Browsing by Subject "urbanizing areas"
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Item Growing Cities Depend on Ecosystem Services(Solutions for a Sustainable and Desirable Future, 2011) Ervin, David; Brown, Darrell; Chang, Heejun; Dujon, Veronica; Granek, Elise; Shandas, Vivek; Yeakley, AllenMany studies have documented the growing fragility of a majority of the globe’s ecosystems. Policymakers and resource managers often frame such ecosystem challenges as primarily about protecting natural systems in rural areas. However, that conception misses a key part of the story: the rapid growth of urbanizing areas. Home to more than 50 percent of the world’s human population for the first time in modern history, urbanizing regions concentrate pressure on ecosystem services, which are necessary to sustain healthy urban living conditions and vibrant commerce. This dramatic urbanization presents both challenges and opportunities for novel ecosystem services management. A transdisciplinary framework is needed to discover innovative solutions to these wicked problems because they involve complex linkages between natural and human systems that transcend any single discipline. The framework should integrate natural and social sciences with stakeholders’ intimate knowledge of ecosystem services and urban systems. Here we describe such a framework for training scientists and managers and present four novel cases that illustrate ecosystem management solutions for urbanizing areas.Item What Nigeria can learn from other rapidly urbanizing areas(The Conversation, 2019-09-25) Short, John RennieAfrica is the world’s most rapidly urbanising region. By 2050 more than one billion people will live in cities across the continent. Nigeria is Africa’s urban growth giant. In 1950, the West African nation’s urban population was under 375 000 spread across only 99 cities. Now there are close to 100 million people in over 780 cities.