You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Strong focus on infrastructural requirements for successful urban agriculture, such as public policy and planning frameworks, business models and social networks Covers developments in key technologies such as rooftop and vertical farming, as well as waste management Includes case studies of particular commodities, including horticultural produce, livestock and forestry
Today, 55% of the world's human population lives in urban areas. By 2030, up to 90% of the global human population will live in cities and the global population is expected to increase by 68% by 2050. Although land cover categorized as "urban" is a relatively small fraction of the total surface of the Earth, urban areas are major driving forces in global environmental change, habitat loss, threats to biodiversity, and the loss of terrestrial carbon stored in vegetation biomass. These and many other factors highlight the need to understand the broad-scale impacts of urban expansion as it effects the ecological interactions between humans, wildlife and plant communities. The book stresses the importance of understanding ecological forces and ecosystem services in urban areas and the integration of ecological concepts in urban planning and design. The creation of urban green spaces is critical to the future of urban areas, enhancing human social organization, human health and quality of life.
This advanced textbook moves beyond a basic scientific comprehension of urban ecosystems to understand the essential details of how scientists, policy makers, and practitioners develop solutions to effectively manage urban biodiversity. Such efforts necessitate unravelling the complex components that bolster or constrain biodiversity including human-wildlife interactions, resource availability, climate fluctuations, novel species relationships, and landscape heterogeneity. However, key to an understanding of these processes is also recognizing the tremendous social variation inherent within and across urban areas. The diversity of urban human communities fundamentally shapes how society desi...
FROM THE AUTHOR BEHIND BRAND NEW APPLE TV HIT SHINING GIRLS WINNER OF THE 2011 ARTHUR C CLARKE AWARD 'A major, major talent' GEORGE R.R. MARTIN _______ Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheque, she's forced to take on her least favourite kind of job - missing persons. Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions reside. Instead it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she'll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives - including her own. _______ 'Beukes is very *very* good. It feels effortless, utterly accomplished' William Gibson 'Beukes brings a secret tenderness and humanity to her off-kilter portrait of the here and now' Guardian 'Exquisitely paced and impeccably controlled. An enormously satisfying novel' New York Times Book Review
In the past, wildlife living in urban areas were ignored by wildlife professionals and urban planners because cities were perceived as places for people and not for wild animals. Paradoxically, though, many species of wildlife thrive in these built environments. Interactions between humans and wildlife are more frequent in urban areas than any other place on earth and these interactions impact human health, safety and welfare in both positive and negative ways. Although urban wildlife control pest species, pollinate plants and are fun to watch, they also damage property, spread disease and even attack people and pets. In urban areas, the combination of dense human populations, buildings, imp...
This book comprehensively describes the history of Gatineau Park, from the first proposals for a “national park” in the early 1900s to the governance issues in the present period, and it highlights the issues concerning the planning and governance of this unique near-urban ecological area. The 34,500-hectare Gatineau Park is an ecologically diverse wilderness area near the cities of Ottawa (Canada’s national capital) and Gatineau. Gatineau Park is planned and managed as the “Capital’s Conservation Park” by the federal government, specifically the National Capital Commission (NCC). This monograph examines numerous governmental and non-governmental actors that are engaged in the go...