Abstract
THEMES FOR FUTURE ISSUES
DISCOUNTED PRICES AND ELECTRONIC ACCESS TO ENVIRONMENT AND URBANIZATION
MEDIO AMBIENTE Y URBANIZACIÓN (MAyU)
ENVIRONMENT AND URBANIZATION PEN-DRIVE
DOWNLOADS
WEBSITE, BLOGS AND FACEBOOK
I. Themes for Future Issues
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 (Vol 24, No 2, October 2012)? 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 had 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
Ten years after Caroline Moser edited the special issue of Environment and Urbanization on “Urban violence and security” (Vol 16, No 2, October 2004) and after the publication of the book she wrote with Cathy McIlwaine (Encounters with Violence in Latin America: Urban Poor Perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala (2004), Routledge, 272 pages), they join together to co-guest edit this special issue. As urban violence continues to escalate in many cities across the world, the objective a decade later is both to critically re-visit conceptual issues associated with “lethal violence and its associated fear and insecurity” and operational frameworks such as the “introductory roadmap” (see Caroline Moser’s paper on this in Vol 16, No 2, October 2004) as well as to introduce and discuss current theoretical debates and successful practices. These include, but are not limited to, such themes as:
Cities as spaces of conflict and war
Cities as spaces of violence reduction, conflict resolution and peace
City governance and political manifestations of violence
Urban land and spatial manifestations of violence
Gender-based conflict and violence especially in relation to tipping points
The co-existence of multiple urban institutions, including gangs and alternative security systems, and their links to urban violence and peace
Transnational migration to cities as an outcome of violence and conflict
Current violence prevention/reduction interventions such as sport, infrastructure and slum upgrading
There is particular interest in how to get adequate responses to the inadequacies in provision for sanitation and drainage in urban areas, the scale of which is astonishing – and greatly underestimated. There are many very large cities and far larger numbers of smaller cities and towns that have no sewers or covered drains. For instance, included among the major cities that appear either to have no sewers or a system that reaches only a very small proportion of the population are Addis Ababa, Bamako, Benin, Brazaville, Dar es Salaam, Douala, Freetown, Ibadan, Kaduna, Kinshasa, Kumasi, Lagos, Lubumbashi, Maiduguri, Mbuji-Mayi, Port Harcourt, Yaounde and Zaria. Many other cities also have reports of sewers serving a small proportion of their population, and these were often reported to be in poor repair or no longer functioning. This is not to suggest that the only sanitation solution is sewers, but most of the cities named above also have large proportions of their population living in dense informal settlements that do not have provision for (for instance) septic tanks or good quality, easily serviced pit latrines. A high proportion of households have no toilet in their home.
So we welcome papers that look at all aspects of sanitation and drainage for cities, with a view to better understanding the scale and nature of the problem and possible solutions that allow much higher proportions of the population to be well served and that are affordable by low-income households.
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 77, November 2012) is on “Cambio climático y gestión participativa en agua y saneamiento” (Climate change and participatory management in water and sanitation). This issue and the previous 17 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:
The November 2012 issue has papers on:
Derecho humano al agua y al saneamiento y manejo comunitario del agua en América Latina − Jorge Mora Portuguez
La minería, riesgo inminente para la realización del derecho humano al agua − Nathalie Seguin and Angelika Koniecki
Siembra y cosecha de agua en las microcuencas Huacrahuacho y Mollebamba en Perú para la adaptación al cambio climático − Liz Carol Silva Peralta and Flavio Valer Barazorda
Poniendo a prueba una evaluación rápida de adaptación al cambio climático para provedores de agua y saneamiento en asentamientos informales de tres ciudades del sur del Sahara, África − Tom T Heath, Alison H Parker and E Keith Weatherhead (this was also published in English in Environment and Urbanization)
Sustentabilidad económica ambiental y socio-cultural de tres humedales artificiales construídos en Tailandia − Kasper Anias Møller, Ole Fryd, Andreas de Neergaard and Jakob Magid (this was also published in English in Environment and Urbanization)
Manejo comunitario integral de residuos y agua − Prakash Amatya
Acceso autogestionado a agua segura y saneamiento en el norte de Bihar, India − Chitra Gopalakrishnan, Luisa Cortesi and Eklavya Prasad
Enfoque participativo para la evaluación de tecnologías de manejo de recursos naturales no tradicionales en zonas periurbanas. El caso de las islas del municipio de Tigre − Gustavo Pandiella and Florencia Almansi
Emergencia hídrica y explotación del acuífero en un valle de la Costa peruana: el caso de Ica, Perú − María Teresa Oré, David Bayer, Javier Chiong and Eric Rendon
IV. Environment and Urbanization Pen-Drive
We produced a pen-drive with all papers from Environment and Urbanization from 1989 to 2010 and also all the working papers published by IIED’s Human Settlements Group. Do contact us if you would like one (please provide your postal address); they are available free of charge. All the items on the pen-drive are available open access online, but they would be useful for those with difficult, limited or slow internet access.
V. Downloads
During 2012, there were 341,808 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.
VI. Website, Blogs and Facebook
During 2012, we revamped the Environment and Urbanization website (see http://environmentandurbanization.org/); we also started a regular blog series (see http://environmentandurbanization.org/) and set up a Facebook page (see http://www.facebook.com/EnvironmentandUrbanization). We very much welcome feedback, and the Facebook page is intended to allow this and also be a site for discussion and for suggestions from our readers.