Urbanization In Countries Research Articles

A mega-index for the Americas and its underlying sustainable development correlations

Indicators and their composite indices have been embraced as development tools for guiding humanity toward a sustainable destination. In response, public and private organizations have generated hundreds of these metrics, making their application overwhelming to policymakers, planners, and scientists. Past reviews have revealed that a majority of common development indices have theoretical or quantitative shortcomings, supporting that there is no consensus regarding their theoretical basis, design, use, thresholds-of-effect, or validation. In response, this study was designed around four guiding research questions: (i) What are the underlying development themes within a collection of established sustainability indices, and what distinguishes winning locations from losing ones? (ii) Are the three major divisions of sustainability (economic growth, social equity, environmental integrity) equally represented by current sustainable development measuring initiatives? (iii) Could just a few common and freely available indicators capture all present dimensions of sustainable development? (iv) Would a new sustainable development mega-index research paradigm improve humanity’s ability to assess progress toward sustainability? Those questions were investigated using data from 30 mostly contiguous Western Hemisphere nations and three amassing methodological objectives. First, 31 known indices were reduced into underlying dimensions (factors) of sustainable development. Next, those factors were combined (aggregated) into the first mega-index of sustainable development (MISD). Finally, 11 common development indicators were explored regarding collinearity and explanatory power of the sustainable development dimensions and MISD. Seven latent dimensions (sub-metrics) captured over 85% of the variation of the original 31 indices, with socioeconomic themes dwarfing environmental ones. The factors conveyed: (F1) socioeconomic well-being synergies; (F2) economic freedom and democracy; (F3) environmentally efficient happiness; (F4) ecosystem well-being; (F5) peace to economic vulnerability tradeoff; (F6) natural resources protection; and (F7) environmental stewardship and risk resilience. MISD is the geometric mean of the seven sub-metrics, which were directed toward sustainability, and rescaled (normalized) 0 (worst case) to 100 (best case). Geographically, this study ranked Belize best overall, followed by Guyana, Panama, Uruguay, and Canada; Barbados ranked worst, preceded by Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, and Cuba. Winning countries were characterized by low population density, increased forestland, decreased urban, and larger country area. Child mortality and population growth rate remained negative predictors of socioeconomic conditions; however per-capita CO2 sacrificed ecological integrity for improved human well-being. Mega-index creation will serve as an important scientific stepping-stone for improving accuracy and simplifying valuations of sustainable development, thus others should follow.

Planning the Intermediate City, or How to Do Better with Little: The Case of the City of Nueve de Julio, Argentina

With 92% of its population living in urban areas, Argentina is one of the most urbanized countries on the planet. Like in many South Countries, the populations of the small and medium-sized cities, which serve as intermediate centers between the countryside and the urban network, are growing steadily. Such cities in Argentina offer services and infrastructures to both urban and rural populations, as well as a residential alternative to the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area. These cities, however, are facing specific problems that require appropriate responses. In this respect, Nueve de Julio is emblematic of the challenges facing these intermediate cities. As one of the hundred cities created in the 19th century by the Argentinian government, Nueve de Julio is today a city whose population is increasing, and territory is expanding, but that lacks any foresight to anticipate the next 20 or 30 years. Our purpose is to analyze the reasons of this stagnation, explain the serious development problems the city confronts, with disparities in the organization of its territory and 20% of population living in poverty, and foresee an open system of urban planning, capable to guide the urban authorities and its partners in the identification of priorities and investments in favor of all the inhabitants. The government seems helpless in dealing with this. Political activism prevails over planning and varies from one election to the next depending on the party in power. Means are lacking, both financially and in terms of technical skills. Establishing an open system of urban planning is imperative. Based on the collaboration of citizen, the goals of the planning should include social, economic and spatial integration, efforts to include the city’s poor and more rational, less costly development of the suburban periphery. This will enable Nueve de Julio to better play its role as an intermediate city for the entire urban and regional population with regard to business, administration, education and health services.

Design Analysis of a Dual Rotor Permanent Magnet Machine driven Electric Vehicle

Electric bike in urban countries such as Europe and China commonly used the brushless direct current machine (BLDC) as it able to produce high torque to transport the user from one place to another. However, BLDC torque density can’t be improving due to limitation magnetic flux generated by the permanent magnet. Therefore, the performance of electric bike can’t be improved. Outer rotor BLDC machine design able to improve the torque density of the motor due to increase radius of the motor which can be explained by simple physics equation (Torque = Force x radius). However, an outer rotor machine only generates constant speed, which is not suitable for operating under tractive load condition, especially electric bike. The proposed model is a new novel of double layer outer rotor BLDCPM machine which able to amplify the magnetic flux density and improve the torque density of the machine. The mutual magnetic coupling between the inner and outer rotor of the proposed model increase the magnetic flux intensity as both of them acts as individual parts. Thus, the magnetic flux generated by both rotors are double which resulted in improving the performance of the E-bike. Designing parameters and analysing the performance of the proposed 2D model is done using FEA tools. Evaluation of the conventional and proposed model by comparing torque performance, magnetic flux density and motor constant square density. Other than that, speed torque graph also is evaluated to justify either it can operate similarly to ICE engine with gears. Two model is designed which is Single Outer Rotor Brushless Direct Current (SORBLDC) and Double Outer Rotor Brushless Direct Current (DORBLDC) operated with the same cases of 27 Amp current supplied to it and operate under various speed from 500 rpm to 2000 rpm. The average torque produce by the conventional and proposed model are 2.045439 Nm and 3.102648 Nm. Furthermore, improvement of the proposed model to conventional model in terms of motor constant square density by 24.92%. Therefore, the proposed model able to improve the magnetic flux by amplifying which resulted to increase the torque density of the machine. Furthermore, the speed-torque graph of the proposed machine shows similarity with speed torque graph of ICE engine. Thus, the proposed machine is suitable to operate for bike application

Fields of Progress: The Mechanization of Agriculture in Days of Heaven

Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978) functions less as a traditional narrative in this article than as a postmodern filmic essay on the meanings and legacies of early-twentieth-century modernization in the agricultural districts of the southwestern Great Plains. Representing the border spaces of the Texas Panhandle in 1916, the film imagines a migrant space that hosts an uneven melange of machines, bodies, and terrains—one that highlights the social and ecological consequences of industrial modernity's appearance on the rural landscape. As it imagines flows of people and products between rural margins and metropolitan centers, Days of Heaven both anticipates and elaborates more recent historiographies, such as William Cronon's, that trouble common conceptions of urban core and country periphery. The film also illuminates questions about the overlap of the modern and the postmodern through a meticulously crafted pastiche of iconic twentieth-century American images. With an eye on these qualities, this article uses Malick's depictions of mechanization and his self-consciously referential aesthetic sensibilities to examine the objects that comprise late-70s postmodernism in the American grain, a version that is not so much a departure from the techniques, ethics, and spaces of modernism as it is their extension, amplification, and reproduction.

Metropolitan Regions: Challenges for Sustainability and Governance of Periurban Areas in Brazil.

Metropolization has become a global phenomenon of urbanization. In a highly urbanized country like Brazil this process is visible in mega cities as well as in regional metropoles, leading to vast urbanized areas stretching from the core cities to formerly distant neighborhood municipalities. Enormous urban agglomerations like the Macrometropole Paulista are the impressive result, however coming with significant challenges in governing such huge but highly fragmented areas. Especially the most populous Brazilian metropolitan areas have to deal with peri-urban development challenges like the lack of infrastructure and public security or new forms of fragmentation that come along with social and ecological problems. Overcoming these challenges is a remarkable task for the municipal, regional and national level. Based on a classification of different phases of peri-urban development that can be distinguished since the 1960s this paper analyses the development of Brazil’s metropolitan areas. Different forms of governance as well as concepts of sustainable approaches to deal with urban challenges are assessed based on the cases of Sao Paulo, Curitiba and Recife.

Towards an explanation of inequality in premodern societies: the role of colonies, urbanization, and high population density

AbstractUsing a newly expanded set of 41 social tables from premodern societies, this article tries to identify the factors associated with the level of inequality and the inequality extraction ratio (how close to the maximum inequality the elites have pushed actual inequality). Strong evidence is found to show that elites in colonies were more extractive, and that more densely populated and less urbanized countries exhibited lower extraction ratios. Several possibilities are proposed, linking high population density to low inequality and to low elite extraction.

The role telecentres play in providing e‐government services in rural areas

AbstractIn this paper, we explore the role played by telecentres for providing e‐government services in rural areas. We do so by reporting from a longitudinal multiple case from Tanzania, one of the least urbanised African countries with only 23% of the population living in urban areas. Telecentres are proposed to operate as multipurpose community information and communication technology access centres offering e‐government services (as well as other services), providing information, transactions, and entitlements. The supply and use of e‐government services is in our cases found to remain almost unchanged over the last 5–10 years, and there is still a long way to go to fully use the advantages and strengths of e‐governments, due to infrastructure (lack of computers and lack of, or slow and unstable, connections), management (lack of marketing and lack of relevant information and services), and human factors (lack of awareness and knowledge among the citizens). Based on our findings, we argue that telecentres still have a role to play, in combination with personal mobile phones, where simple tasks may be performed by mobile phones, with more complex tasks may be done via Internet from telecentres. This combination will still be the best alternative into the future.

Assessment on the urbanization strategy in China: Achievements, challenges and reflections

The “China Dream” is an “Urban Dream”. Urbanization is an inevitable requirement for promoting social progress. The Chinese government sees sustainable urbanization as an engine of modernization and economic growth. And the country's urbanization has followed a unique course and is perhaps the greatest human-resettlement experiment in the world history, unprecedentedly transforming the Chinese society in a very short period of time. Yet problems have arisen during the historical process, China's unique path to urbanization has avoided many of pitfalls existing in the developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America. This paper attempts to conclude the good jobs as well as problems in China's urbanizing process which might provide successful experience for the underdeveloped nations and regions to promote urbanization. The most brilliant achievement of urbanization in China is that thousands of years' agriculture-dominated country has ended and a new urbanized country has formed, which only consumed several decades. The country's urban infrastructure, living conditions and public service for urban residents have made great improvements. The fostering urban agglomerations are considered to lead the country's socio-economic transformation and possess the greatest potential for the urbanization and economic growth in the coming decades. In general, the traditional land-centered urbanization in China is a typical “incomplete urbanization” and “low-quality urbanization”, presenting impressive characteristics of “four highs and five lows”—high investment, consumption, emission and expansion, and low level, quality, harmony degree, inclusiveness and sustainability. Undoubtedly, the traditional urbanization of China is increasingly difficult to continue and the transformation process should be speeded up as soon as possible. The country should actively explore a people-oriented new-type urbanization way, i.e. an intensive, efficient, rural-urban integration, harmonious and sustainable urbanization model.

Heavy metals effect on breast cancer progression

BackgroundBreast cancer is the most frequent localization of malignant process in American women and women of European countries. To date it is not possible to control the morbidity growth due to lack of effective ways of primary prevention. Comparing the incidence of breast cancer in developed countries with the countries of Asia and Africa, there is the fact of population predominance lesion in more urbanized countries. This suggests that the environment along with other factors, occupies a significant place in the initiation and progression of breast neoplasia. The impressive rates of industrial development led to the pollution of soil, surface water and, as a consequence, food by heavy metal salts.The purposes of this paper are as follows: the chemical composition determination of neoplastic breast tissue, evaluation of the DNA methylation level, study of prognostic-important receptors expression in the breast cancer cells, establishing linkages between all the derived indicators.MethodsIn our study we used the following methods: studying of the chemical composition of breast cancer tissue by atomic absorption spectrophotometry and energy-dispersion spectrometer; іmmunohistochemical study of ER, PR, HER2/neu, p53, Ki-67, E-cadherin and MGMT receptors; DNA extraction and investigation by oscillating infrared spectroscopy method.ResultsThe total amount of heavy metals in breast cancer tissue ranged from 51.21 × 10−3 to 84.86 × 10−3 μg/kg. We have got the following results: the growth of heavy metals in neoplastic tissue is accompanied with the increase of HER2/neu, p53, Ki-67, MGMT expression and decrease of ER and PR expression. The increment of pathological DNA methylation is accompanied with the increasing amount of heavy metals in tumor tissue.ConclusionsHeavy metals through different pathogenetic links stimulate the progression of breast cancer and reduce its sensitivity to treatment. DNA of tumor tissue has a different level of methylation which changes with the amount of heavy metals in cancer cells. This is displayed on the synthesis of prognostically important receptors in neoplastic tissue.

Hubungan Miopia dengan Prestasi Akademik dan Pola Melihat Dekat pada Mahasiswa Fakultas Kedokteran Universitas Riau

Prevalence rates of myopia in many Asian urban countries reaching epidemic proportion. It has long been observedthat myopic children have higher IQ, and association between myopia and higher level of near work. This study aimsto quantify the association myopia with school achievement and near work in Riau University medical students. Theprevalence rate of myopia in Riau University medical students was 31.4 % (76 students). Myopia students as casesgroup compare to emmetropic students as control group. This study showed that high significant association myopiawith near work profile and no significant association myopia with school achievement. Myopia students more likely tohave risk near work profile than emmetropic students (x2 test P < 0.001) with odds ratio 6.12. Myopia students morelikely to have high GPA than emmetropic students (OR 1.34) but interaction between myopia and school achievementwere not significant (x2 test p> 0.05).

Constraints on foreign aid effectiveness in the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) sector

Abstract Numerous studies have sought to empirically test the effectiveness of foreign aid as a tool for international development, with often inconsistent or contradictory results. New sources of disaggregated aid data now allow researchers to test the impact of individual sectors of aid on sector-specific outcomes. The paper investigates the effectiveness of foreign aid in the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) sector and seeks to identify constraints on WaSH aid effectiveness in recipient countries. Multilevel latent growth, dynamic panel, and instrumental variable regression models were estimated on a panel dataset comprising 125 recipient countries over 20 years. WaSH aid was consistently associated with improved health outcomes in middle-income countries; no effect on those outcomes was observed in low-income countries. Potential constraints on the effectiveness of WaSH aid – including political, economic, institutional, and technical constraints – were examined using subgroup analysis. The effectiveness of WaSH aid was found to have been constrained by government ineffectiveness and regulatory quality in recipient countries. Countries with large rural populations also appear to have benefitted less from WaSH aid than more urbanized recipient countries.

Applying Gravity model to predict demand of public hospital beds

Singapore is an urban country of about 700 km2 with a total population of 5.6 million. In 2015, Ng Teng Fong General Hospital (NTFGH) became the 7th public acute general hospital to provide multi-disciplinary acute inpatient, specialist outpatient clinic services (SOC) and a 24-hour emergency department (ED). To prepare for increasing inpatient demand resulting from aging and population growth, Singapore has planned for two more public hospitals to be ready by 2018 and 2022. In Singapore, patients have the freedom of choice to use any hospital.With the opening of each new hospital, existing hospitals may see their workload being affected. We aim to estimate the demand of the new hospital to plan for its infrastructure and manpower using Gravity model analysis.We used empirical patient days of existing hospitals, and residential addresses to calibrate the “Gravity mass” coefficients of each hospital. We then used these coefficients to predict the new redistribution of market catchment after NTFGH was opened. We also compared the gravity coefficients of different service types and showed the differences. The results indicated some hospitals were more “attractive”. The short-term predictions for redistribution were also fairly good. Hence, with this Gravity model, we are hopeful to estimate future hospitals’ demand and make appropriate infrastructure and manpower planning recommendations.

Climate Adaptive Water Management Practices in Small and Midsized Cities of Nepal: Case Studies of Dharan and Dhulikhel

Nepal, one of the fastest urbanizing and most disaster-prone countries in the world, faces a looming urban water crisis due to rising temperatures, changing climate, and a rapidly growing population in its cities. Changes in rainfall patterns, growing industrial activity, changing lifestyle of the emerging middle class, unplanned urban development, and rapidly increasing urban populations are all contributing factors to the Himalayan cities becoming more water stressed. Limited water access, poor infrastructure development, inequitable distribution, inefficient water resource management, supply-demand mismatch, and institutional inefficiency are the key issues surrounding water insecurity. Multiple, fragmented, top-down institutional arrangements in water governance pose a challenge for effective, equitable, and decentralized water planning and management. This article presents a case study of the struggles over water scarcity and water management in one small and one midsized city in Nepal—Dhulikhel and Dharan. It examines the research, collaborative strategies, and policies for the codevelopment of innovative approaches to meet the rapidly increasing water demands.

An empirical study of urbanization effect on national income of the world with focusing China mainland

This research on the correlation between urbanization rates and national incomes among the countries provide evidences for the effectiveness of urbanization based economic development. There are also common arguments that the Chinese government should actively promote the urbanization for economic growth. But this argument requires a more specific analysis of the policy environment in China. Because China has the potential food supply problems in the future due to population growth factor by Chinese authority policy. This is the reason why China should draw the appropriate level of urbanization. Therefore, Chinese authority should approach to the urbanization development issue very carefully. Urbanization development should be recognized with agriculture farmland conservation and high value added agricultural industry for sustainable growth in China mainland. The world's urbanization and economic development in the majority of the countries have directly proportional relationship. However, this research points that there have been relatively high urbanized countries among their national GNI of less than $ 20,000. We can find the existence of non-economic factors on the urbanization process of the country through this analysis. Furthermore other important research objective is to derive the more hopeful policy direction of Chinese development by analyzing the types of economic development of the world. In promoting urban and rural areas development, China have to take into account the balance of growth and increase of the productivity by high value-added agriculture with Chinese characteristic at the same time. Avoiding the indiscriminate urbanization, urbanization should be noted about the possibility of high value-added of the primary industry. Wealthy formation through the rural income increase is more preferred rather than factitious cities built in large scale. This way shall overcome the negative impact of food deficiency problems in the future. China's urbanization level of 70% will be the turning point of the growth strategy and China should further refine the balanced development of urban and rural development policy. This is why utility value of urbanization on economic growth means that each country could different. It should also be promoting the balanced development between urban and rural areas, including through active foreign capital investment for rural areas and the agricultural sector of the people living in rural optimized over existed metropolitan urbanization at the same time.

JARDINES DOMÉSTICOS URBANOS: SITIOS POTENCIALES DE CONSERVACIÓN BIOLÓGICA Y DE PRODUCCIÓN AGRÍCOLA

A pesar de la enorme influencia de las ciudades sobre la biosfera en escala local, regional y global, los estudios sobre ecología urbana siguen siendo escasos, especialmente en los países muy urbanizados y de mega biodiversidad, como Brasil. El sentido común ingenuo de las ciudades como ambientes estériles no se corresponde con la realidad. Por el contrario, una alta riqueza de especies de plantas y animales es común en las urbes. En particular, los jardines domésticos urbanos, un tipo de uso de suelo muy común, y que usualmente comporta una mezcla de especies vegetales con usos diversos, tiene un alto potencial para la conservación de la diversidad biológica, aunque la fauna y la flora de estos hábitats sean prácticamente desconocidas. Investigar los estándares de biodiversidad urbana, y contribuir así a la creación de modelos de planificación urbana que permiten la conservación biológica, requiere el establecimiento de enfoques metodológicos efectivamente interdisciplinarios.

Electricity demand in South Africa: is it asymmetric?

AbstractThe electricity demand in South Africa has experienced vast changes both from a policy point of view and due to the country's great industrialisation and urbanisation. The literature dealing with the South African electricity case, to date, has not taken into account these changes and their effect to the symmetric behaviour of the residential and industrial electricity consumers. Hence, this paper aims at examining the asymmetric behaviour of the annual South African electricity demand (total, residential and non‐residential) for the period 1960–2012. To do so, three different tests were used: the entropy test proposed by Racine and Maasoumi (2007.Journal of Econometrics138, 2, 547; 2008.Econometric Reviews28, 246), the conditional symmetry test proposed by Bai and Ng (2001.Journal of Econometrics103, 225) and the Triples test proposed by Randleset al. (1980.Journal of the American Statistical Association75, 168). The findings showed that there is weak evidence of asymmetry, given that the null hypothesis of symmetry can only be rejected at 10 per cent level of significance. Hence, econometric models examining the South African electricity demand during the same period are credible in their assumption of a linear data generating process.

Soviet and Post-Soviet Scholarship of Women’s Participation in Russia’s Socio-Political Life from 1900 to 1917

Synthesizing ten decades of scholarship by Russian historians and sociologists, this article traces the major developments in the history of women and the women’s movement in Russia shortly before and during the Russian Revolution. Studies between 1917 and 2017 of the ‘women’s issue’ around the turn of the twentieth century demonstrate that in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia the struggle to recognize the rights of women did not form part of the basic struggle for human rights as it did in the West. What themes were interesting and important in the ‘rural kingdom’ of Russia, since feminism was usually an ideology of urbanized countries? What topics from the history of women’s movements were prioritized if discourse surrounding feminism remained negative? The article discusses the links between the topics studied and the events contemporaneous with the historians’ lifetimes. One can see also the development of a traditionalist trend over the course of 70 years of Soviet rule unrelated to feminist ideas, where its proponents continued traditional studies of social consciousness, social movements, social history and family anthropology. This discourse and approach directs readers towards accepting the importance and heuristic value of the study of not the feminist movement, but the social role of women in history and social movements with women’s participation. The evidence collected by its proponents is sometimes intended to lay the groundwork for the ‘uniqueness’ of the Russian path and thus the ‘foreignness’ of feminist values and special ‘women’s rights’ to Russian culture. But, simultaneously, there has been a steady and largely unseen growth of feminism. There is a lack of specialists in Russia who are prepared to teach courses in women and gender history in general and to inform people of the impact of women on the Russian Revolution, but there are some. This article summarizes their achievements and will conclude by surveying the unanswered questions that are facing the new generation of feminist scholars in Russia.

Развитие современной музыкальной культуры Тувы (взгляд из Японии)

Выпускница-филолог Университета Вако из г. Токио впервые услышала тувинскую музыку в 1999 г. на компакт диске всемирно известной группы «Хун-Хурту». Начала учиться исполнять хоомей. В 2000-х годах приезжала в Туву для участия в музыкальных фестивалях, а с 2006 г. осталась здесь для изучения музыкальных традиций. Автор наблюдает, что музыкальная жизнь Тувы не стоит на месте, а постоянно развивается. В статье делится результатами своих личных наблюдений и своими интересными соображениями о том, как и в какую сторону развивается тувинская музыка на современном этапе.Автор называет причины большого интереса японцев к тувинскому горловому пению. Жители урбанизированной страны испытывают дефицит «живых» впечатлений, оторваны от природы. В Японии почти не осталось сказителей и исполнителей на древних музыкальных инструментах, очень редким явлением стало чтение буддийскими ламами сутр. Грусть японцев по старинным звукам компенсируется звуками хоомея и тувинских песен, выражающих разные настроения, имеющих большое количество жанров. Удивительно многообразие тувинских музыкальных инструментов. Количество исполнителей хоомея в Японии постоянно растет. Японские исполнители хоомея каждый год приглашают тувинских хоомейжи к себе и сами также приезжают в Туву, в рамках программ по культурному обмену.Тувинские музыканты находятся в постоянном творческом поиске. В самой музыке также наблюдается разностороннее развитие. Интересным автор называет и опыт исполнения хоомея женщинами. Хоомей исполняется вместе с забытыми старинными мелодиями, своеобразны еще не известные варианты хоомея. В случае использования хоо­мея в сочетании с современными формами музицирования существенно видоизменяется контекст функционирования самого хоомея. Тем не менее у многих современных тувинских хоомейжи исполнение этого уникального искусства становится более однообразным. С каждым годом увеличивается и число иностранных исполнителей хоомея.

Typical case analysis of deep tunnel drainage system in urban area

Urban rainstorm-waterlogging events were becoming more common and more difficult to control in the past decade. With the inadequate capacity of urban drainage system and the low standards of drainage planning, it is urgent to reform and improve the original drainage system. However, due to the constraints of space conditions, construction costs, environment interference and some other factors, it is not easy to transform the original drainage system and the effect is not obvious. Urban deep tunnel drainage system is an important method to alleviate urban waterlogging, as well as the initial runoff pollution and overflow pollution. The research on urban deep tunnel drainage system is necessary and important, especially in rapid urbanizing countries like China. The preliminary planning and studies have been done in several cities in China with the aim of solving urban waterlogging problem by urban deep tunnel drainage system. This kind of system has already been applied maturely in many developed countries/cities, such as Singapore, Chicago, London and so on. These applications can provide many experiences and lessons for Chinese engineers and researchers. By introducing the work principle of urban deep tunnel drainage system and analyzing its design and uses at home and abroad, this review provides technical support of deep tunnel system to reduce pollution and waterlogging. From the typical cases investigated in this paper, they confirmed that the urban deep tunnel drainage system could play a multiple role in urban waterlogging control and reducing overflow pollution. For example, in London, Paris, Singapore, they are used for drainage and the pollution control of overflow; in Tokyo and Hongkong, they are used for urban waterlogging control; in Chicago they are used both for waterlogging control and overflow pollution control. Although the experience of foreign countries and cities can be used for a reference to the system’s development in China, it cannot be completely copied. Besides, this review paper also points out the direction and main goals for the future research on urban deep tunnel drainage system. There are four key problems analyzed on its development, which are involved in both technical problems and management approaches. Some achievements have been made in urban hydrological simulation and evaluation technology, but this kind of technology has just started and has not been widely used. Scheduling management and joint design with other projects like sewage treatment plant are other two important parts that are directly related to the normal operation and efficiency of the tunnel. And it still faces many of unavoidable technical problems such as geological problems, operation management problem, etc. The review has summarized the key issues for researchers to understand the principles, development status and key problems of urban deep tunnel drainage system. It has certain reference value not only to the planning/design of urban drainage system, but also to the construction of the Sponge city. In the serious situation of the urban waterlogging as well as the initial runoff pollution and overflow pollution, it can be conducted that the research of urban deep tunnel drainage system has urgent practical needs and broad application prospects in China. Moreover, how to combine the characteristics of each city and find property solutions to the key problems still need further study.

A new approach for participative rural development in Georgia – refl ecting transfer of knowledge and enhancing innovation in a non-European Union context

Despite achieving independence 25 years ago, Georgia is still a country in transition which is striving to overcome wideranging economic development problems, particularly evident through out-migration from rural areas to urban centres and foreign countries, as well as through restricted employment integration. The ‘European Neighbourhood Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development in Georgia’ focuses on local development in rural regions as a main national goal and offers a series of pilot actions to apply LEADER-like activities in various rural parts of the country. In this paper the application of such a pilot scheme in Borjomi Municipality, the observed case study in the Lesser Caucasus, is analysed. Reviews show a highly committed implementation process, comprising the establishment of the Local Action Group, the elaboration of the Local Development Strategy, an on-going mobilisation process of local actors and the transfer of experiences and good practices from European Union Member States. The assessment of the potential of the LEADER approach in the rural and mountainous area of Borjomi Municipality reveals a high degree of acceptance and interest of rural stakeholders and residents to taking up such an approach and engaging in innovative initiatives within the frame of sustainable rural development. Given the short period of work with these ideas so far, continued knowledge transfer, and enhanced appreciation and participation in search of place-specifi c opportunities in rural regions will be essential for successful rural development pathways across Georgia.