Informal settlements behave very dynamical over space and time and the number of people living in such housing areas is growing worldwide. The reasons for this dynamical behaviour are manifold and are not matter of this article. Nevertheless, informal settlements represent a status quo of housing and living conditions which is from a humanitarian point of view in the most cases below acceptable...

The challenges of how to respond to climate change and ensure sustainable development are currently high on the political agenda among the world’s leading nations. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is part of the global carbon market developing rapidly as part of the Kyoto response towards mitigation of global warming. One of the aims of the CDM is to achieve sustainable development in deve...

Global mental health (GMH) is a growing domain with an increasing capacity to positively impact the world community's efforts for sustainable development and wellbeing. Sharing and synthesizing GMH and multi-sectoral knowledge, the focus of this paper, is an important way to support these global efforts. This paper consolidates some of the most recent and relevant 'context resources' [global mu...

In this paper we describe new software “CitySim” that has been conceived to support the more sustainable planning of urban settlements. This first version focuses on simulating buildings’ energy flows, but work is also under way to model energy embodied in materials as well as the flows of water and waste and inter-relationships between these flows; likewise their dependence on the urban climat...

Sustainable urban forms (SUF) guide spatial creation, significantly revitalise the development of traditional settlements, and are an essential theoretical support for design. At same time, emergence quantitative analysis technology further promotes visualised evaluation performance vitality in However, current research rarely studies settlements with from SUF perspective. Therefore, this takes...

Settlement is a unit of space built up by man to live and where to find a living Settlement serves man in a number of areas, it is a defense against external and natural intruders, it is also a place of social and cultural interactions among people who live together for business and development [1]. Settlements have evolved in their different shapes, pattern and population based on the level of...

Settlement is a unit of space built up by man to live and where to find a living Settlement serves man in a number of areas, it is a defense against external and natural intruders, it is also a place of social and cultural interactions among people who live together for business and development [1]. Settlements have evolved in their different shapes, pattern and population based on the level of...

General declines in ecosystem service values (ESV) are acknowledged worldwide; however, rather few studies have quantitatively analyzed the interrelationship between changing rural settlements and values of ecosystem services. This study used the county of Tongyu in West Jilin Province, China, as a case study to analyze how changing rural settlements impact the values of ecosystem services on s...

We estimate deforestation and the carbon stock in 2740 (82 %) of the 3325 settlements in Brazil's Legal Amazonia region. Estimates are made both using available satellite data and a carbon map for the "pre-modern" period (prior to 1970). We used data from Brazil's Project for Monitoring Deforestation in Amazonia updated through 2013 and from the Brazilian Biomes Deforestation Monitoring Project...