Sometime in the next 20 to 30 years, developing countries in Asia and Africa are likely to cross a historic threshold, joining Latin America in having a majority of urban residents. The urban demographic transformation is described here, with an emphasis on estimates and forecasts of urban population aggregates. To provide policy-makers with useful scientific guidance in the upcoming urban era,...

Nutrient spiraling in theory and application provides a framework for comparing nutrient retention efficiency of urban streams to relatively unaltered streams. Previous research indicated that streams of the southwestern USA deserts are highly retentive of N because of N limitation, high productivity, and high channel complexity (in particular, extensive transient storage associated with the hy...

The theory of self-organisation is an efficient tool for reconstructing the dynamics and evolution of urban and regional systems. It allows the adoption of realistic assumptions concerning socio-economic and spatial conditions of the operation and development of multi-component systems, and offers flexible methods that can be employed to derive from these assumptions a mechanism of the transfor...

Abstract Recent years have seen a massive development of geospatial sensing systems informing the use space. However, rarely do these inform transformation towards urban sustainability. Drawing on four global case examples, we conceptualize how passive and active should be harnessed to secure an inclusive, sustainable resilient transformation. We derive principles for stakeholders highlighting ...