Dams and the Age of Abundance: Hydraulic Boosterism, Regional Growth, and the Reemergence of Water Scarcity in Central Texas

Austin, Texas, has long been a fast-growing city associated with high technology, live music, creative economic sectors, and an abundance of cultural capital. These traits, along with its location in the Sunbelt, usually explain its rapid and consistent growth. This essay argues that an artificial abundance of water, created by a series of dams and reservoirs built from 1938 to 1960, is an important factor in Austin’s development. Dams and water incentivized real estate development, provided power and recreational opportunities, and created an attractive image that leaders used to promote the city. Rapid growth caused by artificial abundance, however, also masked the city’s environmental risk and threatens to undermine its resilience as climate events like droughts become more frequent and intense. Thus, technocratic solutions to urban environmental problems often become problems themselves as their impacts on the landscape become naturalized over time.

Can Urban Environmental Problems Be Accurately Identified? A Complaint Text Mining Method

With the popularization of social networks, the abundance of unstructured data regarding environmental complaints is rapidly increasing. This study established a text mining framework for Chinese civil environmental complaints and analyzed the characteristics of environmental complaints, including keywords, sentiment, and semantic networks, with two–year environmental complaints records in Guangzhou city, China. The results show that the keywords of environmental complaints can be effectively extracted, providing an accurate entry point for solving environmental problems; light pollution complaints are the most negative, and electromagnetic radiation complaints have the most fluctuating emotions, which may be due to the diversity of citizens’ perceptions of pollution; the nodes of the semantic network reveal that citizens pay the most attention to pollution sources but the least attention to stakeholders; the edges of the semantic network shows that pollution sources and pollution receptors show the most concerning relationship, and the pollution receptors’ relationships with pollution behaviors, sensory features, stakeholders, and individual health are also highlighted by citizens. Thus, environmental pollution management should not only strengthen the control of pollution sources but also pay attention to these characteristics. This study provides an efficient technical method for unstructured data analysis, which may be helpful for precise and smart environmental management.

Problemáticas urbano ambientales en torno a la expansión urbana en el partido de La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina

The process of urbanization unfolds transformations that have a direct impact on land use and land cover. In the partido of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina, residential development and occupation of non-urban areas in the peri-urban sector have been intensified for the last decade, leading to the increase in urban environmental problems that are detrimental to the territory and its population. The objective of this work is to throw a spotlight on some of the problems arising from the occupation of undeveloped areas with a high-water hazard. The methodology consists of the analysis of the thematic cartography, the crossing of existing data and variables. The results of the research show the complexity of territorial processes, such as dispersion, urban informality, incompatibility of residential and productive activities, as well as environmental hazards of flooding and soil degradation. These conflicts might increase in the future as long as measures are not taken to include adequate regulation and urban planning. For these reasons, this article highlights the need to know and study these issues in depth in order to devise possible strategies for approaching the territory when planning cities.

Digital Change Detection and Map Analysis for Urban Expansion and Land Cover Changes in Karbala City

Urban growth driven by uncontrolled expansion is one of the greatest problems that reduces the fertile lands in Karbala Governorate, Iraq. This phenomenon is the cause for variety of urban environmental problems such as an increase in local temperature, cost of land, and loss of agricultural produce. Multiple images of different time periods were used, passing them through a series of image processing steps according to the methodology of work to achieve the aims of the paper by calculating land cover changes for Karbala City from 1992 to 2013. The aim of this research is to take the temporal and subtle changes in urbanization and land cover primarily to take into account a superior perception of the connection and activities between urban growth and urban environmental problems. To take action and greater control of land surface features, the data from Landsat 4 (MSS) 1992, Landsat 7 Thematic Mapper (ETM) 2003, and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) 2013 were used to deliver the research's aim.

Faktor penentu setting fisik aktivitas Taman Lapangan Jawa di Kota Depok

The existence of parks is one of the solutions in solving urban environmental problems. Not only has an ecological function, but the park also has a social function. The Jawa Park field is one of the neighbourhood parks in Depok that is actively used by local residents. One of the problems that is often encountered in neighbourhood parks is a mismatch of park design with the users' needs which raises issues regarding the sustainability of the park. For this reason, an evaluation is needed to determine how well the Lapangan Jawa Park can accommodate the needs in accordance with the behavior of its users. The methods that are used in this article were observation to identify park characters and observation of user behavior using the behavior setting approach. The data is analyzed descriptively using image processing software. The results are obtained, there are several important things that determine the physical settings of Lapangan Java Park activities in order to achieve sustainability. As for things that need to be considered include corrections to the entrance space in the north area of ??the park, parking area needs, recalculate the number and placement for the bench, and the reduction in the size of sports spaces that are not so used by the park users.

Reflection on the Construction and Management of Urban Landscaping Projects

In the recent stage, under the influence of China’s rapid social and economic development, the level of urbanization in China has also been continuously improved. At the same time, it has also aggravated China’s urban environmental problems. For this reason, relevant departments have gradually begun to pay attention to the construction of urban landscaping projects. Based on this, the article analyzes the problems and measures in the construction and management of urban landscaping projects.

Contribuição da Geografia Escolar na Percepção dos Problemas Ambientais Urbanos: Um Estudo Exploratório na Cidade da Beira, Moçambique

O objetivo deste artigo é refletir em torno da contribuição da Geografia escolar para a percepção dos problemas ambientais urbanos na cidade de Beira, Moçambique. O estudo partiu da seleção de alguns conteúdos ambientais contidos nos programas de ensino de Geografia da 8ª a 12ª classe, passando pela análise da possibilidade de articulação na abordagem teórica dos conteúdos ambientais programáticos e a percepção dos problemas ambientais, que afetam a cidade da Beira. Este artigo foi elaborado essencialmente com base em pesquisa bibliográfica, consulta documental e observação direta em sala de aula, acompanhada de registo fotográfico. Os resultados indicam que dentro dos programas de ensino de Geografia há temáticas ambientais como: erosão costeira, conservação e defesa dos recursos florestais e faunísticos (8ª e 11ª classe), resíduos sólidos, poluição do ar, saúde e higiene (9ª, 10ª e 12ª classe). Propõe-se que o professor aborde de forma articulada esses conteúdos da Geografia escolar na sala de aula priorizando estratégias didático-metodológicas como: debates na sala de aula, observação direta por meio de visita de estudo, produção de relatórios de pesquisas individual/grupo, os quais podem contribuir para a percepção dos principais problemas ambientais da Beira: erosão costeira, resíduos sólidos, poluição ambiental, saneamento básico. Palavras-chave: Geografia Escolar. Perceção. Problemas Ambientais. Cidade da Beira. AbstractThis article was elaborated mainly based on bibliographical research, documentary consultation and direct observation accompanied by photographic record. The aim of this article is to reflect on the contribution of school geography to the perception of urban environmental problems in Beira. The study started with the screening of some of the environmental contents contained in the geography teaching programs from grades 8 to 12, passing through the analysis of the possibility of articulation in the theoretical approach of the programmatic environmental contents and the perception of environmental problems that affect the city of Beira. The results indicate that environmental themes such as: coastal erosion, conservation and defense of forest and fauna resources (8th and 11th grades), solid waste, air pollution, health and hygiene (9th, 10th and 12th grades class). The teacher in articulating these contents of the school geography in the classroom prioritizes didactic-methodological strategies: debates in the classroom, direct observation through study visit, production of individual / group research reports, can contribute for the perception of the main environmental problems of Beira: coastal erosion, solid waste, environmental pollution, environmental sanitation. Keywords: School Geography. Perception. Environmental Problems. City of Beira.