Lecture

Urban Environment: Sustainability and Challenges

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Description

This lecture emphasizes the fundamental importance of considering the environment in urban planning, highlighting the impact of urban growth on natural resources, biodiversity, and overall quality of life. The instructor discusses the urgent need to manage resources sustainably, address waste production, and integrate ecosystem services into urban development. The lecture also explores the evolving relationship between urban and rural environments, the role of green spaces in cities, and the concept of ecosystem services. It advocates for a balanced approach to urban planning that preserves nature within city limits, promoting biodiversity, climate regulation, and sustainable resource management.

In MOOC

African Cities III, urban planning and management

"African Cities" offers a course on urban management and planning. After a review of the major urban themes (climate change, infrastructure and services, energy, the right to the city, land, housing, the informal economy), we will take a critical look at the tools currently used in urban management and planning. We will then look at how to manage and plan a more inclusive, productive, resilient and resource-efficient city that respects the environment. Finally, we will look successively at the issues of ci

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Related concepts (29)

Biodiversity

Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (genetic variability), species (species diversity), and ecosystem (ecosystem diversity) level. Biodiversity is not distributed evenly on Earth; it is usually greater in the tropics as a result of the warm climate and high primary productivity in the region near the equator. Tropical forest ecosystems cover less than 10% of earth's surface and contain about 90% of the world's species.

Biodiversity loss

Biodiversity loss includes the worldwide extinction of different species, as well as the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological diversity. The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, depending on whether the environmental degradation that leads to the loss is reversible through ecological restoration/ecological resilience or effectively permanent (e.g. through land loss).

Ecosystem service

Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and healthy ecosystems. Such ecosystems include, for example, agroecosystems, forest ecosystem, grassland ecosystems, and aquatic ecosystems. These ecosystems, functioning in healthy relationships, offer such things as natural pollination of crops, clean air, extreme weather mitigation, and human mental and physical well-being.

Waste minimisation

Waste minimisation is a set of processes and practices intended to reduce the amount of waste produced. By reducing or eliminating the generation of harmful and persistent wastes, waste minimisation supports efforts to promote a more sustainable society. Waste minimisation involves redesigning products and processes and/or changing societal patterns of consumption and production. The most environmentally resourceful, economically efficient, and cost effective way to manage waste often is to not have to address the problem in the first place.

Sustainability

Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long time. Specific definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Experts often describe sustainability as having three dimensions (or pillars): environmental, economic, and social, and many publications emphasize the environmental dimension. In everyday use, sustainability often focuses on countering major environmental problems, including climate change, loss of biodiversity, loss of ecosystem services, land degradation, and air and water pollution.

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