Land and soil Environmental


dimension


Overall, while urban areas are overall more “efficient” in terms of land use than other forms of human habitation (ECJRC 2019), they also tend to expand to accommodate growing populations and their telecoupled needs, leading to the conversion of fertile and forest lands (Seto, Güneralp and Hutyra 2012; Seto and Ramankutty 2016). This growth is not the same across all regions: cities in lower-income countries are denser and more compact, whereas middle- and higher-income countries have greater sprawl (ECJRC 2018). Overall, the global per capita area is increasing in urban areas, albeit more so in higher-income countries than in lower- and middle-income ones (Paresi et al. 2016). While city centres are becoming greener (Paresi et al. 2016), people who are less wealthy are constantly pushed out, reflecting the fact that land is a scarce resource and unequal access is persistent. More and more people are being pushed to live in exposed spaces like high-frequency flood zones (Paresi et al. 2016). The morphology and characteristics of urban green spaces and infrastructure have a clear impact on the quality of the urban environment and its functional footprint for people and wildlife (Andersson et al. 2020). With poor sanitation and waste disposal systems, land degradation is worsening, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Studies indicate that land degradation and contamination will continue in urban environments (UNEP 2015; Ferreira, Walsh and Ferreira 2018).


Until recently, the existence of multiple definitions of “urban” affected comparative studies and the aggregation of data to study land-use patterns for different size-classes of urban areas. In 2020, the United Nations Statistical Commission endorsed the European Commission’s degree of urbanization (ECJRC 2018) as a recommended method for international comparisons. The emphasis on administrative land boundaries in the context of cities fails to capture their telecoupled impacts. Further studies are needed across the administrative and ecological scales of influence to understand urban impact. For instance, it is important to better understand how land conversion to urban areas is affecting food security in terms of soil degradation, water quality, available farmland and the number of farms. We also lack knowledge on the implications of global environmental changes, such as land degradation, desertification and deforestation, on urbanization processes via migration or the reduction in resources required for sustainable habitation. There is a lack of green infrastructure asset registers in most low- and middle-income countries (Schäffler and Swilling 2013), which results in a gap in the valuation of green infrastructure.


What we know


Remaining gaps in knowledge


3.5 Equity and the environment: impacts on human health and well-being in cities


This section considers how different population groups living in different parts of cities and with varying access to services and quality housing will be affected by changes in air, land and coastal resources, as well as freshwater and biodiversity. Changes in the urban–environment nexus will have implications for the health and well-being of human populations and other species, with the impact varying in line with levels of exposure and underlying vulnerabilities, such as poverty and health conditions.


While urban areas can display great disparities, urban residents may have access to better education, housing and health care, resulting in longer life expectancy (Vardoulakis and Kinney 2019). Wealthier residents typically contribute disproportionately to the urban environmental or ecological footprint through their housing demands, transportation needs, energy usage and consumption patterns but are in a better position to protect themselves from the consequences, due to safety nets like insurance (Satterthwaite 2011; WHO 2016b). Socioeconomically disadvantaged populations are typically exposed to higher levels of air pollution, live in crowded places with substandard urban services and are more vulnerable to infectious disease outbreaks.


In particular, in lower- and middle-income countries, low- income urban populations and people living or operating in the informal sector face the highest levels of exposure to the


56 GEO for Cities


negative consequences of environmental change. They face bigger challenges due to their limited access to reliable and sufficient incomes, services (ranging from health care and education to financial services) and adequate housing and infrastructure to reduce risk (IPCC 2018; see also chapter 2). This has created a double burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases in these communities (Sverdlik 2011). Yet protecting vulnerable groups has positive health and well-being benefits for everyone in the city. Informal settlements are often located in marginal or poorly-connected areas of cities where land has less value. Residents are more exposed to hazards like river or coastal flooding, landslides or subsidence and the insecurity from insecure land tenure and the inability to access insurance (Dodman and Satterthwaite 2008; Satterthwaite et al. 2020). More than half the urban workforce in most countries of the Global South is in informal employment, especially in South Asia (82 per cent in informal employment) and sub-Saharan Africa (over 66 per cent) (Chen, Roever and Skinner 2016). This informality undermines job security and access to social services, increasing vulnerability to market crashes and other shocks, such as COVID-19. Informal, migrant or refugee urban populations may be marginalized by urban governance and legal processes when they are not recognized as residents of the city through house or voter registration. This means their voices may not be heard in planning decisions which will affect their lives and livelihoods (Roy 2009).


These underlying vulnerabilities may intersect with other factors. Populations of migrants (Chu and Michael 2019), refugees or internally-displaced persons, and people


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146