Asian cities has fueled concerns regarding the local and global efforts toward urban sustainability. Specifically, South Asian cities have been a topical issue concerning ecological and environmental threats due to their unplanned and haphazard urban development. However, comparative urbanization studies in South Asian cities remain uncommon. Therefore, in this study, we sought to comparatively examine the land use and land cover (LULC) dynamics and to detect the urbanization patterns of four rapidly developing South Asian lowland cities: Mumbai (India), Colombo (Sri Lanka), Karachi (Pakistan), and Dhaka (Bangladesh). Sentinel-2 (10 m) data and various geospatial approaches, including urban–rural gradient and grid-based methods, statistics, and urban landscape metric techniques, were used to facilitate the analysis. The study revealed that Mumbai, Karachi, and Dhaka had larger built-up landscapes compared to Colombo. Mumbai had the highest percentage of green spaces, followed by Colombo. Dhaka and Karachi had relatively small percentages of green spaces. Colombo and Dhaka had more croplands, which consistently increased along the urban–rural gradient compared to Mumbai and Karachi. Karachi showed that the only major land use was built-up, while most of the areas were left as open lands. On the other hand, Colombo’s urban setup was more fragmented than the other three cities. Mumbai and Karachi had larger patches of urban footprints compared to Colombo and Dhaka. Thus, this study provides vital information on the past land utilization priorities in the four cities, and comparatively proffers guidance on certain critical areas of focus for local, regional, and global future sustainable urban planning.

Sustainability challenges in developing marine-based adventure tourism in Ambon

There has been growing demands for nature-based tourism involving diverse activities. Marine-based adventure tourism is one of it, which is based on a unique combination of marine biodiversity, scenic beauty, and sea activities such as sea kayaking and diving. The consequences of rapid growth destroy the natural resources because in many cases, any type of tourism industry only focusing on economic development. Sustainable marine-based adventure tourism should balance with many local factors, especially the residents’ socioeconomic activities. The unplanned marine-based adventure tourism development can gradually destroy its natural environmental resources on which it depends, the marine ecosystem. In this paper, the authors describe the possible effects of marine-based-adventure tourism development on natural resources along with solid waste pollution challenges and finally, how the residents are involved in overcoming these sustainability challenges.

Traditional water knowledge: challenges and opportunities to build resilience to urban floods

PurposeUrban flooding in developing countries of the Global South is growing due to extreme rainfall and sea-level rise induced by climate change, as well as the proliferation of impervious, built-up areas resulting from unplanned urbanisation and development. Continuous loss of traditional knowledge related to local water management practices, and the de-valuing of such knowledge that goes hand-in-hand with globalised aspirations, is inhibiting flood resilience efforts. This paper aims to address the need to include traditional water knowledge (TWK) in urban living and development processes in the Global South.Design/methodology/approachThis paper commences with a review of existing frameworks that focus on natural resource management, critically assessing two existing frameworks of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). The assessment of the existing approaches contributes to this paper’s development of a novel framework to promote TWK with regard to resilience and risk reduction, specifically for developing flood adaptive strategies, which is the second stage of this paper. Finally, the paper explains how the framework can contribute to the field of urban design and planning using examples from the literature to demonstrate challenges and opportunities related to the adaptation of such a framework.FindingsThe framework developed in this paper reveals three proposed vertices of TWK, named as place-based landscape knowledge, water use and management and water values. This framework has the potential to produce context-specific knowledge that can contribute to flood-resilient built-environment through urban design and practices.Research limitations/implicationsThe framework developed in this paper reveals three proposed vertices of TWK, named place-based landscape knowledge, water use and management and water values. This framework has the potential to produce context-specific knowledge that can contribute to flood-resilient built-environment through urban design and practices.Originality/valueWithin the field of TEK research, very few researchers have explored the field of developing flood resilience in an urban context. The proposed TWK framework presented in this paper will help to fill that gap.

Note on the Restoration of Five Egyptian Mosques ملاحظات على ترميم خمسة مساجد مصرية

This paper discusses the cultural loss of five Egyptian mosques in Egypt due to their renovation. While illicit digging, encroachment, and real estate unplanned development has damaged ancient Egyptian heritage, in particular in the last eleven years, Egypt has a long history of faulty restorations of Islamic monuments, which include demolition, wholesome reconstruction, and unhistorical additions. Few of the original early Islamic monuments survive today, the oldest being the Nilometer on Rawḍa Island (AD 869), which dates to two hundred years after the Arab conquest of Egypt. Interventions in the capital Cairo are often subjected to media coverage and the scrutiny of the public, but in the provinces, violations are widespread and many botched restorations go virtually unnoticed. This paper discusses five Egyptian provincial mosques whose more or less recent restoration has had catastrophic results on the original buildings: al-Mitwally mosque in Ğirǧā (Sūhaǧ), Qimn al-ʿArūs mosque (Bāni Sūayf), Zaġhlūl and al-Maḥally mosques in Rāsid (Baḥayra), al-‘Amry mosque in Dumiyāt. The paper will briefly describe the appearance of these buildings, discuss their history based on the few primary (including historical photographs and accounts) and secondary sources (literature in English and Arabic), and report on an eyewitness survey of their current state carried out between 2018 and 2020, after restorations that have wiped away many of their intricate historic details. The lack of coordination between the Ministry of Endowments and the Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism has resulted in renovation instead of restoration for these mosques. This does not only affect the Islamic heritage of rural Egypt, but the urban fabric around those mosques accordingly. In the conclusions, the author proposes a way forward to overcome problems in the coordination and execution of restoration works and guarantee the functionality of the buildings for the communities they serve without damaging their historical features. First, the author proposes an implemented code as an addendum to the antiquities law that is enforced on all companies working in conservation.يناقش هذا البحث الخسارة الثقافية لخمسة مساجد مصرية بسبب علميات الترميم التي طرأت عليها، في الوقت الذي فيه الحفر الخلسة والتعديات والتطوير العقاري الغير مخطط يضر بتراث مصر وبالأخص في الاحدى عشر عام الماضية، ولکن للأسف يوجد العديد من الترميمات التي تمت التي تؤثر على موثوقية الآثار الإسلامية لأنها لا تقوم بأعمال ترميم ولکن بإعادة بناء واضافات غير تاريخية. لم يتبق اليوم سوى القليل من الآثار الإسلامية المبکرة، وأقدمها هو مقياس النيل في جزيرة الروضة والذي يؤرخ لعام ٨٦٩ م، والذي يعود تاريخه الى مائتي عام بعد الفتح العربي لمصر. غالبا تخضع عمليات الترميم في العاصمة القاهرة لتدقيق بسبب التغطية الإعلامية ووعي الجمهور القاهري، ولکن في المحافظات تنتشر الانتهاکات على نطاق واسع والعديد من عمليات الترميم الغير جيدة تمر دون أن يلاحظها أحد تقريبا. لذلک تناقش هذه الورقة البحثية خمسة من مساجد المحافظات المصرية التي خضعت لعمليات ترميم مؤخرا وکانت نتائجها کارثية على المباني الأصلية وهم: مسجد المتولي بجرجا في محافظة سوهاج، ومسجد قمن العروس في محافظة بني سويف، ومسجد زغلول والمحلي في رشيد والعامري في دمياط. يصف هذا البحث بإيجاز العناصر المعمارية لهذه المباني لبيان قيمتها التراثية وتناقش تاريخها استنادا إلى المصادر الأولية القليلة والمصادر الثانوية التي نشرت باللغتين الإنجليزية والعربية، وتقرير عن مسح لحالتها الحالية والتي أجريت في زيارات ميدانية بين عامي ٢٠١٨ و٢٠٢٠، بعد عمليات الترميم التي قضت على الکثير من التفاصيل التاريخية المعقدة. أدى عدم التنسيق بين وزارة الأوقاف ووزارة الآثار والسياحة إلى إعادة بناء هذه المساجد بدلا من ترميمها، وذلک لا يؤثر فقط على التراث الإسلامي لريف مصر، ولکن على النسيج العمراني حول المساجد، في الاستنتاجات، يقترح المؤلف طريقة للمضي قدما للتغلب على المشاکل في تنسيق وتنفيذ أعمال الترميم وضمان وان تقوم بوظيفتها دون الإضرار بسماتها التاريخية وموثوقيتها.

Industrial Location in Greece: Fostering Green Transition and Synergies between Industrial and Spatial Planning Policies

Greece represents a very peculiar case of industrial development due to a series of historical evolutions. Hence, the present paper aims to discuss the shift from the unregulated and unplanned spatial development paradigm of productive activities to the one of modern “Business parks” (hereinafter BPs), expected to adapt to international standards the location and function of industrial activity, in the Greek territory. Inherent problems and constraints hampering the modernization of industrial development are presented and specific policy recommendations are formulated, with the aim of embedding the industrial parks in sustainable territorial development. This is done through a four-step methodology including (a) an inventory of BPs from the international milieu and the review of current trends in view of the green transition, (b) an analysis of the effects of Greek regulations on the development of the so-called “Organized Receptors of Manufacturing and Business Activities” (OYMEDs) and the suggestion of guiding principles as BPs become more attractive, and (c) the construction of a system of indicators that may govern the transformation of existing parks into eco-industrial parks (EIPs) and monitor their multiple performances. Lastly, an attempt to apply this system of indicators on a national and local level was carried out. Findings show that the regulatory and operational framework concerning BPs in Greece requires a comprehensive revision so as to (a) increase synergies of BPs with the implemented or planned territorial policies, (b) establish collaborative mechanisms acting as catalysts of creativity and innovation, (c) introduce a system of indicators to monitor the development of BPs on the basis of the international framework for eco-industrial parks (EIPs), and (d) pursue an evidence-based industrial policy on national and local levels. A critical outcome is also that strong coordination between spatial and industrial policy is needed, through a high-level inter-ministerial body.

Improving outcomes for socioeconomic variables with coastal vulnerability index under significant sea-level rise: an approach from Mumbai coasts

Climate change has led to increased sea levels, which are caused by a complex interplay of the physical environment components from coastal areas, causing the rise in storm surge, erosion and flooding. In this scenario, the low-lying topography of the Mumbai region is highly susceptible to sea level-induced flooding and coastal erosion due to the increasing number of economic activities. The unsustainable urbanization, unplanned development, and huge land conversion lead to the destruction of this region lead to the destruction of mangroves and filled waterways with construction debris which makes the region more vulnerable to flooding due to inadequate drainage, overflow and absence of natural protectors. These human-induced factors and their impacts remain unknown. Therefore, the study uses four socioeconomic variables (CVI4) with five geological (CVI5) and three geological variables (CVI8; with integrating CVI5) to assess the role of developmental and socio-economic activities in overall coastal vulnerability (CVI12) analysis. To quantify the importance of the combined variables and understand the response, random forest (RF) model was also used. This study selected four different iterations with integrating the pixel-based differentially weighted rank values of all variables to determine the significant causes behind that have an impact on coastal vulnerability index (CVI). The results show that CVI5 and CVI8 contributed 7.8% and 36.9%, respectively, whereas CVI4 contributed 55.3% to the CVI12. The response curve shows that the influence of these variables is an increasing trend to CVI12 and the results of CVI12 are highly correlated with socioeconomic index variables (r = 0.84, p = 0.001) which indicates the socio-economic variables played a major role towards the coastal vulnerability of the region. It suggests that unsustainable urbanization, unplanned development and coastal erosion increasing pressure make Mumbai and Kurla region more vulnerable to flood. Accordingly, CVI12 results show 55.83 km of the shoreline surveyed, being very low vulnerable, a moderate vulnerability of 60.91 km, while a high vulnerability of 50.75 km is considered to be very high. The results may be used as a guide in formulating policies to mitigate and adjust the Mumbai coast as the rise in sea level is expected to cause more frequent coastal floods, etc.

Developing Integrated Index for Evaluating the Urban Natural Environmental Quality from Remote Sensing Technology

Environmental quality (EQ) has always been paid more attention in big cities, where urbanization is on the rise because it greatly affects urban natural ecosystems and people’s health. The paper presents the results of applying Landsat satellite images to evaluate the Natural Environmental Quality (NEQ) from the integrated index NEQI (Natural Environmental Quality Index) through the calculation of biophysical variables, including vegetation index NDVI, water surface index NDWI, construction index NDBI and land surface temperature LST. The study area is the north of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), divided into 3 sub-regions for analysis, including 13 old inner-city districts, 6 new inner-city districts, and 4 suburban districts. The results showed that there is a difference in NEQI between inner and suburban areas. Low NEQI is concentrated in urban areas with high urbanization rate, industrial zones, areas with large impervious surface areas and low greenery density. In the suburbs, in contrast, NEQ is better than in the inner city. If considering by the acquisited time of two satellite images in February of 2005 and 2020, the NEQ of the study area showed signs of decreasing and gradually expanding area from the inner city to the suburbs. Particularly in the suburbs, due to the urbanization process in recent years, there are spontaneous and unplanned development areas, so NEQ has changed towards a decrease. The results of the study can be used to support urban environmental planning and management.

An Ecological Risk Assessment of Sediments in a Developing Environment—Batticaloa Lagoon, Sri Lanka

The land-sea interface is considered as a threatening environment due to anthropogenic development activities. Unplanned developments can cause effects on important ecosystems, water and human health as well. In this study, the influence of rapid regional development on the accumulation of trace elements to the sediments of an important ecosystem, Batticaloa lagoon, Sri Lanka was examined. Surface sediment pollution status and ecological risk was compared with that of the recent sedimentary history of about 1 m depth. Sediment core samples were collected and analyzed for grain size, organic matter and carbonate contents and trace elements (As, Pb, Zn, Cu, Ni and Cr) by the X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) technique. The chemical results of core samples and recently published data of surface sediments of the same project were evaluated by pollution load index (PLI), potential ecological risk index (PERI) and sediment quality guidelines (SQG). Except for Cr, all other elements in cores show lower concentrations than the SQGs confirming the high Cr contents as recorded in the most of other Sri Lankan sediments. The sediment cores indicate an unpolluted, low ecological risk sedimentary history for all core sampling locations, whereas most of the surface sediments of the lagoon are less polluted with low potential ecological risk. Present anthropogenic practices and illiteracy of this rapid developing region can damage the green environment and hence environmental management planning is suggested for a sustainable future.

Machine Learning Predictors for Sustainable Urban Planning

While essential for economic reasons, rapid urbanization has had many negative impacts on the environment and the social wellbeing of humanity. Heavy traffic, unexpected geohazards are some of the effects of uncontrollable development. This situation points its fingerto urban planning and design; there are numerous automation tools to help urban planners assess and forecast, yet unplanned development still occurs, impeding sustainability. Automation tools use machine learning classification models to analyze spatial data and various trend views before planning a new urban development. Although there are many sophisticated tools and massive datasets, big cities with colossal migration still witness traffic jams, pollution, and environmental degradation affecting urban dwellers' quality. This study will analyze the current predictors in urban planning machine learning models and identify the suitable predictors to support sustainable urban planning. A correct set of predictors could improve the efficiency of the urban development classification models and help urban planners to enhance the quality of life in big cities.

Unplanned Urban Development: A Neglected Global Threat

Disasters pose a major threat to cities’ development. Consequently, a lot of attention has been put into increasing urban capacity to withstand, adapt and grow no matter what kind of catastrophic event they go through. However, the majority of international campaigns and local actions to reach these objectives, focused exclusively in reducing vulnerabilities, have been proven insufficient to avoid disasters. As argued in this paper, this is because cities are not only vulnerable to disasters, but the epicenter of highly destructive global threats, which are mostly neglected. By using the latest disaster science terminology to examine hazard creation in the cities of Bangalore (India) and Sao Paulo (Brazil), it becomes clear that unplanned urban development can be considered anthropic-hazard driver. This finding highlights the need for urban planners, researchers and local governments to focus on reducing hazard-creation with the same enthusiasm as they are trying to reduce vulnerabilities in urban settings.

RESIDENTIAL QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF MULTI-STORY BUILDINGS THROUGH RESIDENCE EXPERIENCE: A CASE OF HYDERABAD, PAKISTAN

In this modern era, multi-story housing is conceived as a sustainable and land-saving solution to increasing housing demand. In developing countries like Pakistan, unplanned and unsustainable multi-story housing development in major cities like Hyderabad. Housing quality is getting worse day by day, creating a negative impact on the physical and social well-being of inhabitants. The study identified the factors which are making a negative impact on multistory housing quality. The research is based on a thorough literature review, variables which helped categorize into safety and security, environment, life convenience, space utilization, utilities and services. To record the residents' opinion, the variables were inserted in a structured questionnaire with a 4-point Likert scale. Systematic sampling was applied to select a random sample of sixty buildings with an interval of 5. Using multiple regression analysis, four variables, including outdoor noise, fire protection, lack of elevator facility and drainage, were found to have a negative impact. The study is significant as the results can be considered as a guide for planning and development agencies to improve the multi-story housing quality by ensuring the inclusion of influential variables in the present and future development of multi-story buildings.

Contributions of Partnerships to Conservation and Development: Insights from Amboseli

For several decades, both academics and practitioners have fiercely debated how to reconcile conservation and development objectives. In Sub-Saharan Africa, efforts to align biodiversity conservation and livelihood goals have triggered a shift from pure protected area approaches to a hybrid scenario, including diverse partnership arrangements, that consider livelihood needs of communities neighboring protected areas. These partnerships often include tourism to provide income and jobs. The future of the Amboseli landscape in Kenya has been an integral part of these debates, since it has faced long-lasting conservation and development challenges. Many initiatives, often in the form of partnership arrangements, have tried to address these challenges. By using the Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF) and a set of indicators to measure the contributions to conservation, we examine two of these partnerships—the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust (AET) and Big Life Foundation (BLF)—with the aim of understanding the extent to which they contribute to addressing these challenges. Data were collected using document analysis, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, nonparticipant observation, and informal conversations. Findings show that both AET and BLF have been able to address direct drivers of biodiversity loss (such as human wildlife conflicts, poaching, unplanned infrastructural developments) and—to a much lesser extent—the indirect drivers, such as poverty and land subdivision. Through the workings of both partnerships, more community members have gained access to specific community capital assets, through employment opportunities and other monetary incentives and education. However, it is not clear if and how the livelihood benefits transfer to real and long-term support for wildlife conservation.

Oluşum Sebepleri, Verdiği Zararlar ve Alınan Önlemler Bağlamında Samsun - Atakum Sel ve Taşkınları

Urban Geography is one of the sub-disciplines of human geography. Subject; These are the economic, social, cultural and environmental relations within the context of human-environment relations with the conditions of establishment place and development dynamics of cities in the context of urban and urbanization. Number of Cities in developing countries such as Turkey and the amount of population living in cities continues to increase. One of the most important problems encountered in this rapid urbanization process is; unplanned and uncontrolled growth of cities in a horizontal direction, in a way to cover very large areas and against the natural areas around them. While agricultural areas become lands during this spreading, natural surfaces are covered with concrete, vegetation is destroyed, the coasts are filled, river beds are opened to housing. One of the reasons for the floods and floods that have occurred in urban areas in recent years, and sometimes causing significant loss of life and property, is these unplanned developments that do not take into account the physical geography conditions. One of the cities where this situation is experienced is Samsun. In the research, the flood and overflow disasters that Samsun encountered during the growth of the city and especially its spreading in the direction of Atakum were emphasized. The causes and consequences of this have been tried to be explained within the framework of the principles of City Geography. In the study, firstly, the natural environment characteristics of Atakum and the relations of rapid urbanization and spatial spreading are emphasized. Secondly; The degradation process of the natural environment and the damages caused by the relationship of this process with the flood and overflow disasters that occurred in Atakum are discussed. Third and lastly, Samsun Metropolitan Municipality's engineering studies in risky areas are included in order to avoid similar situations in future floods. These studies; making visible old stream beds, including streams in open channels and consists of flood traps built on the beds of the streams before they enter the city. How useful the measures taken will be in the future is open to discussion. In the research, ASTER satellite images with 15 m terrestrial resolution were used with ArcGIS.10 software and the digital elevation model (DEM) map of the site was produced. Written and visual information including the damages caused by the streams until today was compiled, and the research was concluded by making backward comparisons from the most recent.

A model of eco-friendly cooking stove and a potential application of soot for remediation of heavy metals in the environment

ABSTRACT Unplanned industrial and urban development are the main sources of increasing concentration of soot and heavy metals in the environment. These pollutants have instigated the deleterious impacts on the environment. Over the past few decades, many researchers have proposed different methods to bring improvement in the environmental quality. These methods include effective combustion techniques that produce less soot and the methods of using soot in the decontamination of environmental compartments polluted with the heavy metals. The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, we present a model of an eco-friendly cooking stove to overcome the problem of domestic soot emissions. The proposed model of stove uses a typical type of vented soot filtration hood which contains the soot particulate filters to effectively control soot emissions. Secondly, we study the remediation efficiency of plastic fuel derived soot for heavy metals lead (Pb), nickel (Ni), and chromium (Cr) from the aqueous solutions, contaminated soil, and wastewater samples. A series of batch adsorption experiments are conducted to analyze the effect of different parameters on the heavy metals uptake from aqueous solutions and wastewater samples. The effect of soot application on the heavy metals immobilization from the contaminated soil samples is also studied by using the EDTA extraction method. Experimental results reveal that pH 9.0 is optimal for the adsorption of heavy metals from the aqueous solutions. Soot application to the soil samples increased the pH and reduced 0.1 M EDTA extractable concentration of heavy metals. From the water samples, adsorption of heavy metals increased by increasing the contact time and maximum adsorption occurred at the optimum contact time of 3 hours. Moreover, the experimental data are well modeled through the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. The overall effectiveness of soot in reducing the concentration of heavy metals from aqueous solutions, soil samples, and water samples is as follows: Pb (94.4%, 75%, and 90.5%), Ni (69.97%, 37.4%, and 69.8%), and Cr (61.3%, 37.5%, and 82.6%). It has been inferred from results of this study that soot has a great potential as a remediation tool for the environment excessively contaminated with heavy metals.