Income growth and industrialization of the developing countries is driving their economies towards the use of secondary energy forms that deliver high efficiency energy and environmentally improved end-uses for biomass. Typical of these secondary energy forms are electricity, distributed gas systems, and liquid fuels. This trend suggests that the hitherto separate biomass energy technology deve...

Theory, approach and the tools of transect model have recently turned into one of the fundamental maxims of urban design and planning in the urbanization systems in Europe, the United States and more recently the middle-east, its fundamentals are based on reaching the sustainable development patterns in urban areas. A general accordance regarding the operationalizability of this theory and appr...

Urbanization and economic development are closely intertwined. While urbanization per se does not cause development, sustained economic development does not occur without urbanization. This paper starts with a “primer” on what we know about the conceptual and empirical links between development and urbanization. Empirical evidence is partly based on historical experience in developed countries ...

Global urbanization is a vital process shaping terrestrial ecosystems but its effects on forest soil carbon (C) dynamics are still not well defined. To clarify the effects of urbanization on soil organic carbon (SOC) variation, 306 soil samples were collected and analyzed under two urban–rural gradients, defined according to human disturbance time and ring road development in Changchun, northea...

Urbanization causes environmental impacts that threaten the health of aquatic communities and alter their recovery patterns. In this study, we evaluated the diversity of intertidal fish in six areas affected by urbanization (areas with native vegetation, deforested areas, and areas in process of restoration of vegetation) along an urban waterfront in the Amazon River. 20 species were identified...

Accelerating urbanization has been viewed as an important instrument for economic development and reducing regional income disparity in some developing countries, including China. Recent studies (Bloom et al. 2008) indicate that demographic urbanization level has no causal effect on economic growth. However, due to the varying and changing definition of urban population, the use of demographic ...

The proportion of a country's population living in urban areas is highly correlated with its level of income. Urban areas offer economies of scale and richer market structures, and there is strong evidence that workers in urban areas are individually more productive, and earn more, than rural workers. However, rapid urbanization is also associated with crowding, environmental degradation, and o...