R.B. Singh

Aakriti Grover

This book focuses on interdisciplinary issues of human health in the changing urban environments of India’s largest megacities—Delhi and Mumbai. The authors explore human health concerns related to increased temperatures and air pollution in these cities in a study based on primary data collected through interviews, as well as secondary data on causes of mortality from 2001 to 2012. During this period, the surface temperatures for both megacities were mapped using Landsat Images. The rapidly increasing populations of cities and urban centers alter ecosystem services such as water, air and land cover, with disastrous impacts on health and wellbeing, particularly in megacities. In 2015, polluted air was estimated to have been responsible for 6.4 million deaths worldwide, and it is projected that it will cause between 6 and 9 million deaths per year by 2060. In 2017, outdoor air pollution resulted in 1.2 million deaths in India and brought about a 3% loss in GDP. The increase in population, vehicles, and industries has led to changes in land use and land cover and a rise in city temperatures and air pollution, creating urban heat islands (UHIs). Together, UHIs and air pollution have damaging impacts on human health that range from stress and headache to asthma, bronchitis, and chronic diseases, and even to death. Delhi has been experiencing emergency conditions in terms of environmental health over the past two years. At the same time, both the Delhi and Mumbai urban agglomerations are growing at a rapid pace, and the United Nations has projected that they will be the second and third most populous cities in the world by 2025. In this context, the book offers significant insights into the past patterns and responses to the present global urban health emergencies, and explores sustainable means of combating the problem to enable college and university researchers to develop innovative solutions. Further. It presents trans-disciplinary research that cuts across the WHO Action Plan, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and Habitat III to help policymakers gain a better understanding of the global challenges of urban health and wellbeing. The book is especially useful for students and researchers in geography, urban demography, urban studies, environmental studies, health sciences, and policy studies.

Indian Case Studies

Urban Health and Wellbeing

Suraj Mal

Udo Schickhoff

This book compiles available knowledge of the response of mountain ecosystems to recent climate and land use change and intends to bridge the gap between science, policy and the community concerned. The chapters present key concepts, major drivers and key processes of mountain response, providing transdisciplinary orientation to mountain studies incorporating experiences of academics, community leaders and policy-makers from developed and less developed countries. The book chapters are arranged in two sections. The first section concerns the response processes of mountain environments to climate change. This section addresses climate change itself (past, current and future changes of temperature and precipitation) and its impacts on the cryosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and human-environment systems. The second section focuses on the response processes of mountain environments to land use/land cover change. The case studies address effects of changing agriculture and pastoralism, forest/water resources management and urbanization processes, landscape management, and biodiversity conservation. The book is designed as an interdisciplinary publication which critically evaluates developments in mountains of the world with contributions from both social and natural sciences.

Effects of Land Use and Climate Change

Mountain Landscapes in Transition

Mehtab Singh

M.I. Hassan

The over-exploitation of important earth resources such as land and water has led to a number of environment-related problems the world over. At the same time, land-use change caused by various human activities has led to extinction of many plant and animal habitats and species. In this context, the relevance of biodiversity for human survival is becoming a major international political issue as scientific evidence builds on the global health implications of biodiversity loss. These issues are closely linked with the issue of climate change, as many of the health risks due to climate change are associated with rapid degradation of biodiversity. This present work focuses on holistic natural resource-based spatio-temporal planning, development and management and considers them as essential to save the degraded ecosystem for sustainable resource management. Contributions are compiled in two volumes: 1. Climate Change and Biodiversity and 2. Landscape Ecology and Water Management. Geoinformatics along with its tools such as remote sensing and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have been used in assessing the results of various environmental problems both physical and social. These volumes will be useful for geographers, geoscientists, hydrologists, landscape ecologists, environmentalists, engineers, planners and policy makers.

Proceedings of IGU Rohtak Conference, Vol. 2

Landscape Ecology and Water Management

Pawel Prokop

This volume synthesizes critical environmental challenges of dynamic earth and human environment systems in South Asia emphasizing geographical dimensions. It deals with spaceborne monitoring, climate, ecohydrology, forests and biodiversity, land-use and land-cover change (LUCC), natural hazards, and disasters in order to contribute towards a sustainable future. The contributions range from traditional field techniques to the use of remote sensing and geographic information systems. The book integrates environmental attributes relating the past, present, and future of South Asia broadly based on biophysical and human dimensions in spatio-temporal perspectives. The monitoring of natural hazards and climate issues is considered a vital component in the context of environmental geography, especially in observation and understanding of climate and water-induced disasters. It is important to communicate the advances in geoscience techniques to increase the resilience of the vulnerable society of South Asia and to promote livelihood security. The sustainability of South Asia depends strongly on the earth environment, and thus the development of geo-environmental monitoring is critical for a better understanding of our living environment. The aim of the book is to present dynamic aspects of environmental geography to contribute to future earth initiatives in South Asia.

Contributions Toward a Future Earth Initiative

Environmental Geography of South Asia

Dongying Wei

Subhash Anand

This book explores the geographical, geomorphological, ecological, touristic and socioeconomic aspects of natural heritage, argues for the dynamic conservation of that heritage and explains its key characteristics, promotion, conservation and management to achieve sustainable development goals. Emerging concepts such as geodiversity, geographical heritage sites, geomonuments, geoparks and geotourism are increasingly being used by conservationists. At present, the development of geoparks is a major global theme involving the application of geosciences to promote the inclusive growth of society and the protection and conservation of our unique geoheritage. Currently, there are 147 UNESCO global geoparks across 41 countries, in addition to a number of national-level geoparks. Pursuing a holistic approach towards such sites will sensitise the general public to the need for geoconservation of significant geosites and promote it through geotourism. It is a crucial issue, as various countries around the world are eager to develop their geoparks and are working for the conservation of geoheritage sites at the national level. This unique book gathers contributions from 15 countries in the form of case studies analysing the realities on of geographical heritage, geoparks and geotourism. The respective chapters address the role of geoparks as essential tools for education, recreation and nature conservation. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable guide for geoscientists, planners, policymakers, civil society and anyone concerned about the conservation of geoheritage sites and geoparks for a sustainable future Earth.

Geoconservation and Development

Global Geographical Heritage, Geoparks and Geotourism

Christian Huggel

This book discusses the science, causes, impacts and risk reduction strategies for climate change and disasters. It focuses on the use of traditional knowledge, new innovation and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels in order to promote sustainable development goals in general and disaster risk reduction in particular. The global climate has changed substantially over the last century. There is strong evidence of global climate change in the form of increase in air and sea surface temperature, recession of glaciers, changes and shifting of climate regimes, increasing number of extreme events and sea levels changes. The increasing frequency of climate change induced disasters in particular is posing a threat to resilience, lives and livelihoods at global, regional and local levels. Major ecosystems of the world have experienced several climate induced disaster events in recent past. This book provides new insights into the occurrence and impacts of climatic extremes and strategies for disaster risk reduction. It includes studies on rainfall and temperature trends, floods and drought disasters, weather and climatic related disasters in mountains, changes in plant activities, risk assessment and responses in different ecosystems of the world. The book is particularly useful for environmental and disaster managers, researchers and graduate students, as well as policy makers.

R.B. Singh

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