Abstract
I. Themes for future issues
II. Discounted prices and electronic access to Environment and Urbanization
III. Medio Ambiente y Urbanización (MAyU)
IV. Impact factor
V. Environment and Urbanization pen/flash drives
I. Themes for future issues
NOTE: Authors who would like their findings to be eligible for consideration by the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment need to submit papers by 31 January 2013.
The focus of papers published to date in Environment and Urbanization on climate change adaptation has been more on risk and vulnerability than on resilience. For these two issues of the journal, we encourage papers on urban centres’ resilience to climate change impacts. We also encourage papers on urban centres that go beyond this, i.e. that not only develop such resilience but also integrate into their development and adaptation policies the need for mitigation and for limiting their ecological footprints.
The idea of resilience is attractive in that is implies a capacity to resist or cope with stress or threats (even if unanticipated) and remain unharmed. So within discussions of development and of climate change, resilience has come to be applied to a great range of contexts – for instance, to individuals, households and communities (and their assets and livelihoods), also to cities (or specific sectors within city economies) and national economies. Discussions of resilience in these contexts also include a range of threats and risks, perhaps especially for cities where there are complex inter-connections or inter-dependencies between a range of systems.
Although resilience is usually considered to be the opposite of vulnerability, vulnerability is more often discussed in relation to particular groups of people within the population, whereas resilience is more often discussed in relation to urban centres (even though these discussions are usually around making the urban centre or its infrastructure better able to protect populations). We encourage papers that consider what contributes to those urban centres that have more resilience to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change. There is also an interest in the processes through which this is achieved – as measures for resilience have to respond to changes in impacts (for instance rising sea levels, often increasing water constraints and often increases in intensity or frequency of extreme weather). Here, there is particular interest in how city, municipal or metropolitan governments have addressed this or are considering how to do so. We also encourage papers on how low-income urban dwellers and their own grassroots organizations have addressed issues of resilience – whether this is through autonomous action or through their active engagement with local government.
A focus on resilience also encourages more attention to the recognition of cities’ dependence on goods, services (including ecological services) and financial flows from outside their boundaries (and thus outside the jurisdiction of their governments) – for instance, water sources and natural resources from outside their boundaries. Managing flood risk often means good management of upstream water flows and of watersheds that are also outside their jurisdiction. Then there is the complex mix of supply chains for natural resources and other goods from outside their boundaries (and often from foreign nations), on which urban citizens and businesses depend – and the dependence of many enterprises on sales of goods and services to external markets. Indeed, some discussions of city resilience focus almost entirely on the resilience of the economy.
Then what is there to learn from cities that have very considerable resilience to extreme weather (and other shocks) and are acting now to enhance this resilience to climate change – as described in William Solecki’s paper on New York City in this issue of the Journal? Clearly, in many cities in high-income nations, individuals’, households’ and neighbourhoods’ resilience to extreme weather and other shocks has been built by political processes where those who were vulnerable have voice and influence – this is what ensured provision for piped water supplies, sewers, drains, emergency services, health care and social security being extended to everyone in the city, regardless of their income. But will the institutions that have produced what might be termed “accumulated resilience” also develop the capacity to build on this and produce resilience to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change?
Finally, we welcome papers that explore the limits of resilience – or discuss where the concept has been appropriated in ways that do not build resilience to climate change, especially for vulnerable groups. In addition, for climate change, a city may build its resilience to likely and possible climate change impacts while doing nothing to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Mark Pelling made this useful distinction between cities that
II. Discounted prices and electronic access to Environment and Urbanization
All papers published in Environment and Urbanization since its first issue in 1989 are available at http://eau.sagepub.com/, and all but those issues published during the last two years are open access and available free of charge. Printed subscriptions of the journal are also available at no charge to libraries or resource centres of universities or teaching or training institutions in low- and middle-income nations.
The publisher of Environment and Urbanization, Sage Publications, offers large discounts on subscription prices to charities and students and to all subscribers from low- and middle-income nations – see http://eau.sagepub.com/ and click on subscribe. With regard to electronic access, there are schemes that allow access to Environment and Urbanization for universities and research centres in low- and middle-income nations – see Research4Life (http://www.research4life.org/). This includes Online Access to Research on the Environment (OARE), which has research journals on the environment, including Environment and Urbanization (http://www.oaresciences.org/en/).
III. Medio Ambiente y Urbanización (MAyU)
The latest issue of our sister journal (No 76, April 2012) is on Decentralización, governanza y desarrollo local (Decentralization, governance and local development). This issue and the previous 16 issues of MAyU are accessible at no charge at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iieal/meda. An annual personal subscription to the print edition of the journal (two issues) costs US$ 28 for those outside Latin America and payment can be arranged by credit card through IIED (e-mail:
IV. Impact factor
In the 2011 Journal Citation Reports®, Environment and Urbanization’s impact factor was 1.667. This is calculated by dividing the number of citations in journals in 2011 for papers published in Environment and Urbanization in 2009 and 2010 (100 citations) by the number of papers in Environment and Urbanization in these two years (60). This meant that Environment and Urbanization was ranked fifth out of the 37 journals included in the rankings on urban studies and twenty-eighth out of the 89 journals in environmental studies.
In another journal ranking system, the Scimago Journal Ranking, Environment and Urbanization’s score was 0.067 for 2011, which is the highest score among the 45 urban studies journals included in the rankings.
In the first six months of 2012, there were 181,395 full text downloads of papers from Environment and Urbanization. What is intriguing is that many of the papers that are among the most downloaded are not among the most heavily cited.
V. Environment and Urbanization pen/flash drives
Pen/Flash drives are available that include all the papers published in Environment and Urbanization from 1989 to 2009 and all recently published working papers by IIED’s Human Settlements Group. The drives are available free to any teaching or training institution, NGO or researcher in low- and middle-income nations that have little or no access to fast internet connections. To receive one, e-mail your postal address to
NB: For those with fast internet connections, all the articles and working papers on the drive are available free to download: for Environment and Urbanization, at http://eau.sagepub.com/ and for the working papers at http://pubs.iied.org/.