Urban Environmental Conditions Research Articles

A novel living agricultural concept in urban communities: Family Business Garden

SUMMARY During the process of urbanization, people are subject to the indiscriminate use of resources due to competition. The present trend in global population growth predicts that the situation will be aggravated as many people prefer living in towns and cities to resource-poor rural areas. In consequence, limited space, high percentage of ageing population, urban poverty, environmental pollution, changes in urban lifestyles and varied consumption patterns have to be dealt with in sustainable development strategies. In this context, urban agriculture can play a vital role by visualizing the urban homestead as a potentially viable production unit of agriculture. In order to live with limited urban infrastructure facilities, environmental conditions and socio-economic situations, the concept of the Family Business Garden justifies the necessity of its presence through the experience in the Western Province of Sri Lanka. Having a proper mix of environmental and commercial agricultural concerns, the concept paves the way not only to address family food requirements but also to produce for markets under liberalized economies by promoting agro-entrepreneurship and social capital development attempts in urban communities.

Cities from space: potential applications of remote sensing in urban environmental research and policy

Abstract The rapidly expanding urban areas of the world constitute an environmental challenge for the 21st century that requires both new analytic approaches and new sources of data and information. Management of the urban environment must consider phenomena at three scales, including the physical environment within cities, environmental systems consisting of cities and their regional hinterlands, and the environmental implications of the global network of megacities. Increasing availability of remotely sensed observations and a variety of other geospatial information could facilitate the development of new tools and approaches for understanding the urban environment. These new applications should take advantage of the special characteristics of remotely sensed data, including their broad spatial coverage, their capacity for routine and unobtrusive updating and their ability to provide self-consistent measurements of critical physical properties that would be difficult or expensive to obtain in situ. In many cases, using remote sensing data to measure and monitor urban environmental conditions will be more straightforward than using them for urban planning purposes, where traditional sources of governmental and private sector data are more easily obtained and understood. In developing countries, however, remote sensing may provide fundamental observations of urban growth and environmental conditions that are not available from other sources.

Globalisation, Urban Form and Environmental Conditions in Asia-Pacific Cities

Within the Asia-Pacific region, over the past few decades, cities have undergone massive transformations. These changes were underpinned by globalisation flows and new technologies and mediated by, inter alia, political institutions and policies. Given the seemingly ubiquitous nature and power of these influences, studies of emerging urban patterns within the region suggest that cities are growing more alike. At the same time, while cities articulated to the regional economic system are undergoing similar world city formation processes, they are also experiencing unique pressures. These influences are related to aspects of globalisation as well as to the 'nested' governmental policy responses to development pressures. Two differentiating globalisation-related pressures include the need for specialisation of functional roles within the competitive regional economic system and the rapid transfer of technologies and knowledge previously unavailable at lower income levels. The functional niche within the regional city system has forced cities to differentiate in terms of their economic activities, which has impacted their urban form. Transfers of technologies and information through trade and investment have benefited recipients and have also 'compressed' or 'telescoped' development, sped-up national urbanisation rates and created new types of environmental challenge through overlapping sets of environmental problems. Further, these impacts have been mediated differently by a variety of national and local policies. Together, this bundle of influences is creating an assortment of urban forms and environmental conditions within cities in the region. The results cast doubt on whether the physical forms of or environmental conditions within cities currently at different development levels are converging.

The effects of acid rain on the appearance of automotive paint systems studied outdoors and in a new artificial weathering test

A study was performed exposing seven automotive OEM coatings (base coat/clear coat paint systems) outdoors in Jacksonville and to different variants of the acid dew and fog (ADF) test, a new approach to simulating the worst case of the weather conditions in harsh urban and industrial environments. Varying the climatic conditions and the severity of the simulated acid precipitation, a certain variant of the ADF test was found to show a satisfying practice correlation. Profilometric and chemical analysis revealed that the coatings differ in the rate of photodegradation after an acid attack due to the penetration of acid solution.

Stakeholders’ partnership approach to infrastructure provision and management in developing world cities: lessons from the Sustainable Ibadan project

In recent decades unprecedented urbanization has constituted a huge challenge to urban infrastructure development and management in most developing countries. Meanwhile, the appropriateness of conventional urban planning approaches to the improvement of urban environmental conditions in the face of deteriorating urban environment have often been questioned. It became inevitable to search for new approaches particularly in the context of low-income urban communities. International organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) have subsequently initiated strategies to evolve a participatory approach to the development and management of the urban environment. One of such strategies is the Sustainable City Programme (SCP) which aims to provide municipal authorities and city stakeholders in the public, private and community sectors with an enhanced capacity for environmental planning and management. The programme is being implemented in several cities in parts of the developing world, including Ibadan – the Sustainable Ibadan Project (SIP) – in Nigeria. This paper examines the partnership approach to urban environmental infrastructure improvement, development and management as represented by the SIP. The relevance of the participatory partnership approach of the SIP for cities in parts of developing regions is examined. The paper implicitly stresses that bottom-up participatory stakeholder partnership is a strategy capable of enlisting the financial, material resources and expertise of various sectors of the urban community towards the improvement of urban environmental infrastructure. The paper presents preliminary findings of a study. Although traditional appraisal techniques were not employed, nonetheless, the paper presents a discussion of the processes and dynamics of the SIP on the basis of which some useful lessons may be drawn.

First Report of Fusarium Wilt Disease of Mimosa in Greece.

Mimosa, Albizia julibrissin, is an ornamental tree that thrives in Greece under difficult urban environmental conditions and is prized for its ability to create alleys. In 1991, at Kalamaria municipality, Thessaloniki, mimosa trees were found with symptoms of a Fusarium wilt disease and many trees were already dying or dead. The first symptom was a characteristic yellowing and wilting of foliage. Leaves on symptomatic trees fell prematurely and eventually the defoliated portion of crowns died. Numerous adventitious branches on the stems also developed wilt symptoms and died. When stems were cross-sectioned, a brownish discoloration in the spring wood vessels of the outer annual ring could be observed. In the more advanced stages of the disease, dark sap exudations flowed out of bark cracks. Orange-pink sporodochia with masses of conidia developed in bark cracks and lenticels. Of 1,520 trees examined for external symptoms in the autumn of 1991, 1,339 (88.2%) were apparently healthy, 96 (6.3%) had symptoms, and 85 (5.6%) were dead. In autumn 1992, the same trees were examined and the respective values were 1,276 (83.9%), 130 (8.6%), and 114 (7.5%). Wood samples from the most recent annual ring taken from 30 infected and 30 apparently healthy trees were plated on potato dextrose agar. Fusarium oxysporum was recovered from 93% of the symptomatic trees and only 7% of the asymptomatic ones. Since 1992, the disease has spread within the area where it was first found but has not been observed anywhere else in Greece. A disease of mimosa with similar symptoms was first reported by Hepting (1) in 1936 from North Carolina. The associated fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. perniciosum was described by Hepting (2), who also demonstrated its pathogenicity. The disease has also been previously reported in Russia. This is the first report of mimosa wilt disease in Europe.

Telecommunications and sustainable cities

This paper critically reviews the relations between environment issues and the role of telecommunication technologies in contemporary cities. It exposes powerful myths that tend to dominate much of the debate about the positive role of telecommunication in developing sustainable urban futures. The paper disputes the assumptions that telecommunications technologies are inherently environmentally benign; able to simply substitute for travel; can easily be manipulated to enhance urban environmental conditions. Instead research indicates that telecommunications directly raise serious environmental problems, they can help generate new demand for travel and that the technology cannot easily be exploited to achieve environmental objectives.

African mortality and the new `urban penalty'

This paper reviews trends in rural/urban under-5 mortality differentials in Sub-Saharan Africa in historical perspective, with particular attention to the case of Kenya. The rural/urban mortality gap has narrowed within the last half-century, but while this was largely due to rapidly falling rural infant and childhood mortality over most of the period, in recent years it has been due primarily to a stalling and even upturn in urban under-5 mortality as urban economic and environmental conditions have sharply deteriorated in rapidly growing cities. Policy attention and resources need to be directed to large urban areas to prevent further deterioration of urban mortality and associated health conditions.

A 2-channel wideband SQUID system for high-frequency geophysical applications

A prototype radiomagnetic sounding system for measuring the conductivity of the shallow subsoil down to some 10 m depth was built. With this system, the horizontal magnetic field and field gradient of radio transmitters in the frequency range 10-2000 kHz are detected in small bore-holes of /spl lsim/1 m depth using two wideband SQUIDs. The SQUIDs are operated at 4.2 K in a flux-locked loop having a bandwidth of 11 MHz, a white flux noise level of 1.6/spl times/10/sup -6/ /spl Phi//sub 0///spl radic/(Hz), a feedback range of /spl plusmn/610 /spl Phi//sub 0/, and a maximum slew rate of 2/spl times/10/sup 6/ /spl Phi//sub 0//s above 500 kHz increasing to 5/spl times/10/sup 7/ /spl Phi//sub 0//s at 13 kHz. The system was successfully tested in a first field measurement under urban environmental conditions. The system design allows one in principle to use nitrogen-cooled sensors.

Green signals: The environmental role of telecommunications in cities

This paper examines the resonances and dissonances between the urban environment and the role of telecommunications. There has been relatively little critical analysis of the links between the two sets of issues. While most assessments of the role of telecommunications tend to assume that they are not a cause of environmental problems, there is the presumption that they can potentially contribute to the development of policies to improve the environmental performance of cities. The paper exposes three powerful myths in the current debate: first, that telecommunications are inherently environmentally benign; second, that telecommunications can simply substitute for travel; and finally, that telecommunications applications can easily be manipulated to enhance urban environmental conditions. Instead research indicates that telecommunications directly raise serious environmental problems, that they can help generate new demand for travel and that the technology cannot easily be exploited to achieve environmental objectives. The environmental implications of telecommunications are undoubtedly more complex and contradictory than is often assumed.

1992年度秋季学術大会シンポジウム

The symposium was organized to make clear the present condition of urban climatic environment and to reflect on the future of the human environment of a city. Thus it was divided into two parts: one to discuss urban climate, in particular the climatic environment within the urban canopy and heat island; the second to consider the meaning of green areas in a city and amenities from the climatic and administrative points of view. I: Urban Climates (1) K. SAKAIDA and M. SUZUKI: Micro-climate of street canyon with Ginko trees in Sendai city. (2) T. MIKAMI and T. HAMADA: Thermal environment of large-scale park green areas in Tokyo. (3) A. KONDO, A. KURIHARA and T. MIKAMI: Analysis of heat island phenomena in the Kanto plain by satellite remote-sensing technology. Commentator: K. NAKAGAWA II: Green Areas and Amenities (1) Y. FUKUOKA: Importance of green areas in an urban area and amenities. (2) S. SAITO: Environmental policy and administration-A case study of Sendai city. Commentator: N. NAKAJIMA: Tree-planting policy in Singapore-A comparative study. Questions and comments in the discussions were mainly as follows: (1) efficiency of Landsat data for nocturnal heat island analysis; (2) the climatic implications of green areas in a city; (3) the effect of horizontal scale on heat island, (4) the importance of sizes and kinds of green areas, and (5) the environmental attitude of the administration.

Restorative Effects of Natural Environment Experiences

The utility of different theoretical models of restorative experience was explored in a quasi-experimental field study and a true experiment. The former included wilderness backpacking and nonwilderness vacation conditions, as well as a control condition in which participants continued with their daily routines. The latter had urban environment, natural environment, and passive relaxation conditions. Multimethod assessments of restoration consisted of self-reports of affective states, cognitive performance, and, in the latter study, physiological measures. Convergent self-report and performance results obtained in both studies offer evidence of greater restorative effects arising from experiences in nature. Implications for theory, methodology, and design are discussed.

Urban environment assessment: special reference to terrestrial and aerial photographic approaches

The following discussion particularly stresses the techniques or research methodologies concerned with urban environment assessment. Given the fact that monitoring the quality of the urban environment is prime, some practical approaches to that problem are seriously needed. Due to the complex nature of the urban environment in terms of the elements, interrelationships of elements, and dynamic nature of their interactions, the author devises a model in the form of a combination approach to assess the urban environmental condition. The variety of urban environments reflects the social, economic, cultural, political, technological and demographic background of the nation and accordingly there should be a wise selection of the applied techniques and the environmental criteria used for assessing the urban environmental condition. The combination approach is an integration of terrestrial and aerial photographic approaches. Since each of the aforementioned approaches has its own weaknesses, the combination approach is expected to cover those weaknesses and can give more effective, accurate and reliable data on the urban environmental assessments.

Variation in epiphytic microcommunities (tardigrade-lichen-bryophyte assemblages) of the Cincinnati, Ohio area

Corticolous (bark-inhibiting) lichens and bryophytes were studied in several deciduous forest study area as biological indicators of urban impact and as microhabitats for meiofaunal invertebrate colonizers. Bryophyte and lichen species richness are greatest in high-humidity, ‘clean air’ sites. Urban environmental conditions were characterized by decreased humidity, rapid humidity depression and decreased air quality. Differences in the bryophyte community at study sites best reflect their openness to light penetration and patchiness of microhabitats. Reduction in the number of lichen species found in sites is best explained by the study area's proximity to the city and ambient air quality. Variation in the frequency of occurrence of tardigrade species living on corticolous mosses and lichens indicates differential tolerances to aspects of climate altered by urbanization. Tardigrade species richness is greatest in high-humidity, ‘clean air’ sites. Correlation methods were utilized to illustrate the relative effects of habitat conditions on the representation of species within epiphytes collected in these monitored study areas. Tardigrade species richness was best explained by site humidity regime; however, the frequency with which some species were found in sites appears to be related to air quality. Two common species are characterized by different environmental preferences. Diphascon scoticum Murray predominates in urban park sites, characterized by low air quality and reduced humidity. The prevalence of D. scoticum may be related to this protococcal algae feeder's adaptation to low pH substrates. Such low pH conditions are more frequent in urban moss habitats. Minibiotus intermedius Plate is found more often in humid, rural sites, and is apparently intolerant of faster evaporation rates which may occur in more xeric environments.

Selected examples of profitable applications of remote sensing for resources inventories and monitoring

The Remote Sensing Centre of the Institute of Geodesy and Cartography in Warsaw has been operating since 1976. It has multi-disciplinary character; carries out scientific research, elaborates technologies of remote sensing investigations, applies remote sensing methods for solving various practical problems, coordinates national activities in this field, developes and disseminates remote sensing knowledge at both national and international levels offering various types of specialized training. The authors discuss the role of remote sensing investigations in the process of development planning. Examples of projects executed at the Remote Sensing Centre and concerning topographic and land use mapping, geological investigations, agricultural crop area determination, forest research, environmental monitoring and studies of climatic conditions in urban environment are described and extensively discussed in the paper. The authors emphasize these areas of the application of remote sensing and these interpretation techniques which are of potential interest for the developing countries.

Measurement of the sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid aerosol induced corrosion of zinc in a dynamic flow system

A flow reactor and experimental technique were developed to study the variables controlling the SO 2 and H 2SO 4 (aerosol) pollutant induced corrosion of zinc. The experimental technique allowed deposition velocities to be determined for both accumulation mode H 2SO 4 aerosols and SO 2 gas at equivalent frictional velocities, while providing an electrochemical technique to observe corrosion processes in real time. Experimental measurements indicate that the principal factors affecting sulfur pollutant induced corrosion are surface wetness, pollutant flux to the surface and the chemical form of the pollutant. The overall results show that under urban environmental conditions, corrosion damage by SO 2 will dominate over that from H 2SO 4 aerosols.