Human dependence on natural resources in rapidly urbanising South African regions

Balbi, Stefano; Selomane, Odirilwe; Sitas, Nadia; Blanchard, Ryan; Kotzee, Ilse; O’Farrell, Patrick J.; Villa, Ferdinando

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aafe43

Cited by 21 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Our study provides scope for similar assessments of distributional aspects of environmental justice (sensu Low, 2013) The factors behind these are multiple. First, movement of people from predominantly rural areas to the cities is dominated by relocation to informal settlements, which are often on the margin of the city and are usually not planned development and therefore do not receive all the basic services provided by cities (Balbi et al, 2019), let alone green spaces. Secondly, income plays a major role in who can move to which Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Green Apartheid: Urban green infrastructure remains unequally distributed across income and race geographies in South Africa

Venter¹,

Shackleton²,

Staden³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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<p>Urban green infrastructure provides ecosystem services that are essential to human wellbeing. A dearth of national-scale assessments in the Global South has precluded the ability to explore how political regimes, such as the forced racial segregation in South Africa during and after Apartheid, have influenced the extent of and access to green infrastructure over time. We investigate whether there are disparities in green infrastructure distributions across race and income geographies in urban South Africa. Using open-source satellite imagery and geographic information, along with national census statistics, we find that public and private green infrastructure is more abundant, accessible, greener and more treed in high-income relative to low-income areas, and in areas where previously advantaged racial groups (i.e. White citizens) reside.</p>

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Green Apartheid: Urban green infrastructure remains unequally distributed across income and race geographies in South Africa

Venter¹,

Shackleton²,

Staden³

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…However, these different approaches adopted in studies of ecosystem services do not explicitly consider how ecosystems influence environmental variables such as geomorphology, soils, water availability (rivers, groundwater) and climate, or how local communities may use or value these properties and services. Despite this importance, only a few studies on ecosystem services are set in a broader environmental context (e.g., Egoh et al, 2009;Pettinotti et al, 2018;Balbi et al, 2019). This omission is surprising given the wide literature on the relationship of ecosystem service provision to land degradation (e.g., Smiraglia et al, 2016;Sutton et al, 2016;Tarrasón et al, 2016;Turner et al, 2016;Cerretelli et al, 2018).…”

Section: Environmental Services As a Basis For Understanding Of Soil Food And Water Systems The Nature Of Ecological Environmental Servicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Services: A New Approach Toward Addressing Sustainable Development Goals in Sub-Saharan Africa

Knight¹

2021

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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The physical environment provides resources and specific types of environmental services relevant to the maintenance of human livelihoods globally and with specific reference to sub-Saharan Africa, including soils, food, and water systems. Previous studies on the shared nexus of such resources commonly view these as self-contained systems operating independent of their physical contexts provided by landscape-scale geomorphology and its related processes. This study critically examines the viewpoints adopted by such nexus studies with specific reference to sub-Saharan Africa, arguing that these studies are reductive, considering only the shared disciplinary overlap (nexus) and not their wider contexts, and are based on only a limited understanding of the workings of physical systems. This study argues that considering the attributes of the physical landscape and its provision of environmental services provides a broader and scientifically-informed context for understanding of interlinked issues such as relationships between soil–food–water systems. Framing such “nexus” studies in this wider context can derive a better understanding of the connections between different elements such as soil, food, and water, amongst others, and with respect to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. The concept of environmental services is therefore a more powerful tool to examine both the connections between physical and human environmental processes and properties in sub-Saharan Africa, and to address overarching environmental issues such as land degradation, soil erosion loss, water scarcity, and impacts of climate change.

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“…Results of the spatial redistribution of UG associated with urban development indicated that cities are facing both opportunities and challenges for urban sustainability. On the one hand, UG became more evenly distributed along the urban-rural gradient, and thereby could potentially provide better access and more equal opportunities for urban dwellers to enjoy outdoor recreation (Niemelä 2014, Tsai et al 2016, Balbi et al 2019. On the other hand, there were greater change in percent cover of greenspace in locations closer to the urban core.…”

Section: The Implications Of Urban Planning and Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial distribution of urban greenspace in response to urban development from a multi-scale perspective

Wang

Zhou

Wang

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Urban expansion and renewal are one of the major drivers affecting urban landscapes worldwide. Considerable research has been conducted to understand how urban greenspace (UG) changes in response to urbanization at various scales from individual patches to landscapes. However, most of these studies have been conducted at a single scale, and little is known from a multiple scale perspective. Here, we present a multi-scale analytical framework to quantify the spatial pattern of greenspace and its change by integrating rank-size distribution, urban-rural gradient analysis and hotspots analysis. We applied this framework to nine major Chinese cities using 2.5 m resolution Advanced Land Observation Satellite and Systeme Probatoire d'Observation de la Terre imagery captured in 2005 and 2010. We found the multi-scale assessment provides integrated and synthesized information about the dynamics of UG that would otherwise be missed. First, the hotspots analysis revealed dramatic change in UG for all the nine cities, and such change tended to be spatially clustered. Second, the spatial heterogeneity of UG decreased from 2005 to 2010 for all the cities as a result of the increase of UG in urban core areas and loss of UG in the urban periphery, resulting in landscape homogenization along the urban-rural gradient. Third, substantial loss of UG co-occurred with densification of urban land development, indicating potential adverse impacts of compact city on urban greenery. Infill development became dominant, with percentage ranging from 52.7% in Shanghai to 90.6% in Nanjing, resulting in more compact urban form. This study underscores the importance of a multi-scale perspective on understanding the spatial distribution of UG and its change, and its response to urban development.

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Human dependence on natural resources in rapidly urbanising South African regions

Cited by 21 publications

References 48 publications

Green Apartheid: Urban green infrastructure remains unequally distributed across income and race geographies in South Africa

Green Apartheid: Urban green infrastructure remains unequally distributed across income and race geographies in South Africa

Environmental Services: A New Approach Toward Addressing Sustainable Development Goals in Sub-Saharan Africa

Spatial distribution of urban greenspace in response to urban development from a multi-scale perspective

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