Welcome to UGEC

Today, more than half of the world's population lives in cities. It is clear that the development of urban areas holds the key to many of the challenges we face in our interactions with the environment. The International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) exhibiting its increased focus on urban areas initiated recently the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change core project.

This IHDP core project seeks to provide a better understanding of the interactions and feedbacks between global environmental change and urbanization at the local, regional, and global scales through an innovative conceptual and methodological framework. To capture the benefits of urbanization and mitigate as well as adapt to negative environmental and socioeconomic impacts, a stronger collaboration between academics, political decision-makers and practitioners is encouraged. As urbanization represents a critical topic of special policy relevance in today's world, the UGEC core project represents an unrivalled opportunity for addressing critical issues of worldwide importance that have not received adequate attention so far.

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International Conference on Urbanization and Global Environmental Change: Opportunities and Challenges for Sustainability in an Urbanizing World

Early Bird Registration Extended through July 31st

We had an overwhelmingly positive response to our call for abstracts for the 2010 UGEC Conference "Opportunities and Challenges to Sustainability in an Urbanizing World"! We received over 200 abstracts and session proposals which gave us the difficult, yet welcomed task of making our selections for oral and poster presentations. We have completed the review process and have sent out our notifications of acceptance. Thank you again to all who made submissions.

Early bird registration is available through July 31st. Click here to register.

Conference description:
This conference is an international effort to bring together scientists, practitioners, policy makers, and stakeholders to understand the multi-faceted interactions between urban areas and global environmental change. The conference seeks to build a forum for reflection, exchange of knowledge, experiences, lessons, ideas, and information, contributing to the creation of efficient strategies for urban sustainability. The structure and approach of the conference is specifically designed to foster dialogue among participants. Presentations will evoke discussion regarding the knowledge and lessons learned from research projects and practices.

The UGEC conference will work back to back with the Global Land Project (GLP) Open Science Meeting. GLP is a joint research project for land systems for the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP).

Please visit www.UGEC2010.org for more details about the conference.

UGEC News

8 UGEC Project members will contribute to Working Group I and II of the IPCC 5th Assessment Report (AR5)

Eight members of the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) Project have been selected by the IPCC as Lead Authors (LA) and Coordinating Lead Authors (CLA) for urban-related chapters of Working Group II and III Reports. These are: Roberto Sanchez-Rodriguez, co-chair of the UGEC project (LA, WGII, Ch. 15); Bill Solecki, member of the scientific steering committee of the UGEC project (LA, WGII, Ch.8); Karen C. Seto, co-chair of the UGEC project (CLA, WGIII, Ch. 12); Paul Kirshen, UGEC project associate (LA, WGII, Ch.26), Shuaib Lwasa, UGEC project associate (LA, WGIII, Ch.12), JoAnn Carmin, leader of a UGEC endorsed project (LA, WGII, Ch.14), Mark Pelling, UGEC project associate (LA, WGII, Ch.8); Lisa Schipper, UGEC project associate (LA, WGII, Ch.21).

The group is expected to work for the next four years on chapters of two Working Group Reports (WGII and WGIII) of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) to be published between 2013 and 2014 - eventually contributing to the Synthesis Report which will be published in 2014.

These authors as well as other CLAs and LAs of the IPCC AR5 who work on urban areas will participate in the UGEC 2010 conference in various roles - plenary speakers, session organizers and presenters. The UGEC 2010 conference will be held at Arizona State University between October 15th and 17th, 2010 providing a great opportunity for the ASU research community, local and regional stakeholders to engage with a group of distinguished international scholars working at the cutting edge of issues of urban areas and global environmental change.

The announcement and the list of authors can be found here:
Press Release
IPCC WG I AR5
IPCC WG II AR5

2011 International Conference on Industrial Transformation, Urbanization, and Human Security in the Asia-Pacific – Call for Abstracts

The IHDP National Committee: The Academy of Sciences located in Taipei will host the conference of “Industrial Transformation, Urbanization, and Human Security in the Asia-Pacific” in January of 2011 at Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.

Asia has been undergoing unprecedented economic growth and industrial transformation during the past few decades. Much of this growth is occurring in coastal regions, areas at high risk from changing land use, climate change, and the loss of ecosystem services. The ever increasing extreme climate events have threatened the life and properties of human beings. This UGEC sponsored conference will provide an opportunity to bring together scholars, decision makers, and practitioners to discuss on several human dimensions issues in Asia-Pacific related to global environmental change. Topics to be addressed in the conference include:

1. Industrializing, Urbanizing and Regional Development
2. Ecosystem Services and Vulnerability of Coastal Cities
3. Human Vulnerability and Security in a High Risk World

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE - September 15, 2010
The Taiwan IHDP invites you to submit abstracts under one of the three main themes listed below:

1. Industrializing, Urbanizing and Regional Development
2. Ecosystem Services and Vulnerability of Coastal Cities
3. Human Vulnerability and Security in a High Risk World

Click here to read more about the conference and how to submit your abstract.

UGEC hosts a special event at the recent ICLEI Resilient Cities 2010: 1st World Congress on Cities and Adaptation to Climate Change

During the panel, UGEC presented a cross-regional synthesis of our knowledge on how cities have started to respond, fail to respond, or could better respond to climate change. As an increasing number of cities around the world have begun to respond to climate change through mitigation and adaptation actions and other initiatives, the panel explored the challenge of how to best analyze and synthesize the growing number of case studies in order to better understand the complexities of the responses. An increasing number of cities around the world have begun to respond to climate change through (combined) mitigation and adaptation actions and initiatives. The panel recognized that the diversity in the various ongoing initiatives provides us with the potential of utilizing their richness for research and knowledge generation. This synthesis session intended to capture this diversity and produce insights on both opportunities and constraints for complementing climate change mitigation with adaptation strategies in the context of development. Click here to read more about the event's highlights.

UGEC SSC member David Simon publishes two new journal articles

UGEC SSC member David Simon has shared with us two new two journal articles on themes central to UGEC. The first, “Urbanizing the global environmental change and human security agendas”, is a review article published in Climate and Development which, coauthored with Hayley Leck, ties together two core issues central to the IHDP - urbanization and human security. The article provides an overview of key issues and concerns within recent urban research relevant to human security, “drawing attention to appropriate conceptual frameworks and methodological tools for understanding risk and vulnerability in the context of acute inequalities, poverty and the unsustainability of contemporary urbanism”

Simon, David and Hayley Leck. (2010). Urbanizing the global environmental change and human security agendas. Climate and Development, 2(3), 263–275. doi: 10.3763/cdev.2010.0051

The second, “The Challenges of Global Environmental Change for Urban Africa” is an article published in a special issue of Urban Forum - African Development in an Urban World: Beyond the Tipping Point. The article “surveys the phenomenon of global environmental change (GEC) and its implications for cities and urban populations in Africa”, and concludes with some suggestions for overcoming and coping with the challenges of gec in these cities.

Simon, David. (2010). The Challenges of Global Environmental Change for Urban Africa. Urban Forum, 21(3), 235–248. doi: 10.1007/s12132-010-9093-6

Conference of the Global Catchment Initiative (GCI): The Global Dimensions of Change in Water Basins - Threats Linkages and Adaptation

Call for Abstracts

The Global Water System Project (GWSP) is a joint project of the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) which unites the four global environmental change programmes: the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and DIVERSITAS, an international programme of biodiversity science.

The central tenet of the GWSP is that human-induced changes to the water system are now global in extent, yet there is a lack of adequate understanding of how the system works and responds to disturbances, and how society can best adapt to rapidly evolving new system states.

The aim of the conference is to review the state-of-the-art research, advance understanding and foster dialogue with professionals and policy makers concerning global aspects of river basins and their management. Abstracts are welcomed through June 20th that fall under the following themes:
•Impact of global change on river basins
•Long-distance connectivities and linkages of river basins
•The role of global governance in river basin management

More information about the conference can be accessed at the website: http://www.gwsp.org/66.html

International Journal of Society Systems Science (IJSSS) Special Issue on: "Urbanization and Environmental Issues in East Asia" - Call for Papers

Guest Editors: Associate Professor Zhenjiang Shen, Professor Katsunori Suzuki, Professor Mitsuhiko Kawakami, Kanazawa University, Japan

Environmental pollution during rapid economic development is reaching worrying proportions in China and other East Asian areas, where urbanization is progressing along with industrialization. Urban growth takes place at the regional level and is advanced by domestic social and economic development policies, while land use and transportation system changes occur in a highly dynamic system that involves many forces such as economic development, population growth, and policy decisions. As a result, energy consumption grows and waste discharges increase. In addition, trans-boundary and global environmental pollution including greenhouse gas emissions and acid deposition become international problems in East Asia which should be investigated from multiple disciplines and perspectives. These include social, economic, internal law, urban planning and environmental engineering systems.

This special issue focuses on urbanization and environmental issues in East Asian areas. The objective is to provide insight to the co-benefit framework of urbanization and trans-boundary environmental pollution control from multidisciplinary viewpoints. Qualitative and quantitative, social science and engineering approach studies are encouraged.

Click here for more details on how to submit.

Upcoming Course - "Cities and regions faced with climate change: challenges and instruments for adaptation"

UGEC Project Associate Andrea Lampis has jointly organized this course in alliance with IDEAM and Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya to take place this summer at the Universidad de los Andes - Bogota, Colombia. More information is available here at this link (available only in Spanish).

Recap of the WUF5

The World Urban Forum 5 took place this past March 22-26, under the theme of The Right to the City – Bridging the Urban Divide. “The broad theme of the World Urban Forum…is aimed at narrowing the gaps in many areas of everyday city life including the gulf between rich and poor; the gulf between governments and city authorities; and the gulf between government, local authorities and the law when it comes to gender and youth matters.” Over 21,000 registered for the event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil including a record breaking amount of delegates.

There, the focus of our participation was centered on a networking event entitled “Urban Responses to Climate Change and Sustainable Urban Development in Latin America”. Available here for download is a short report documenting our reflections and observations of the Forum and our networking event.

This piece will also be included in a forthcoming compilation of other reports on the WUF5 in the International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development. We will provide more details of this report once available.

UGEC Viewpoints: Integrative Perspectives on Urbanization and Climate Change

The third issue of UGEC Viewpoints has been sent out to those who have supplied us with mailing addresses. Thank you again to all who contributed articles. Much like the last issue, the theme was left open so as to highlight the diversity of research currently being undertaken within the UGEC community. You will see that many of the contributions focus strongly on adaptation challenges and strategies occurring at a variety of scales: within the municipality and at the state, national, and regional levels. Articles will also address responses to climate change and how these responses can be incorporated into policy with a particular emphasis on the challenges of urban water distribution and management. Enjoy!

New Journal Publication by UGEC Project Associate Dr. Shepherd

The Impact of Urbanization on Current and Future Coastal Precipitation: A Case Study for Houston
J. Marshall Shepherd, et al.
doi:10.1068/b34102t

In an effort to reach the planning community, this article, published in Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, addresses the urban land cover growth of Houston to 2025 to see how the rainfall distribution would respond. To our knowledge, this is one of the first published attempts to do this. Please click on the above title to read the full article.

First International Conference on Sustainable Urbanization - Call for Abstracts

The Faculty of Construction and Land Use (FCLU) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) will hold the First International Conference on Sustainable Urbanization (ICSU) from December 15-17, 2010 in Hong Kong. This conference series will provide an international forum for the international scientific/engineering community to examine the challenges and potential solutions for ensuring a sustainable process of urbanization and sustainable operation and management of urbanized areas.

Papers relating to all aspects of sustainable development, operation and management of urban areas are invited and papers directly addressing issues created by urbanization are particularly welcome. The deadline to submit is March 01, 2010. More details about the conference and call for abstracts is available here.

PERN proceedings now available to download

The Population-Environment Research Network (PERN) is pleased to announce the release of the proceedings of its workshop on urban population-development-environment (PDE) dynamics, held in Nairobi Kenya in June 2007 and co-organized with CICRED, APHRC, and CIESIN. The papers include case studies of specific cities as well as some more theoretical contributions on issues such as urban sprawl. To download the papers, please click here.

Another UGEC associate contributes to Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability

Dr. Roberto Sanchez-Rodriguez, UGEC SSC co-chair and Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of California, Riverside has just recently published in the journal’s second issue an article on the recent approaches to adaptation to climate change in urban areas. This follows Dr. Seto and Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd’s piece on urban land use and the influence on climate which was published in the inaugural issue (see below). Click here to read to the full article, "Learning to Adapt to Climate Change in Urban Areas. A Review of Recent Contributions".

21. European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies Call for Papers

The European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies (ECMSAS) has been an important platform and indicator of contemporary trends in South Asian studies worldwide. The 21. ECMSAS will take place between July 26-29, 2010 at the University of Bonn in Bonn, Germany and will host 44 panels, covering a broad range of research subjects.

Scholars and students from any field of research related to the South Asian region are invited to participate. Anyone interested to present her or his research to an academic public should please click the "Panels" button on the left of the homepage (link is above) to find out where your specialization might fit into. Young researchers are particularly invited to join the conference and present their findings to the academic public.

UGEC members Benjamin Etzold and Markus Keck are the conveners for Panel 39 "Megacities in South Asia as Arenas of Risks and Resilience". Carsten Butsch, Dr. Saravanan V.S., and Patrick Sakdapolrak will be leading Panel 38 "Human Health in Urban and Peri-Urban South Asia". Abstracts for these panels and all others will be accepted through December 01, 2009.

"Urbanization: A Critical Human Dimension of Global Environmental Change"

The second issue of UGEC Viewpoints is now available here online. The issue highlights the social challenges that face urban areas in light of global environmental change and was inspired by the variety of sessions dedicated to the urban theme at the recent IHDP Open Meeting held in Bonn, Germany April 26-30. UGEC is not only happy to see that the human dimension is now at the forefront of global environmental change research, but that there is also a growing interest in urban areas. The articles in the issue represent some of the UGEC related research presented at the Open Meeting, offering a variety of case studies with wide thematic and geographic coverage. We hope you enjoy the read!

Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Seto contribute to the inaugural issue of Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability is a new journal advanced by the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP); a tangible output of their strategy to coordinate and make more accessible global environmental change research. This review and synthesis journal integrates environmental sustainability research across disciplines including, climate science, human settlements and habitats, energy use and energy systems, terrestrial systems, ecosystems, carbon and nitrogen cycles, and marine and freshwater systems.

UGEC project associate Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd, Associate Professor in the University of Georgia’s Department of Geography and Atmospheric Sciences and UGEC SSC co-chair Dr. Karen Seto, Associate Professor of the Urban Environment in the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies were asked to contribute a piece on urban land use and the influence on climate for the inaugural issue. Click on the link here to read their newly published article, “Global Urban Land-Use Trends and Climate Impacts”.

International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development Call for Papers

The International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development aims to provide a forum for cutting edge research and rigorous debate for in-depth and holistic understanding of the complex inter-related environmental, social, economic, political, spatial, institutional and physical challenges facing urban areas.

The journal is fully peer reviewed and publishes original research and review papers. It also includes important think pieces and position papers by prominent scholars and practitioners in the broader field of urban sustainable development. It has a global reach covering cities and towns of different sizes, cultures and economies in the North and the South. It strives to bring together views and experience from industrially developed, developing and transition countries for mutual learning. Authors from developing and transition economies are particularly encouraged to submit papers. Please send your submissions to the editor Ramin Keivani: rkeivani@brookes.ac.uk. Learn more here.

UGEC SSC member David Simon chairs UN-HABITAT's Cities and Climate Change Initiative (CCCI) conference

"Professor David Simon, Head of the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, chaired the launch conference of the UN-HABITAT’s Cities and Climate Change Initiative (CCCI) in Oslo on 17 March.


Image Source: Royal Holloway, University of London

The event, held at the Felix Conference Centre and supported by the Norwegian government, also saw Professor Simon make a concluding presentation in the plenary strategic session."

For more information click here

UGEC SSC Co-chair Karen C. Seto named Leopold Leadership Fellow

Congratulations Karen!

"Nineteen environmental researchers from across North America have been awarded Leopold Leadership Fellowships for 2009.

Based at Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment, the Leopold Leadership Program was founded in 1998 to help academic scientists communicate scientific information more effectively to journalists, policymakers, business leaders and the public. Each year the program selects as many as 20 mid-career academic environmental scientists as fellows."

For more information click here

Other news

UGEC Online Bibliographic Database

If you would like to try out our new online bibliographic database please log in and click the UGEC BiblioDB tab under the MEMBERS category on the left menu bar. The database is a consistently updated from various sources for articles and books on Urbanization and Global Environmental Change.

If you don't see your article or articles you think are important to our theme, feel free to email us and we will add them to the database.

UGEC weblog

Starting in June of 2008, our new mechanism for news distribution is the UGEC weblog. Below you can find the most recent entries in the blog. Clicking on a post title will get you the the main text of the post:

• IHDP OM '09 - UGEC Session: Linking Ecology and Environmental Justice in Urban A (Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:29:27 +0100)
• New UGEC e-Newsletter (#10) (Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:24:11 +0100)
• CfP: GECHS Synthesis Conference (Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:19:10 +0100)
• Job Posting: Science Communicator for the International Geosphere-Biosphere Prog (Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:13:24 +0100)
• Seventh International Conference on Urban Climate (ICUC-7) - Call for Abstracts (Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:59:09 +0100)
• Job Opening: UC Santa Cruz - Political Economy of Envt. Change (Thu, 14 Aug 2008 23:40:07 +0100)
• AdaptNet - July 8 (Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:02:27 +0100)
• Call for papers: Population and Climate Change (Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:54:09 +0100)
• New UGEC e-Newsletter (#8) (Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:05:36 +0100)
• Faculty Position in Geography, Nanyang Tech. University, Singapore (Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:01:05 +0100)

The RSS feed can be found here

News from the Press

What follows is a short selection of news streaming out of popular media sources on the topic of Urbanization and Global Environmental Change...

• China looks west on urban environments - Irish Times (Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:07:54 GMT+00:00)
• Research and Markets: Environmental Economics in India - Examining the ... - Business Wire (press release) (Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:21:48 GMT+00:00)
• The Crucial Role for Business in Sustainable Economy - GreenBiz.com (Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:03:51 GMT+00:00)
• State of Sprawl: NJ's Urbanization Continues - Newswise (press release) (Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:39:17 GMT+00:00)
• Williard Agri-Service Honored For Environmental Stewardship - American Agriculturist (Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:01:07 GMT+00:00)

• Global warming heating up, says wildlife group official - Citizens Voice (Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:07:22 GMT+00:00)
• ACC's Dooley pans proposed chemical safety standard - Plastics News (Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:32:02 GMT+00:00)
• Monitoring the world's agriculture - Nature.com (Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:23:43 GMT+00:00)

• Better Predicting Wildfire Vulnerabilities - HSToday (Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:15:40 GMT+00:00)
• Congressional Documents and Publications - Insurance News Net (press release) (Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:46:43 GMT+00:00)
• Just in time for the current wildfire season, ImageCat releases report on the ... - Earthtimes (press release) (Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:19:38 GMT+00:00)
• Is there time to spare in the fight against climate change? - Sydney Morning Herald (Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:03:27 GMT+00:00)
• Fires, Floods displace 3000 persons in Brong-Ahafo - Ghana News Agency (Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:34:42 GMT+00:00)