Can Domestic Food Production Provide Future Urban Populations with Food and Nutrition Security?—Insights from Bangladesh, Kenya and Uganda

Population growth and urbanization increasingly put pressure on our planet's availability of areas needed for food production. The dependencies on domestically produced food are increasingly judged favourable, following the consequences of the Ukrainian war, with escalating fuel and grain prices and less accessibilities to low-income groups. It is, however, unclear whether land is domestically available. Applying a food system approach, the main aim of this article is to investigate spatial foodsheds and theoretical self-sufficiency for food production needed to supply increasing future populations in a selection of cities, including estimates for Dhaka in Bangladesh, Nairobi in Kenya and Kampala in Uganda. The projected foodshed scenario areas for the years 2020 and 2050 are estimated for the production of three core products currently extensively produced and consumed in the three countries. They show that it is not possible to feed an ever-increasing urban population based on domestic production alone. International trade, new technological developments and new consumer demands for less area-intensive food production systems may give solutions to the immense challenge of feeding the world's population with nutritious food in 2050. However, to ensure fair and inclusive transition pathways for low-income groups: (1) affordability and accessibility of trade opportunities, technologies and products, (2) a common vision aiming for the SDGs, including SDG2: Zero hunger and SDG11: Sustainable Cities and Communities as well as (3) best practices in co-creation and cooperation with the most vulnerable urban and rural populations, are highly needed.

East-west or up the urban hierarchy? Internal migration patterns in Slovakia since post-socialist transformation to COVID-19 pandemic

Changing spatial patterns of migration are closely related to the transformation of economy and society. Most current studies focus either on international migration or on the migration of particular urban regions. Our study evaluates migration trends in the entire national regional system, and thus it contributes to its comprehensive understanding. The study aims to evaluate the relationship of internal migration from economically lagging eastern to more developed western regions of Slovakia on the one hand, and migration between categories of regions according to the hierarchical position of their urban core on the other hand. The study follows the differential urbanization concept and analyses detailed data on individual migrations in Slovakia in 1996–2020. It thus covers the period from the post-socialist transformation to the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show the increasing intensity of east-west and up the urban hierarchy migration. Due to the significant polarization of migration between the eastern and western regional subsystems, we examined separately in both subsystems the migration excluding flows between the subsystems. The results revealed a concentration of population into metropolitan regions in both subsystems, although the intensity of the processes was lower and the onset of trends delayed in the eastern subsystem. A significant feature of development in the post-socialist period was intensive exurbanation in both subsystems. The study thus points to the importance of subnational and regional approaches to migration research, and reveals trends that can contribute to the explanation of migration development even in countries where such detailed migration statistics are not available. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Eurasian Geography & Economics is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Through the prism of the right to housing: first notes for a critical constitutional analysis

The essay investigates the constitutional dimension of the right to housing, through the study of its foundation in the Constitution and the constitutional jurisprudence. The perspective adopted is broad and approaches the fundamental right from different angles: general recognition, relationships between property and social function, house rents and blocking of evictions in the Covid-19 era, State-Region competences in the management of policies for the right to housing, access to public housing. The thesis put forward is that it is necessary to adopt an institutionalist theory of fundamental rights to guarantee the effectiveness of the right to housing, which involves a contextualized reading of the constitutional system and is not limited to the individualistic dimension of the right. In fact, this approach involves, on one hand, the political-legal need to regulate urban conflict and, on the other hand, the constitutional need for the intervention of public powers in economy, in order to rebalance the socio-economic disparities that arise and are perpetuated in the urban dimension. © 2023, Societa Editoriale Federalismi s.r.l.. All rights reserved.

Social and Spatial Governance: The History of Enclosed Neighborhoods in Urban China

COVID-19 calls for a new understanding of urban landscape and associated living. As an emerging topic, lockdown urbanism involves an unpredictable future where lockdown or quarantine may be a come and go new normal for everyday practice, but the topic itself seems to have escaped historical inquiry. This paper attempts to answer why the strict lockdown is suitable for China by revealing a long and complex history of urbanization and its social and administrative organization. The urban fabric is characterized by a system of urban patterns: enclosed communities, the spatial layout and service distribution of the neighborhood, and the formation of the center. It was also animated by daily ritualistic practices, such as the control of time, quotidian lockdown practice (yejin), and individual ties within the enclosed neighborhood. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the deep history of urban form and the order and logic behind lockdown urbanism. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Urban History is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Critical Commentary: Beyond growth and density: Recentring the demographic drivers of urban health and risk in the global south

Debates within urban studies concerning the relationship between urbanisation and infectious disease focus on issues of urban population growth, density, migration and connectivity. However, an effective long-term risk and wellbeing agenda, without which the threat of future pandemics cannot be mitigated, must also take account of demographic forces and changes as critical drivers of transmission and mortality risk within and beyond cities. A better understanding of the dynamics of fertility, mortality and changing age structures – key determinants of urban decline/growth in addition to migration – provides the foundation upon which healthier cities and a healthy global urban system can be developed. The study of how basic demographic attributes and trends are distributed in space and how they interact with risks, including those of infectious disease, must be incorporated as a priority into a post-COVID-19 urban public health agenda. This perspective concurs with recent debates in urban studies emphasising the demographic drivers of urban change. Moreover, it raises critical questions about the microbial and environmental emphasis of much research on the interface of urban health and governance.

The Impact of Human Activities on Zoonotic Infection Transmissions.

As humans expand their territories across more and more regions of the planet, activities such as deforestation, urbanization, tourism, wildlife exploitation, and climate change can have drastic consequences for animal movements and animal-human interactions. These events, especially climate change, can also affect the arthropod vectors that are associated with the animals in these scenarios. As the COVID-19 pandemic and other various significant outbreaks throughout the centuries have demonstrated, when animal patterns and human interactions change, so does the exposure of humans to zoonotic pathogens potentially carried by wildlife. With approximately 60% of emerging human pathogens and around 75% of all emerging infectious diseases being categorized as zoonotic, it is of great importance to examine the impact of human activities on the prevalence and transmission of these infectious agents. A better understanding of the impact of human-related factors on zoonotic disease transmission and prevalence can help drive the preventative measures and containment policies necessary to improve public health.

Disaster Risk Reduction for Resilience: Disaster Risk Management Strategies

This book is part of a six-volume series on Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience. The series aims to fill in gaps in theory and practice in the Sendai Framework, and provides additional resources, methodologies and communication strategies to enhance the plan for action and targets proposed by the Sendai Framework. The series will appeal to a broad range of researchers, academics, students, policy makers and practitioners in engineering, environmental science and geography, geoscience, emergency management, finance, community adaptation, atmospheric science and information technology.This volume offers the international guidelines and global standards for resilient disaster risk reduction and lessons learned from disasters, particularly the COVID-19 and Cholera pandemics. A resilient health system and an effective disaster risk management Index are then suggested. The book further emphasizes urban resilience strategies with local authorities, adaptation strategies for urban heat at regional, city and local scales, and lessons from community-level interventions. Also addressed are coastal erosion, displacement and resettlement strategies. Land use planning and green infrastructure are suggested as tools for natural hazards reduction. Human security in times of climate change and urban heat at regional, city and local scales is discussed for an integrated action, with case studies based in Manila, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Nigeria, India, Spain, and Ghana. Structure design for cascading disasters resulting from mining and flooding is presented and sustainable smart city planning using spatial data is recommended. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Global modeling of the socioeconomic, political, and environmental relations of farmer seed systems (FSS): Spatial analysis and insights for sustainable development

Accessible, high-quality seed is vital to the agricultural, food, and nutrition sovereignty needed for justice-based sustainable development. Multiregion, interdisciplinary research on farmers' seed systems (FSS) can complement case-based and thematic approaches.This study's goals are to (1) provide a synthetic overview of current major FSS concepts;(2) design and evaluate a novel social- and political-ecological model of FSS using globally representative data from mountain agricultural areas of Africa, Asia, and Latin America;(3) model and evaluate FSS relations to socioeconomic, political, and environmental factors including main food crops (rice, wheat, maize, potato, and common bean);(4) generate new spatial, geographic, and demographic estimates;and (5) strengthen FSS for justice-based sustainable development of agriculture, land use, and food systems. The conceptual framework of FSS-related factors guided the global modeling of data from 11 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. A multiple regression model explained FSS utilization (R2 1/4 0.53, P < 0.0001), specifying the significant inverse relations to mean farm area (strong), per-capita Gross Domestic Product at the district level (strong), and urban distance (moderate). FSS showed strong positive relations to aridity and topographic ruggedness. FSS were positively related to elevation in a 5-country Andean subsample. Results estimated FSS utilization by 136 million farmers within the 11 countries. Novel insights to strengthen FSS policies and programs are the importance of FSS to extremely small farm-area subgroups and other distinct FSS stakeholders, global-region geopolitical distinctness of FSS-farm area relations, multidistrict FSS concentrations that enable extralocal FSS spatial connectivity, FSS capacities in climate-change hot spots, and high FSS encompassing periurban areas. Policy-relevant results on global geographic and demographic extensiveness of FSS and key spatial, socioeconomic, political, and environment relations demonstrate that globally FSS are key to supporting agrobiodiversity, agroecology, nutrition, and the sustainability of food systems. These advise strengthening FSS through pro-poor and linked urban-rural policies at regional scales in addition to expanding local initiatives.

Assessment of public open space research hotspots, vitalities, and outlook using CiteSpace

Urbanization is essential for human development and progress. Therefore, it is urgent to study urban public open space (POS) under the dual impact of urbanization construction and the global COVID-19 outbreak. Bibliometric visual analysis is currently popular in academia, as it can be used to analyze specific fields. This research summarizes the development history, hotspots, and trends in POS, with theoretical and data support based on the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection. The study period was from 2002 to 2022. A total of 398 papers were collected, with the number of papers increasing over time. The research covers various fields, including environment, architecture, ecology, geography, design, behavior, etc. The results show that POS research hotspots include form layout, social value, and sustainable renewal. This paper demonstrates that there is a lack of vitality in urban POS. Although affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the fundamental reason for this is that the vitality of POS is not created from multiple dimensions. Vitality should be enhanced according to the space's terrain, ecology, environment, and other factors. POS research lacks crossdisciplinary collaboration and the fusion of multiple fields. Thus, cooperation between the various disciplines involved must be strengthened. In the future, POS research should change its design concept, continue to place the "human" in the leading position, establish a multidisciplinary research system, use local empirical cases, and develop applicable theories that can be extended upon. Thus, it will be possible to build harmonious open spaces that enhance the relationship between the people and the land and provide practical solutions for other countries in which urbanization is advancing.

A brief overview of the issues faced by Harmful Algal Blooms along Johor straits

Urbanization of coastal areas worldwide has increased due to an increase in the global population. The production of sustainable aquaculture is greatly impacted by a surge of this urbanization. In certain countries, particularly for individuals with more limited space in metropolitan areas, such as along Johor's coastal area, aquaculture might well be a good strategy to maintain food availability (continuous production plus high-quality meals). Consequently, the adoption of aquaculture along the Johor's coastal area has lead to Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB). This paper examines the evolution of the aquaculture industry of Malaysian Johor coastal areas in relation to HABs. In addition to HABs, the aforementioned metropolitan regions confront diverse economic and geographical obstacles when attempting to increase their aquaculture production sustainably. Those problems are therefore addressed using a variety of operations as well as surveillance techniques in this brief overview. Lockdowns and border prohibitions caused by the continuous COVID-19 infection have had a global impact. These logistical difficulties in the seafood industry have increased dependency on imported supplies. It is suggested that international decision- making, supervision, and knowledge exchange can successfully solve the challenges urbanized areas have in ensuring sustainable food security through the evolution within the aquaculture sector.

Human Impacts on Natural Habitats Leading to Covid-19 Pandemic

In the history of mankind, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged as one of the most alarming pandemics. The causative organism of COVID-19 is severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that has affected humans with high infection and mortality rates. SARS-CoV-2 is proposed to be a zoonotic virus with reservoir animals being bats or pangolins. The continuous emergence of zoonotic diseases in the last 100 years has indicated the linkages between anthropogenic activities and the onset of novel pathogenic microorganisms in the human population. Effect of the devastation of the environment and natural habitats are reasons for an increasing number of zoonotic diseases impacting mankind in the last few decades. Several of the zoonotic microbes are known to have jumped from wild animals or birds to humans causing severe outbreaks. Deforestation, unplanned urbanization, air pollution, climate change, bushmeat trading, and consumption are some of the important factors that are correlated with each other and influence the emergence of pandemics such as COVID-19. COVID-19 has also proved to be a learning for the future suggesting the importance of environmental sustainability and achieving the targets of United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 2030). © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.

Influence of Revitalization on the Social and Economic Well-Being of Residents: Case Study of Lithuania

The lack of public spaces, recreational areas, and sports facilities in older city neighborhoods, as well as the importance of people's social and economic well-being, have been exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Revitalization is used to update the physical environment of old neighborhoods;it improves not only the physical environment of the neighborhood, but also contributes to ensuring the social and economic well-being of the residents. The article aims to identify which typical revitalization project solutions, only referring to physical environmental improvement projects, improve the social and economic well-being of the residents. To achieve this goal, a statistical analysis of the Žirmūnai triangle residents was performed with obtained survey data. The hypothesized connections between typical revitalization solutions and changes in the social and economic well-being of the population were verified using Pearson's Chi-Square test. The results showed that the public spaces, sports, and playgrounds provided by revitalization were directly related to the social and economic well-being of the residents. As a result of this typical revitalization solution, 17% of the residents experienced an improvement in their economic well-being, 17% of the residents got to know their neighbors, and 95% of the residents indicated that they enjoy living in the neighborhood.

Extreme development of dragon fruit agriculture with nighttime lighting in Southern Vietnam

Dragon fruit is widely grown in Southeast Asia and other tropical or subtropical regions. As a high-value cash crop ideal for exportation, dragon fruit cultivation has boomed during the past decade in southern Vietnam. Light supplementing during the winter months using artificial lighting sources is a widely adopted cultivation technique to boost productivity in the major dragon fruit planting regions of Vietnam. The application of electric lighting at night leads to a significant increase of nighttime light (NTL) observable by satellite sensors. The strong seasonality signal of NTL in dragon fruit cultivation enables identifying dragon fruit plantations using NTL images. We employed Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB) monthly nighttime imagery from 2012 to 2019 to extract the growing area of dragon fruit in Bình Thuan Province, the largest dragon fruit growing region of Vietnam. The Breakpoint for Additive Seasonal Trend (B-FAST) analysis was applied to calculate the seasonality of NTL inside the dragon fruit plantations and distinguish them from the background. The results indicated that the dragon fruit cultivation strongly increased after 2014 and reached a plateau after 2017. In recent years, dragon fruit cultivation has experienced a slight decrease due to market fluctuations. We applied a buffer analysis over the largest dragon fruit cultivation area in Bình Thuan to analyze the spatial trend of the expansion of dragon fruit planting. Our results suggest that the dragon fruit cultivation of Bình Thuan has expanded to cover most inter-hill plains, reaching a spatial extent capacity due to the topographical constraints, and thus has begun to encroach into the low-elevation foothill area. In the case of emergency lock-down orders in February 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, NTL used for dragon fruit cultivation changed heterogeneously in space and time, driven by market price and shipping limitations far away from the local restrictions. Under the dual rural-urban hot spot situation with strong and contemporary developments of both dragon fruit agriculture and the urban tourism industry, building structures were detected densely in the city and gradually dispersed well into the rural landscape in Bình Thuan. The outcomes of this study will be valuable for local policymakers to better understand of the available area for dragon fruit cultivation and achieve better-coordinated cultivation planning against future fluctuations of the global market while providing insights and new understanding into the dual hot-spot developments valuable for planning rural-urban change strategies. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022. All rights reserved.

Geographical Appraisal of COVID-19 in West Bengal, India.

Study shows that COVID-19 cases, deaths and recoveries vary in macro level. Geographical phenomena may act as potential controlling factor. The present paper investigates spatial pattern of COVID-19 cases and deaths in West Bengal (WB), India and assumes Kolkata is the source region of this disease in WB. Thematic maps on COVID related issues are prepared with the help of QGIS 3.10 software. As on 15th January 2021, WB has 564032 number of COVID-19 cases which is 0.618% to the total population of the state. However, the COVID-19 case for India is 0.843% and for world is 1.341% to its total population. Lorenz Curve shows skewed distribution of the COVID-19 cases in WB. 17 (90%) districts hold 84.11% of the total population and carry 56.30% of the total COVID-19 cases. However, the remaining two districts-Kolkata and North 24 Parganas-hold remaining 43.70% COVID-19 cases. Correlation coefficient with COVID-19 cases and Population Density, Urban Population and Concrete Roof of their house are significant at 1% level of significance.

Food and communities in post-COVID-19 cities: Case of India

While Covid-19 pandemic has affected countries across the world, the burden has been shared disproportionately by urban poor from the cities in Global South. In much of Global South, while cities have emerged as growth centers, they are mostly driven by informalities, belying the image of cities, visualized in the mainstream development economics literature as a place of secured formal jobs that free one from the drudgery of rural life. Covid-19 pandemic has exposed these fault-lines in the cities. India serves as a typical case of such urban-centric growth, with informal workers, predominated by disadvantaged social and religious categories, accounting for 81% of workers in urban space. In cities, migrant in general and seasonal migrants increasingly account for bulk of informal workforce. The lockdown imposed in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic left the community of households reliant on informal works for livelihoods, without any rights and entitlements, which affect their access to food. The review of evidence collected in both primary surveys and macro level data points towards sluggishness in recovery of jobs, which coupled with high food inflation, suggests that access to food continues to be an issue in urban governance. The paper calls for a roadmap entailing both short-term and long-term measures to build sustainable urban livelihoods for ensuring food secure urban space in India.

Globalization, population flow and the spatial diffusion of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has swept the world since December 2019. The spread of COVID-19 has much to do with population flow and close human contacts. This paper demonstrates that the distribution of COVID-19 cases has close relation with the population flow and migration flow in the case of China. Rapid globalization has increased the volumes of migration and travelers in the world since the 1970s. If we reduce the number of air passengers to the level of 0.31 billion in 1970 by 13.6 times in the world, this may delay the same level of infections from being reached by about 3.5 weeks with reduced number of virus export and diffusion. But various authorities may only begin to take systematic and restrictive actions after the case number reaching certain "alarming level", above "saved time" may not be effectively used as the "alarming level" may simply emerge later. The global production network is not able to meet unexpected surging demand of personal protective equipment and other medical essentials in the early stage of pandemic. Emergency plans are need to expand production capacity quickly to deal with future pandemic.

Tourism De-Metropolisation but Not De-Concentration: COVID-19 and World Destinations

The current COVID-19 pandemic has caused a significant decline in human mobility during the past three years. This may lead to reconfiguring future tourism flows and resulting transformations in the geographic patterns of economic activities and transportation needs. This study empirically addresses the changes in tourism mobility caused by the pandemic. It focuses on the yet unexplored effects of the destination type on tourism volume change. To investigate this, 1426 metropolitan, urban/resort and dispersed destinations were delimited based on Airbnb offers. Airbnb reviews were used as the proxy for the changes in tourist visits in 2019–2022. Linear mixed-effects models were employed to verify two hypotheses on the differences between the effects of the pandemic on three kinds of tourism destinations. The results confirm the tourism de-metropolisation hypothesis: metropolitan destinations have experienced between −12.4% and −7.5% additional decreases in tourism visits compared to secondary cities and resorts. The second de-concentration hypothesis that urban/resort destinations are more affected than dispersed tourism destinations is not supported. The results also confirm that stricter restrictions and destination dependence on international tourism have negatively affected their visitation. The study sheds light on post-pandemic scenarios on tourism mobility transformations in various geographic locations.

Behavioural plasticity and the anthropause: an urban bird becomes less aggressive

Urban areas often impose strong, novel selection pressures on wildlife. Phenotypic plasticity, including behavioural plasticity, is an important mechanism helping organisms establish populations in novel environments. Behavioural plasticity can be difficult to study in urban wildlife because many urban environmental variables are challenging to isolate and manipulate experimentally. We took advantage of the COVID-19 lockdowns to assess whether urban birds expressed territorial aggression differently when relieved from frequent encounters with humans. We used simulated territorial intrusions to measure the behavioural responses of resident dark-eyed juncos, Junco hyemalis, on an urban college campus in Los Angeles, U.S.A. We found that the population overall displayed significantly reduced movement and singing behaviour associated with territorial aggression in a pandemic year (2021) compared to a typical year (2019). Furthermore, individuals measured in both 2019 and 2021 had significantly reduced responses in 2021, demonstrating that individual birds maintained behavioural plasticity in these traits. Our results show that human disturbance likely has a significant effect on the expression of behaviours associated with territorial aggression in urban birds. © 2023 The Author(s)