This book looks at the ecological stress on cities and engages with challenges of reducing vulnerabilities and risks of pollution on the health, well-being and livelihoods of people living in developing countries. Cities are the world’s highest energy consumers and the biggest producers of toxic wastes and pollutants. With an emphasis on the environmental issues facing the city of Delhi, the volume focuses on steps to preserve and manage the city’s urban green spaces. It explores the concept of urban green spaces and their economic, social, health, and psychological significance in cities. Drawing from their fieldwork and research in Delhi, the authors identify the sources of pollution in the city and access the role of urban green spaces in countering adverse effects. They further examine the relationship between green spaces and social and economic development, urban health, and urban governance. They highlight the good practices followed by other global cities. The volume also offers suggestions and policy recommendations to reverse and recover ecological balance in cities. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of environment and ecology, public health, urban planning and governance, development studies, urban geography, urban sociology, resource management and health economics. It will also be useful for policy makers, and NGOs working in the areas of sustainability, urban planning and management and environmental preservation.

This book looks at the ecological stress on cities and engages with challenges of reducing vulnerabilities and risks of pollution on the health, well-being and livelihoods of people living in developing countries. Cities are the world’s highest energy consumers and the biggest producers of toxic wastes and pollutants. With an emphasis on the environmental issues facing the city of Delhi, the volume focuses on steps to preserve and manage the city’s urban green spaces. It explores the concept of urban green spaces and their economic, social, health, and psychological significance in cities. Drawing from their fieldwork and research in Delhi, the authors identify the sources of pollution in the city and access the role of urban green spaces in countering adverse effects. They further examine the relationship between green spaces and social and economic development, urban health, and urban governance. They highlight the good practices followed by other global cities. The volume also offers suggestions and policy recommendations to reverse and recover ecological balance in cities. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of environment and ecology, public health, urban planning and governance, development studies, urban geography, urban sociology, resource management and health economics. It will also be useful for policy makers, and NGOs working in the areas of sustainability, urban planning and management and environmental preservation.

India’s sustained and rapid economic growth offers an opportunity to lift millions out of poverty. But this may come at a steep cost to its environment and natural resources. This insightful book analyses India’s growth from an economic perspective and assesses whether India can grow in a "green" and sustainable manner. Three key issues are addressed. The first is the physical and monetary costs and losses of environmental health and natural resources driven by economic growth. The authors undertake a monetary valuation and quantification of environmental damage, using techniques that have been developed to better understand and quantify preferences and values of individuals and communities in the context of environmental quality, conservation of natural resources, and environmental health risks. The second part estimates the value of ecosystem services from the major biomes in India using state-of-the art methods with a view to preserving them for the future. The third section provides a menu of policy instruments to explore trade-offs between economic growth and environmental sustainability using a Computable General Equilibrium approach with particular attention to air pollution. The conclusions focus on the way forward in terms of policies, measures and instruments as India has to balance the twin challenges of maintaining economic prosperity while managing its environmental resources.

An urgent examination of one of the biggest global crises facing us today—the drastic worsening of air pollution—and what we can do about it The air pollution that we breathe every day is largely invisible—but it is killing us. How did it get this bad, and how can we stop it? Far from a modern-day problem, scientists were aware of the impact of air pollution as far back as the seventeenth century. Now, as more of us live in cities, we are closer than ever to pollution sources, and the detrimental impact on the environment and our health has reached crisis point. The Invisible Killer will introduce you to the incredible individuals whose groundbreaking research paved the way to today's understanding of air pollution, often at their own detriment. Gary Fuller's global story examines devastating incidents from London's Great Smog to Norway's acid rain; Los Angeles' traffic problem to wood-burning damage in New Zealand. Fuller argues that the only way to alter the future course of our planet and improve collective global health is for city and national governments to stop ignoring evidence and take action, persuading the public and making polluters bear the full cost of the harm that they do. The decisions that we make today will impact on our health for decades to come. The Invisible Killer is an essential book for our times and a cautionary tale we need to take heed of.

This book is a point of departure for cities that would like to reap the many benefits of ecological and economic sustainability. It provides an analytical and operational framework that offers strategic guidance to cities on sustainable and integrated urban development.

Urban areas are home to over half the world's people and are at the forefront of the climate change issue. The need for a global research effort to establish the current understanding of climate change adaptation and mitigation at the city level is urgent. To meet this goal a coalition of international researchers - the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) - was formed at the time of the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit in New York in 2007. This book is the First UCCRN Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities. The authors are all international experts from a diverse range of cities with varying socio-economic conditions, from both the developing and developed world. It is invaluable for mayors, city officials and policymakers; urban sustainability officers and urban planners; and researchers, professors and advanced students.

Urban Ecology covers the latest theoretical and applied concepts in urban ecological research. This book covers the key environmental issues of urban ecosystems as well as the human-centric issues, particularly those of governance, economics, sociology and human health. The goal of Urban Ecology is to challenge readers' thinking around urban ecology from a resource-based approach to a holistic and applied field for sustainable development. There are seven major themes of the book: emerging urban concepts and urbanization, land use/land cover change, urban social-ecological systems, urban environment, urban material balance, smart, healthy and sustainable cities and sustainable urban design. Within each section, key concepts such as monitoring the urbanization phenomena, land use cover, urban soil fluxes, urban metabolism, pollution and human health and sustainable cities are covered. Urban Ecology serves as a comprehensive and advanced book for students, researchers, practitioners and policymakers in urban ecology and urban environmental research, planning and practice. - Includes global case studies from over 14 countries, providing a first-hand account of recent applications - Covers the phenomena of sustainable transport, nutrient recovery and human health, among many others - Examines environmental issues as well as social-ecological systems and governance