Currently urban areas make up a relatively small proportion of all land cover types - two percent by one estimate. Yet, urban land areas are expanding, often rapidly, as higher density development at the core gives way to low-density development at the fringes. Because rates of urban population growth are higher than overall population growth in most countries, and urban areas are the locus of economic activity and transportation nodes, it is likely that the 21st century will see a dramatic increase in urban land cover as a proportion of all land cover types. Throughout the world, urbanized areas are expanding into surrounding areas which are under agricultural or various "natural" land covers such as forests, wetlands or grasslands. These changes may have significant impacts on the ecosystem services, biodiversity (through habitat loss and landscape fragmentation), hydrological systems, and local climate which, in turn, may impact human health. Furthermore, increasing reliance on automobile-based modes of transportation, which is part and parcel of spatial expansion processes, results in environmental impacts from infrastructure (road corridors, service stations) and emissions.
This cyberseminar evaluated the environmental and health dimensions of urban expansion. The seminar sought to increase understanding of how spatial expansion processes in developing and developed countries are similar and how they differ, with an emphasis on the different underlying contexts (e.g. differences in policy, demographic behavior, socioeconomic and conditions, transportation systems, and markets) as well as the environmental and health outcomes. From this the seminar sought to develop a research agenda to enhance conceptual understanding of the processes, contexts, and outcomes of urban spatial expansion, and that would ultimately contribute to policy solutions. The seminar was co-organized by the IHDP Urbanization Science Project and the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Urbanization and contributed to their respective research plans. The seminar included a background paper by Dr. Charles Redman of the Center for Rapidly Urbanizing Regions at Arizona State University and a distinguished panel of experts drawn from many disciplines.
|
