Sustainability and Human Settlements: Fundamental Issues, Modeling and Simulations

Human settlements throughout the world, particularly urban areas of the developing world, are under severe and increasing pressure from a variety of sources. Traditional approaches to studying and understanding human settlements and their processes have become inadequate in the face of rapid urban growth and the resulting demands on natural resources and socio-cultural assets. This book-an outcome of the authors’ ongoing research on the complex relationships between humans and water in an urban context–presents an integrated model for assessing and forecasting the sustainability of human settlements, particularly urban communities. After introducing the conceptual and contextual dimensions of sustainability through an extensive review of the literature on the subject, the authors go on to explain their model. They then elaborate on the methodology for its formulation, development and implementation. This model has also been used to analyse changes in the availability of water and open spaces, and variations in lifestyles, community attitudes and living conditions including sanitation practices, and waste generation and its disposal. The book also: Consolidates and presents information pertaining to the underlying concepts, principles and perspectives of sustainability. Provides guidelines for the development of integrated models for large systems such as human settlements. Demonstrates the implementation of simulation systems for supporting policy analysis and specification, particularly by making use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Overall, this timely book will assist readers to build upon and enlarge their knowledge of the broad interdisciplinary field of sustainable development. It will be of immense use to students, researchers and teachers involved in human-settlement planning, environmental studies, urban and regional planning and development, architecture, large systems modeling, policy analysis and simulation. Policy makers, activists and officials in a variety of organizations and institutions will also benefit from this book.