http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org May 2014 / Vol. 64 No. 5 • BioScience 429 BioScience 64: 429–437. © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]. doi:10.1093/biosci/biu039 Advance Access publication 9 April 2014 Biotic and Abiotic Effects...

Throughout Africa, the population in urban areas is increasing rapidly beyond the capacity and the resources of the cities to accommodate the people. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the majority of urban dwellers live in informal settlements served by inadequate sanitation facilities. These areas present unique challenges to the provision of sanitation, and there is inadequate information on access to i...

Housing and urban environments represent the physical context for everyday life and have a significant impact on population health and well-being. Depending on the quality of housing and urban conditions, they can support or restrict the health of their residents through a variety of aspects such as air pollution, noise, thermal conditions, safety aspects and environmental contamination. Theref...

The need for increasingly accurate models of the complex interactions between mankind and the environment calls for more precise monitoring of many different areas, from forests to oceans, from inland waters to urban areas. Specifically, human settlements appear to be the focus of a number of issues such as desertification and pollution as well as water, energy, and waste management. Since most...

One of the main hallmarks of human agglomeration is task specialization and an expanded division of labour and this relationship has been a long-standing topic of inquiry among archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists, and economists. Recently, researchers investigating contemporary urban systems have proposed a novel explanation for this relationship grounded in a view of human settlement...

Most of the world's population now lives in cities, with 90% of Australians living in urban settlements of more than 10 000 people. Urban environments help shape population health, particularly among disadvantaged people, where poor health is concentrated. A growing body of research has focussed on the association between cities and mental health. Three hypotheses have been proposed to explain ...

This paper studies the street and block plans of Mohenjodaro and Sirkap of Pakistan, and Thimi of Kathmandu Valley. Mohenjodaro was a reknowned city of Indus civilization, while Sirkap of Taxila, was an important cultural center in later half of first millennium BC. While both of the cities are archaeological remains, Thimi is still a living town. The three cities, apparently separated by enorm...

This paper examines land tenure in informal urban settlements in India from a gender perspective through field research conducted in Ahmedabad in collaboration with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). The author describes the formal and informal tenure arrangements that were in place in these settlements and analyses their implications for women. She proceeds to raise key issues that ...