22
Urban Environments: Issues on the Peri-Urban Fringe David Simon Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, United Kingdom; email: [email protected] Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2008.33:167–85 First published online as a Review in Advance on July 30, 2008 The Annual Review of Environment and Resources is online at environ.annualreviews.org This article’s doi: 10.1146/annurev.environ.33.021407.093240 Copyright c 2008 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved 1543-5938/08/1121-0167$20.00 Key Words livelihoods, planning and development, production systems, rural-urban fringe, sustainability Abstract This chapter reviews current thinking about environment-development issues in the transitional zones between distinctly urban and unam- biguously rural areas, known variously as rural-urban fringes/transition zones, or peri-urban zones/areas or interfaces (PUI). Such concerns reflect the growing real-world limitations of traditional concepts of a simple rural-urban dichotomy. Moreover, recent archaeological re- search suggests that these phenomena may have ancient antecedents. Present-day fringes/interfaces have become intimately bound up with notions of (more) sustainable urbanization and urban development, with different issues and agendas manifested in different geohistori- cal zones of urbanization. Following an overview of planning issues in (post)industrial societies, the chapter addresses the complexities of changing peri-urban production and livelihood systems in the context of rapid urbanization in poorer countries, distinctive peri-urban chal- lenges of appropriate and flexible planning and development, and the future prospects for enhanced sustainability in this most challenging category of development-environment interfaces. Possibilities for mu- tual learning between geohistorical regions are also raised. 167 Click here for quick links to Annual Reviews content online, including: Other articles in this volume Top cited articles Top downloaded articles • Our comprehensive search Further ANNUAL REVIEWS Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2008.33:167-185. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org by University of Laval on 07/09/14. For personal use only.

Urban Environments: Issues on the Peri-Urban Fringe

  • Upload
    david

  • View
    221

  • Download
    6

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

Urban Environments: Issueson the Peri-Urban FringeDavid SimonDepartment of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham,Surrey TW20 0EX, United Kingdom; email: [email protected]

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2008. 33:167–85

First published online as a Review in Advance onJuly 30, 2008

The Annual Review of Environment and Resourcesis online at environ.annualreviews.org

This article’s doi:10.1146/annurev.environ.33.021407.093240

Copyright c© 2008 by Annual Reviews.All rights reserved

1543-5938/08/1121-0167$20.00

Key Words

livelihoods, planning and development, production systems,rural-urban fringe, sustainability

AbstractThis chapter reviews current thinking about environment-developmentissues in the transitional zones between distinctly urban and unam-biguously rural areas, known variously as rural-urban fringes/transitionzones, or peri-urban zones/areas or interfaces (PUI). Such concernsreflect the growing real-world limitations of traditional concepts ofa simple rural-urban dichotomy. Moreover, recent archaeological re-search suggests that these phenomena may have ancient antecedents.Present-day fringes/interfaces have become intimately bound up withnotions of (more) sustainable urbanization and urban development,with different issues and agendas manifested in different geohistori-cal zones of urbanization. Following an overview of planning issuesin (post)industrial societies, the chapter addresses the complexities ofchanging peri-urban production and livelihood systems in the contextof rapid urbanization in poorer countries, distinctive peri-urban chal-lenges of appropriate and flexible planning and development, and thefuture prospects for enhanced sustainability in this most challengingcategory of development-environment interfaces. Possibilities for mu-tual learning between geohistorical regions are also raised.

167

Click here for quick links to Annual Reviews content online, including:

• Other articles in this volume• Top cited articles• Top downloaded articles• Our comprehensive search

FurtherANNUALREVIEWS

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

Morphometry:measuring the shape

Contents

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168Changing Realities, Changing

Conceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169Defining the Peri-Urban Zone/Area

or Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS . . . . 171URBAN FRINGES OF

POSTINDUSTRIAL CITIES . . . . . 172IN SITU URBANIZATION AND

ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMSIN CHINA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174Economic Liberalization . . . . . . . . . . . 175Environmental Degradation . . . . . . . . 175

PERI-URBANIZATION AND THEENVIRONMENT IN OTHERLOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOMEREGIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176Land Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176Peri-Urban Agriculture

and the Environment . . . . . . . . . . . 177Other Forms of PUI

Resource Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178Waste Disposal

and Contamination . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

INTRODUCTION

Cities are dynamic human artifacts. Even inlong-urbanized regions of the world, they con-stantly undergo structural change, redevelop-ment, and growth. Such processes also involvechanges in urban relationships with the sur-rounding territory, most conspicuously on theiroutskirts. Diverse processes and urban formsin different politico-economic and sociocul-tural realms make generalization difficult, butin our increasingly globalized world, changes indifferent regions are increasingly interrelated.Accordingly, this chapter reviews current spa-tial and environment-development issues in thetransitional zones between distinctly urban andclearly rural areas, which have historically beenlabeled, studied, and understood in different

ways in different parts of the world. Neverthe-less, their importance everywhere lies in theirdynamic mix of functions and land uses; increas-ing population densities; growing significanceas sources of urban food, construction materi-als, and other resources; as urban waste disposalor treatment sites; and as recreational zones.

Traditionally, social scientists concernedwith urbanization, the relationships betweenurban areas and their hinterlands, or humanactivities and behavior within such areas haverelied on a simple urban-rural dichotomy. Im-plicit in this construct was the idea that urbanand rural areas were characterized by very dif-ferent land-use patterns and human behaviorsand that the boundaries between these spacesand places were easily discernible and clear-cut.Although urban expansion rarely occurs neatlyor uniformly, little attention was devoted to thedynamics of, or implications for, the urban-rural fringe or transition zone, as such areaswere (and in North America and Western Eu-rope still are) generally known. A brief excep-tion occurred during the 1970s, when some at-tention was devoted to the morphometry ofurban expansion, to problems of land specula-tion under capitalist market conditions, and tothe implications of haphazard agricultural landconversion to urban uses. There was also somedebate about the desirability of, or necessity for,regulation (1–4).

This relative lack of attention is probablybest explained in terms of the widespread per-ception that the urban fringe represented ashort-term transitional area that had little en-during interest or importance. Rural and urbanareas, and the differences between them, there-fore dominated research agendas until quiterecently. As a reflection of this legacy, cou-pled with the lack of any uniform definitionof urban fringes or peri-urban zones and thevery real data collection difficulties in suchrapidly changing areas (see below), no com-parative datasets on population or other vari-ables exist. Some individual cities produce oc-casional estimates but, for the most part, weremain reliant on dichotomized rural versus ur-ban data. This is illustrated in Table 1, which

168 Simon

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

Table 1 Urban population, percentage of population classified as urban, and average annual percentage growth rate ofurban population by major world region, 1950–2000a,b

Urban population (million) andpercent urban

Percent average annualgrowth rate

Location 1950 1975 2000 1950–75 1975–2000Africa 33 14.9 103 25.3 295 37.1 4.57 4.21Asia 232 16.6 575 24.0 1367 37.1 3.63 3.47Europe 280 51.2 446 66.0 529 72.7 1.86 0.68Latin America and Caribbean 70 41.9 197 61.2 393 75.5 4.14 2.78North America 110 63.9 180 73.8 250 79.1 1.98 1.32Oceania 8 60.6 15 71.7 23 72.7 2.75 1.51

aSource: Reference 74, tables I.4 and I.3.bSuch highly aggregated data may contain cumulative rounding errors, estimates, and other statistical manipulations. They should thus be regarded asindicative only.

presents urban population and growth data formajor world regions. Growth rates have beenlowest in North America, Oceania, and Eu-rope, which already had high levels of urbaniza-tion in 1950. In all regions, urbanization ratesduring the last quarter of the twentieth cen-tury fell relative to the third quarter. How-ever, such aggregated data over 25-year peri-ods conceal both important intraregional andtemporal differences. The most explosive urbangrowth during the 1975–2000 period occurredin primary cities of certain newly industrializ-ing countries of Latin America and especiallyEast and Southeast Asia, sometimes creatingnew urban forms (see below). Recent urban-ization in China and India has been extraor-dinary. Although cities such as Cairo, Lagos,and Kinshasa in Africa also grew very rapidly,they did not experience substantial industrial-ization. Accordingly, their urban structures andhow they absorbed the new migrants and ris-ing urban-born populations are very different.In such cities (not just in Africa), extensive ur-ban fringe or peri-urban areas have resulted.Overall, today, however, many secondary citiesare growing faster than their primary coun-terparts. Such data and trends provide littledirect insights into peri-urbanization becausethere are no direct or—on the basis of existingevidence—firmly generalizable cross-nationalrelationships.

Brownfield sites:urban land recycled fordifferent uses, e.g.,residential afterindustrial; brownfield(re)developmentavoids or reduces theneed for greenfielddevelopment

ICT: information andcommunicationstechnologies

EMR: extendedmetropolitan regions

Changing Realities, ChangingConceptionsThe situation changed as recently as the 1980sand early 1990s when, for different reasons indifferent parts of the world, the longer-termpersistence and importance of fringe or ur-ban transition zones became more apparent.In postindustrial societies, urban regeneration,following the major deindustrialization of the1970s and early 1980s, had two spatially op-posite effects. On the one hand, it increasinglyattracted middle-class and higher-income peo-ple to live in fashionable inner-city districtson brownfield sites. Conversely, the integratedtransport and information and communicationstechnology (ICT) revolutions enabled elec-tronics industries to locate in, and professionalsreliant on computerised communications to en-gage in homeworking from, high-amenity ruralor semiurban localities, including “edge cities”(4, 5) adjacent to peripheral motorways andbeltways.

Research in Southeast and East Asia dur-ing the 1990s distinguished a new form ofmetropolitan urbanism, reflecting some of thesame transport and technological changes,rapid industrialization, and dramatic increasesin standards of living as a result of the region’stransformed role within the world econ-omy. Dubbed extended metropolitan regions(EMRs), they are characterized by rapid urban

www.annualreviews.org • Peri-Urban Environmental Issues 169

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

Polycentricity: thecharacteristic of a(large) city havingseveral differentcommercial centers orcentral businessdistricts (alsosometimes known aspolynuclear cities)

Peri-urban interface(PUI): zone of(dynamic) transition orinteraction betweenurban and rural areas;usually used in thecontext of rapidlyurbanizing poorcountries

NRSP: NaturalResources SystemsProgram of the DFID

Rural-urban fringe:outer edge ortransition zonebetween urban andrural areas; generallyused in NorthAmerican andEuropean contexts

growth and polycentricity as well as the spreadof urban activities and land uses into ruralareas in novel ways. These create complexmosaics of juxtaposed activities previouslyregarded as incompatible, e.g., computerassembly workshops adjacent to rice paddyfields or coconut groves, and urban activitiesand urban-oriented leisure activities, e.g., golfcourses abutting rural villages. This complexityled to the original designation of “kotadesatie”(city-villagization), quickly superseded by“desakota” (city-village) when the phenomenonwas described in Indonesia (6–10). Latin Amer-ica’s large metropolises, which have a longerhistory of intense integration into the worldeconomy, have also evolved into comparableforms of “urban archipelago,” characterizedby diffuse boundaries and weakened officialplanning controls (11).

Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, in South Asia,sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and theCaribbean, rapid and spatially polarized urban-ization under neoliberal conditions has createdoften wide and persistent, if dynamic, transi-tion zones that combine various rural and urbanconditions. Moreover, their importance for thecities that they surround in absorbing urban mi-grants, as sources of food and other resourcesand as key areas for the disposal of urban wasteswas increasingly appreciated. They are also typ-ically zones of mixed land use and livelihoods.On account of these characteristics, and the in-teractions between such areas and the cities,they came to be known as peri-urban zones orinterfaces (PUIs) and have become major re-search foci in their own right. This review ad-dresses this spatial evolution and its environ-mental implications.

In other European or Europeanized lan-guages, the PUI concept is expressed somewhatdifferently, e.g., halfstedig (half or semiurban)in Dutch; urban-landlichen Zonen (urban-ruralzones) in German; and buitestedelik (outer cityor beyond the city) in Afrikaans (12, 13, p. 5);in many other languages, the concept does notyet exist. Probably, the largest PUI researchprogram to date has been funded by the

U.K. Department for International Develop-ment (DFID) as part of its Natural ResourcesSystems’ Programme (NRSP), 1995–2006 (13–16). There is a tendency, not least in Germanyand the United States, to equate the rural-urban fringe or PUI with suburbanization (seebelow), but these are not identical or equivalentprocesses. Although there is clearly an overlapin both concepts and actual usage of the terms,suburbs would more helpfully be distinguishedas principally residential areas already formingpart of the built-up urban area, the outermostedge of which constitutes the start of the urbanfringe. PUIs would then comprise distinctivezones of mixed character beyond the suburbs—as defined in the next subsection below.

Crucially, fringe or PUI areas should betreated as integral elements of urban systems(i.e., as extensions of cities) in both functionaland planning terms, because they and theirenvironments are integral to the growth andoperation of growing cities. Accordingly, theirintegration into urban planning systems wouldfacilitate holistic and systems-oriented plan-ning. This is likely to be achieved, however,only when the challenges of urban manage-ment and planning constraints on resources,capacity, and political priority, as well as amultiplicity of administrative boundaries areovercome. Even academics often still excludefringe and peri-urban zones from their ur-ban focus. The authoritative U.S. NationalAcademies of Sciences’ book, Cities Trans-formed: Demographic Change and Its Implicationsin the Developing World, is a conspicuous case inpoint (17). At the same time, however, urbanfringes or PUIs remain partially rural andto that extent also remain relevant to ruraldevelopment and livelihood policies. However,this rural element will decline over time inrapidly urbanizing contexts, including EMRs.In postindustrial societies, the rates of urbangrowth are generally slow. Hence, the mixtureof land uses and activities may be more stable,although even rural activities, e.g., smallholderfarming and horse-riding stables, tend to bemore urban than rural oriented.

170 Simon

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

Defining the Peri-Urban Zone/Areaor Interface

As indicated above, I distinguish PUIs or rural-urban fringes from suburbs, although somesources use the latter term to embrace the for-mer in the United States and parts of Europe.Unsurprisingly, definitional approaches havediffered both over time and according to theconceptual or theoretical perspectives of the re-spective authors. Initial approaches focused onmeasuring the PUI but were frustrated by thevery dynamics of the processes producing PUIsbecause the actual location and width of the in-terface change constantly and even vary arounda city at any one point in time on account of to-pographical features and anthropogenic barri-ers. Empirically, diameters of 30–50 km appearcommon for large cities; in metropolitan re-gions, they might be wider. Hence, recent def-initions are process oriented, focusing not onlyon the progressive incorporation of new areasinto the urban sphere of influence (a feature ofmany rural areas too) but also on changing landuses, the reach of infrastructure, access to ser-vices and markets, and exposure to the impactsof urban production processes and pollution.

The NRSP’s definition subdivided the PUIinto an inner zone of direct impact and an outerzone of influence (14, 18). However, even theboundaries between these zones are indistinct,irregular, and dynamic. It is therefore more use-ful to conceive of an urban-rural continuum orgradient outward from the city across the PUI.The slope of the gradient is variable around thecity, across the PUI, and over time, although ur-ban or rural islands may occur within the PUIfor various reasons (13, 16, 19). Moreover, thedynamic blends of land uses, activities, popula-tion, institutional arrangements, and rural ver-sus urban-oriented allegiances have been char-acterized as forms of hybridity (16, 20).

HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS

Aside from the distinctive rate and scale ofpresent-day urbanization, there is conceptuallyno reason to assume that comparable processes

have not taken place since antiquity. Newlycompleted archaeological mapping of the ex-tensive but little-known settlement complexsurrounding the dramatic Khmer monumentsat Angkor in Cambodia has demonstrated con-clusively that it represents

. . .a low-density urban complex like the Clas-sic Maya cities of the Yucatan peninsula such asTikal . . . a cumulative settlement palimpsest,1

with an organic and polynuclear form arisingfrom social and environmental processes op-erating over more than half a millennium . . .

the large-scale infrastructure gave coherenceto the scatter of traditional residential unitsand ‘created’ Greater Angkor as a corporateentity . . . The critical point is that the smallercomponent of the settlement pattern (the localtemples, the occupation mounds, the ponds,and the durable and highly structured web oragricultural space that binds them) occurs withremarkable consistency within ≈15–25 km ofthe current high-water mark of the [northernedge of Tonle Sap] lake . . . the boundary of theurban complex of Angkor, as it can be looselydefined from the infrastructural network, en-closes ≈900–1000 km2. (21, p. 14279)

Accordingly, the researchers conclude that,at its peak in the eleventh to thirteenth centuriesCE, the “hydraulic city” of Greater Angkor rep-resented the most extensive currently knownpreindustrial urban complex anywhere in theworld. They also urge similar mapping of otherancient tropical monumental complexes andtheir surrounding urban settlements. Researchto establish the chronology of settlement anddetail the nature of landscape modification atAngkor is continuing. However, enough is al-ready known to suggest that the extent and sub-stantial nature of landscape modification prob-ably spawned “very serious ecological problems

1In keeping with the classical origins of the term, palimpsestis used metaphorically to refer to the sequential rebuildingon parts of the same site over time, giving rise to a complexurban mosaic of structures dating from different periods.

www.annualreviews.org • Peri-Urban Environmental Issues 171

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

Greenfield sites:natural or agriculturalland converted tohousing or other urbanland use, usually at theurban fringe or inperi-urban areas

including deforestation, overpopulation, top-soil degradation, and erosion” (21, p. 14281).These would have had profound implicationsfor this highly integrated system, especially inthe context of unpredictable floods or wars.

For present purposes, two decisive points ofrelevance therefore emerge from this new his-torical evidence. First, the sense of dynamic,low-density urban expansion over a time spanof centuries linked to land-/waterscape mod-ification and the urbanization of nature im-plies progressive outward movement of GreaterAngkor’s urban fringe or PUI as a mosaic oflow-density settlement interspersed with agri-culture and other rural activities. The same mayhave happened in other ancient cities. If so,the peri-urban phenomenon is not new, justour identification thereof and the significancenow attached to it. Second, what we wouldtoday call environmentally unsustainable prac-tices may have been implicated in the declineof Greater Angkor. There may be lessons heretoo for present-day mega-urbanization.

URBAN FRINGES OFPOSTINDUSTRIAL CITIES

Concern with urban expansion and haphazarddevelopment at the urban fringe in the 1960sand 1970s coincided with the rise of counterur-banization, the process in which mainly wealth-ier residents, facilitated by widespread car own-ership and/or efficient public transport, soughtto escape large congested and polluted cities tolive in the surrounding countryside. This trendspawned much new greenfield developmentand forced up the price of housing in desirablerural villages and towns within daily or weeklycommuting range, often displacing poorer localpeople (1, 3, 4). More recently, the ICT revolu-tion has reduced the need for daily commutingand enabled some categories of professionals tolive in deep rural areas or even in cities far re-moved from their employment base.

Diseconomies of scale and changing produc-tion technologies have dramatically altered ge-ographies of production over the past 30-oddyears. Much heavy and manufacturing indus-

try has relocated to lower-cost countries, driv-ing many historically industrial cities to thebrink of economic collapse and generating highunemployment and poverty, especially amongworking-class (blue-collar) people. Subsequenturban regeneration, driven by the rise of high-tech industries, the explosion of business andpersonal services, and the new consumerism,took the heat out of counterurbanization (3) andsought—with varying degrees of success—toreinvent inner cities and disused harbor areas asdesirable living environments for younger pro-fessionals and one-person households, in par-ticular, and for tourists. Successful examples ofwaterfront redevelopment include San Fran-cisco, Vancouver, Toronto, Baltimore, London,Bristol, Liverpool, Sydney, and Singapore.

Rising incomes and aspirations for largefamily homes on extensive plots in greener ar-eas, linked to the spread of out-of-town urbanleisure facilities, shopping malls, and even newindustries in growing edge cities or beltway ag-glomerations have renewed pressure on and be-yond the urban fringe or rural-urban transitionzone. Recent literature on the subject reflectstheoretical and methodological shifts, currentpublic and planning concerns with environ-mental quality, and increasingly also aspects ofsustainability.

In the United Kingdom, concern currentlycenters on how and where to develop andabsorb the three million new homes requiredin terms of the government’s indicative plan toaccommodate the ongoing decline in averagehousehold size and increase in the overallpopulation (22). Brownfield (re)developmentand densification within existing urban areaswill not be adequate, so local authoritiesacross the southeast of England, where adisproportionate share of the burden willfall, have been instructed to identify andprepare substantial new greenfield sites inline with indicative targets. This is causinggreat public concern about the economic and,especially, the environmental consequences.Key among these are the congestion andpollution consequences of increasing vehicleownership and use within densifying urban

172 Simon

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

areas as well as the inevitable loss of large areasof high-quality agricultural and forest/amenityland to greenfield development (e.g., 23). Atanother level, the government’s high-profilecommitment to increasingly sustainable devel-opment has focused attention on the need forenhanced and more proactive public transportdevelopment in order to facilitate reducedreliance on private car usage. One aspect ofthis involves the United Kingdom meeting itsKyoto Protocol targets and leading current ef-forts to formulate an internationally agreeablepost-Kyoto regime on climate change.

French peri-urban areas [the term actu-ally used by Jean (20)] are also hard to de-fine more precisely than being intermediate be-tween the city and countryside on account oftheir complexity, but they reflect urban dynam-ics. As in Anglophone countries, debates andpolicies have evolved over the past 30 years.However, their contemporary importance liesin their estimated population of some 10 mil-lion spread across 10,400 communes in 1999.Jean attributes peri-urbanization to a familiarset of structural factors but shaped by the partic-ular nature of French urban local governmentand financial administration, and the “thirtyglorious years” of post-World War II growth(20). In sharp contrast to the Anglophone coun-tries, however, Jean’s account does not highlightenvironmental problems or direct concerns incurrent debates and policy agendas, which cen-ter instead on the nature of urban agglomer-ations, service inequalities, efforts to promoteintercommunal structures and identities, anddebates over peri-urban subsidiarity to urbanspaces:

Les espaces periurbains, confrontes a des sit-uations singulieres, tant sur le plan socialque fiscal, peuvent etre tente de developer des�intercommunalites individualistes�, de com-munes riche, localisees entre �les pays� et �lesagglomerations� ce qui invite a reflechir al’articulation entre les diverses structures inter-communales afin de renforcer leur coherence etleur efficacite, en evitant de renforcer le clivagerural/urbain. (20, p. 123)

In Germany, as elsewhere, quite substantialspatial reconfigurations have occurred throughprocesses of suburbanization, which are not en-tirely synonymous with peri-urbanization. Interms of spatial planning approaches, there hasbeen renewed attention to the delimitation andnature of city regions, discerning polycentricand patchwork structures and in-between cities(24–26). Attention has also been devoted to so-ciocultural expressions and interpretations oflife worlds at the urban fringe (27).

In the United States, issues at the urbanfringe are well represented in discussions ofland-use planning. Particular concerns are theenhancement of economic tools—including thevalue of spatial perspectives—for the preser-vation of agricultural land, seeking to under-stand and predict losses of rural agriculturaland forestry land to urban development, and tounderscore the importance of rural amenities(28–35).

Recent American Farmland Associationdata show a loss of two acres of farmlandto development every minute in a situationwhere one-third of U.S. farms and 16%of farmland were situated within metropoli-tan boundaries in 1993, producing a signifi-cant proportion of the country’s agriculturaloutput (36, p. 276). The economic, socialand environmental consequences—not leastfor sustainability—are profound. Although itwould be all too easy to become defensive oftraditional rural style agriculture and to experi-ence conflict with urban pressures, Erling (36,p. 276) sees a more positive and proactive ap-proach as more helpful:

Because so many forces come together inthis space, the urban-rural interface is alsothe place with the most potential for positivechange, a change that comes in the formof multifunctional urban agriculture. En-couraging multifunctional urban agriculturemeans developing creative and ingenious newapproaches to producing food amid compe-tition for land use. For instance, agriculturefrequently competes for space with wildlifehabitat and urban development. Combining

www.annualreviews.org • Peri-Urban Environmental Issues 173

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

functions within a land area, in a sense, doublesthe total available area. It also means findingnew ways to introduce food production toeveryday lifestyles, as well as rememberingand honoring the way culture and landscapehave been influenced by agriculture in thepast. Farmers on the urban fringe who are ableto keep their land protect it and encouragesmart growth within the city. Meanwhile,they serve numerous other functions in thecommunity.

Multifunctional peri-urban agriculture andthe search for sustainability in changing con-texts are themes identified in various countries,including Portugal’s capital, Lisbon (37). AsJohnston & Swallow (34, p. 2) point out, therecent popularity of conservation and “smartgrowth” in the United States is often inter-preted as constituting,

. . . a reaction to contemporary patterns of landconversion, characterized by an increase indispersed, low-density rural and urban-fringedevelopment . . . economists generally recog-nize it as a symptom of the market’s fail-ure to internalize the full range of nonmar-ket benefits associated with farm, forest andopen space . . . . Associated landscape changesmay impose often unforeseen service costson communities, reduce local production ofhigh-value or specialty crops, disrupt socialor community structure, and cause a loss ofecosystem services and other rural amenitybenefits . . . .

The economic and econometric tools thatthey and their contributors seek to refine areaimed essentially at internalizing costs and ben-efits in the belief—derived from neoclassicalwelfare economics—that this represents thebest and most effective way to tackle and elim-inate such externalities. More generally, theliterature reflects concerns with—and experi-mentation to improve—public awareness, per-ceptions, and participation in assessments ofamenity values and conservation priorities atthe rural-urban fringe (e.g., 38–40).

IN SITU URBANIZATION ANDENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMSIN CHINA

Over the past 25 years or so, China has been ex-periencing arguably the most rapid, dramatic,and far-reaching process of urbanization in hu-man history. It therefore merits separate atten-tion, despite both similarities and differencesfrom experiences elsewhere. The transforma-tion of Beijing and the principal eastern sea-ports, most notably Shanghai, Tianjin, and thecluster in the Pearl River Delta (with a popu-lation well over 30 million) (41, p. 27), has re-ceived the most attention. Today, the YangtzeRiver Delta has a population of some 140million (T.G. McGee, personal communica-tion, December 11, 2007). However, urban-ization has been occurring countrywide, al-beit in highly differentiated forms, reflectingthe distinctive national and regional politicaleconomies.

In part, this reflected policy shifts fromthe Mao era—when heavy and other strate-gic industries were deliberately dispersed inwestern and central regions for security rea-sons and in order to minimize regional wageinequalities—to the increasingly economicallyliberalized program of the reformist regime un-der Deng Xiaoping. For instance, industrializa-tion of the coastal region was a key initial prior-ity of the latter, formalized in the Seventh FiveYear Plan (1986–1990), with the Ladder-StepDoctrine to spread industrialization to the cen-tral and western regions thereafter (41). Inlandport cities on the Yellow and Yangtze rivers,like Chongqing and Wuhan, along with numer-ous landlocked cities in the central region, haveindeed subsequently experienced rapid expan-sion, industrialization, and modernization. Thewestern region now lags far behind and is sub-stantially poorer than the others. The state has,in recent five-year plans and other initiatives,shown growing awareness of the need to ad-dress regional disparities to help stem the flowof rural-urban migrants and avoid social unrest(41, 42).

174 Simon

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

Economic Liberalization

Central to economic liberalization has beenthe relaxation of central control, especially theMaoist restrictions on foreign direct invest-ment (FDI) and the devolution of responsibil-ities to lower levels of government. Hence, lo-cal entrepreneurship and European- and NorthAmerican-style place marketing and local boos-terism have emerged as key factors in directingthe flow of FDI and the fortunes of particularlocalities.

Following introduction of the household re-sponsibility system to replace collective farmsin 1983, rural urbanization and industrializa-tion also commenced. In diverse forms, theseprocesses transformed many villages, especiallyin relative proximity to large cities where ruralpopulation densities were very high (compara-ble to urban densities in other countries). Thisspread the availability of nonagricultural in-comes and improved living standards, while re-ducing migration pressures—what Friedmann(41, p. 41) calls in situ urbanization.

Closer to fast-growing cities, peri-urbaniza-tion has also been documented as a large-scale, industrially driven process (41, pp. 52–54, 43–45). Some aspects and some districtsshare features with the East Asian EMRs, dis-cussed above (46); indeed, McGee et al. (42)identify Guandong-Hong Kong as an EMR;other districts have become completely urban-ized, absorbed by growing cities and some-times even incorporated as urban administra-tive districts. The term villages is thereforetoday something of a misnomer, principallyidentified in territorial-administrative termsand in the memories of older residents.

Environmental Degradation

These diverse urbanization and peri-urbanization processes have had diverseand complex human consequences, but the fo-cus here is on the environmental implications.These have generally been severe and are in-creasingly recognized officially as unsustainable(41, 47). Urgent remediation and prevention

are therefore essential. Levels of river, soil, andgroundwater contamination from often toxicwaste are high, resulting in health problemsand severe agricultural contamination. Airpollution is chronic, not just in large cities likeBeijing, where widespread respiratory illnessand the forthcoming Olympic Games havefocused attention on the problem, but alsoin peri-urban and rural areas characterizedby often (but by no means always) outdatedtechnologies and lack of controls. As elsewhere,urbanization may increase gross water avail-ability through reduced evapotranspirationand increased runoff, but unless this can beharvested, and is either relatively unpollutedor can be purified, usable water supply is likelyto decline (48).

The Chinese government’s attitude to in-dustrialization at any cost has changed dramati-cally in the last two years. Loss of prime agricul-tural land to urban activities in high-potentialareas like the major river deltas—preciselywhere urbanization has been most rapid andextensive—cannot readily and sustainably becompensated for by bringing lower-potentialland elsewhere into production or by intensi-fying existing production. Pollution abatementmeasures and greenhouse gas emission reduc-tions are now being introduced energetically.This mirrors China’s change of attitude to theclimate change debate and acceptance of theimplications of the Intergovernmental Panel ofClimate Change’s Fourth Assessment Reportin 2007 (48a). Having long dismissed inter-national campaigns over the social and envi-ronmental implications of the massive ThreeGorges Dam on the Yangtze River, the govern-ment admitted for the first time in late 2007that the project has been environmentally dis-astrous for affected rural and urban popula-tions alike, including increased flooding. Thesehopeful signs bode well if carried throughand implemented broadly. Internationally, thepolitical significance of this attitudinal shiftis potentially dramatic, having the potentialnot only to transform negotiations on climatechange and a successor to the Kyoto Protocolbut also to change attitudes in other rapidly

www.annualreviews.org • Peri-Urban Environmental Issues 175

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

Livelihood activities:how individuals or(more commonly)households undertakea variety of activities inorder to meet orexceed survival needs

urbanizing and industrializing poorer coun-tries, where the environment usually remains alow priority relative to employment creation,economic growth, and antipoverty measures(see below).

PERI-URBANIZATION AND THEENVIRONMENT IN OTHER LOW-AND MIDDLE-INCOME REGIONS

Environmental issues and problems havefeatured prominently in processes of peri-urbanization and the nature of PUIs almosteverywhere in the global South or develop-ing world (e.g., 13, 14, 49). The diversity ofprocesses precludes full discussion here. In-stead, this section is organized thematicallyin order to elucidate the various categoriesof development-environment issues that havereceived attention. Issues of poverty and thestruggle to survive and find adequate livelihoodactivities amid rapid change loom large.

As in postindustrial countries and China, it isimportant to underscore that PUIs everywhereare not independent or isolated zones but—asdefined above—highly dynamic interfaces be-tween urban and rural relations. Forces andpressures acting in the PUI are therefore notonly local but national and even international,in terms of human mobility, commodity and fi-nancial flows and their valuation, and claimson environmental resources (50). As Douglas(51, pp. 19–20) has suggested, an ecosystem dy-namics approach is also compatible with thisview:

If . . . human interventions are seen as pertur-bations of ecosystems, peri-urban environ-mental change becomes part of the global bio-geochemical cycling supporting all life. Whatmakes the peri-urban environment so inter-esting is the complexity of political, economicand social drivers impacting locally on thosebiogeochemical cycles and the resulting out-comes for the health, well-being and economicsurvival of people in peri-urban communities.Ecosystem dynamics can be used to link deci-sions and actions by one agency to outcomes

and consequences for communities and indi-viduals. In this way, we can allocate responsi-bilities, identify environmental injustices andassess the consequences . . . .

The following brief survey adopts elementsof this approach within a structure that high-lights the principal categories of environmentalissue. This will be linked at the end to the no-tion of urban ecological footprints introducedby Rees (52). Use of these footprints enablesthe identification of resource and environmen-tal impacts of a city beyond its perimeter.

Land Conversion

As already indicated with respect to China, oneof the most intractable environmental issues ev-erywhere is the inevitable conversion of agricul-tural and forested land to urban uses, principallyhousing, commercial and industrial premises,and infrastructure such as roads, power sta-tions and electricity servitudes, waterways, air-ports, golf courses, other land-extensive recre-ational facilities, waste dumps, and sewagetreatment plants. This reflects the availabilityof larger tracts of relatively undeveloped andcheaper land, and the ability to site disturbance-causing or polluting facilities away from wealth-ier and/or dense urban populations because fewcities and towns have peri-urban densities ap-proaching those of eastern and central China.In other words, negative environmental exter-nalities may be imposed on the PUI (e.g., 50,51).

The consequences—especially for poor PUIinhabitants—of turning fields and forests intobricks and concrete increase in severity as theproportion of agricultural land decreases. It istherefore useful to recall the idea of an urban-rural gradient through the PUI, or an inner andouter zone within it, distinguished above. Con-versely, urbanization represents an unparalleledopportunity to improve living conditions, qual-ity of life, and available resources, but the out-come is contingent on local circumstances andis likely to have differential impacts both geo-graphically and socially.

176 Simon

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

The precise process by which land leases orsales occur reflects local institutional structures,land tenure systems, and the relative powerof key stakeholders. Where, as is common inAfrica and South and Southeast Asia, peri-urban land is held under some form of commu-nal tenure or state ownership, the chief, elders,village council, or local officials will usually pre-side over approaches by outsiders to acquireland. Corruption and self-aggrandizement bysuch leaders are widespread, especially where—as in China—vast profits are available almostinstantly. Under traditional customary tenure,the chief or elders received tribute in livestockor agricultural products in return for usufructrights to land that was ultimately held in trust byand for the community in perpetuity. However,monetization of economies almost everywherehas meant that such transactions now take placewith cash and represent de facto alienation ofland. Displaced households may receive alter-native farmland (where this is still available) ora proportion of the money receipts at the dis-cretion of the chief or officials. Even wherethis occurs, the compensation may be inade-quate, and all too often such households be-come impoverished, no longer able to live fromagriculture (13, 14, 53). Where social institu-tions and controls remain strong or leaders aremore accountable, the entire village may pros-per through careful investment of the funds andincome diversification, as has occurred in peri-urban China (41).

As mentioned above with reference toChina, evapotranspiration is reduced, butrunoff increases as natural surfaces and landcover are replaced by impervious building androad surfacing materials. Runoff—both fromthis source and the diversion of or interfer-ence with natural drainage hydrology—can cre-ate major erosion problems in the absence ofadequate storm water drainage and storage fa-cilities (which is the norm), even damagingor undermining houses and infrastructure inthe aftermath of intense tropical or subtropicalrainfall events. Runoff also commonly becomescontaminated by urban activities and wastes,

necessitating expensive treatment if it is to beimpounded and utilized.

Arriving outsiders comprise both rural mi-grants seeking more affordable land and shel-ter than is available in town (who are typicallypoorer or little wealthier than most indigenesand who may find diverse livelihood opportuni-ties in the PUI invaluable) and urban dwellersseeking larger, cheaper plots of land beyond thebuilt-up urban area. Such people may be poor,unable to acquire any reasonable urban base orwealthier people intending to construct large,modern (often western-style) homes on largerplots. A third category comprises urban devel-opers and speculators buying up land for laterresale or on which to construct housing or in-dustrial premises, perhaps in association withforeign investors. All have different effects onthe PUI in terms of relative numbers and the di-rect and indirect impacts of their investments,livelihood activities, and intended duration ofliving or working in the PUI.

Peri-Urban Agricultureand the Environment

Because of their similarities, common role infeeding cities, and the conceptual difficultiesof distinguishing them, urban and peri-urbanagriculture are commonly assessed together.Given the focus of this article, I address onlythe PUI. On the one hand, peri-urban culti-vation becomes more difficult and precariouswhen the likelihood of land sale and urban de-velopment increases. Loss of cultivable land toa combination of sale and land degradation alsoreduces local food self-reliance and the abilityto sell any surpluses to urban dwellers.

On the other hand, greater proximity andaccessibility to the enlarged urban market cancreate—at least for a time until the arrival ofthe concrete carpet—new opportunities to in-tensify peri-urban agriculture and to special-ize in higher-value horticultural crops that re-quire greater husbandry (and hence financialoutlay and perhaps risk) but result in greaterreturns. The scale and degree of organization

www.annualreviews.org • Peri-Urban Environmental Issues 177

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

in such ventures varies from individual farmersor households to groups of neighbors or kincollaborating to clear, tend, and guard fieldson which they cultivate individual plots, andeven formal cooperatives. Proximity to mar-kets cuts transport costs and improves mar-ket information, especially when farmers areable to visit the market regularly or utilize mo-bile phones and other technologies to keepabreast of fluctuations in supply and prices.However, excessive and often inappropriate useof fertilizer and inorganic pesticides contami-nates crops, soils, and groundwater and causeshealth problems for farmers, unless adequateprotective gear is worn, and for consumers. (51,54–66).

Experiments with composting organicdomestic waste (e.g., from food) have demon-strated considerable potential to reduce wastedisposal needs and to enhance soil qualityfor agriculture in peri-urban Kumasi, Ghana,without the financial or environmental costsof commercial fertilizer. However, uptake andcommercial sustainability require perseveranceand patience in a situation where trading orwage labor provide quicker incomes (67).Aquaculture may also prove feasible andenvironmentally useful if agricultural wasteis utilized as fish feed, as on the outskirtsof Kolkota (68). In semiarid and arid zones,where pastoralists become sedentarized eitherthrough choice or official policy, their livestockcan present new challenges to ensure sus-tainable livelihoods without excessive grazingand environmental degradation (69). In othercontexts, large-scale livestock rearing andfattening on intensive feedlots may occur,taking advantage of proximity to abattoirs,food processing plants, and urban markets formeat. As urbanization progresses, however,such activities tend to relocate beyond the PUI.Unless carefully controlled, environmentalconsequences of livestock rearing and relatedactivities may include pollution and eutrophi-cation of surface water and wetlands, methaneand other gaseous emissions, strong smells,noise, and heavy vehicular traffic (70, pp. 19,68–71).

Other Forms of PUI Resource Use

Peri-urban and rural resources have been ex-ploited for urban use throughout urban history.However, the rate and scale of resource de-pletion and degradation have recently becomeproblematic as the scale of urbanism has grownand as resource scarcity has increased. The mostbasic such resource is water, abstracted throughreservoirs, treatment plants, and a piped reticu-lation system. However, the spread of boreholesand shallow wells in suburban and peri-urbanareas to support growing numbers of people(including a proportion utilizing many water-intensive modern appliances) living where thereis no piped supply often lowers the water ta-ble below the level of tree roots, causing shadeand fruit trees to die. Recharge during the rainyseason is commonly inadequate to sustain suchlong-term pressure on the resource.

Urban and peri-urban construction requiresever larger quantities of sand, gravel and rocks,commonly extracted from modest borrow pitsor quarries of varying size in the PUI. Com-pensation to local landowners varies but reha-bilitation of exhausted sites remains rare. Apartfrom visual disamenity (a low priority to poorresidents), surrounding areas can suffer dam-age from the actual quarrying and as a result ofheavy dust deposition. If clays and other soilsare suitable for brick or cement making, thescale of operations will increase, and the prob-lems be exacerbated. Water may be abstractedfor use in quarrying; the requirements for ce-ment or brick making are heavy. Pools of waterin abandoned workings provide ready breedinggrounds for disease vectors. Sometimes suchworkings are used as landfill sites for urbanrefuse (see below), which may fill the holes butcan cause other problems unless the site is ap-propriately prepared and maintained (51, 64,71, 72).

Wood, reeds, and grasses are widely usedconstruction, fencing, and roofing materials.Unsustainable harvesting practices damage theenvironment, and loss of ground cover pro-motes soil erosion. Overexploitation of partic-ular species contributes to the decline of birds,

178 Simon

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

mammals, and insects dependent on them andcontributes to biodiversity loss.

Waste Disposal and Contamination

The widespread location of polluting infras-tructure, such as refuse dumps and sewagetreatment plans, in the PUI imposes negativeexternalities on local residents. These com-prise disturbance from large numbers of dumptrucks, sewage tankers, and livestock trans-porters traversing key roads; smell and po-tentially disease-carrying vectors such as flies,mosquitoes, and rodents; and contaminationof soil and groundwater by leachate becausefew such facilities are adequately designed andmaintained. The associated inequity and distri-butional issues are underscored by the generalabsence or gross inadequacy of sanitary facili-ties and other services for peri-urban residents,who are mostly reliant on pit latrines (the inap-propriate siting of which also often contributesto groundwater contamination), use of nearbystreams or bushland, and unmaintained com-munal refuse dumps. All of these have negativeenvironmental implications.

Rivers flowing through major urban areascommonly emerge with a heavy pollution load,ranging from raw sewage to household refuseand a cocktail of industrial and chemical efflu-ent, much of it hazardous to health. The lack ofon-site industrial waste capture and treatmentfacilities, and/or the inadequacy of regulationsand enforcement to avoid such contamination,arises through naked corporate self-interest,inadequate municipal or government capacity,and often corruption of enforcement officials.Peri-urban residents downstream of cities arethus forced to drink and utilize contaminatedwater, to eat and catch fish that may have unsafelevels of heavy metals and other toxins in theirbody tissue, and so forth. Contamination levelsare often many times higher than the respectiveWorld Health Organization limits. In extremecases, people are forced to seek alternative, in-evitably more costly water and protein sourcesor to suffer the health consequences (51, 71,73).

Usually, the poorest households and mem-bers of the community, who are least able toresist the changes or to access alternative re-sources or livelihood activities, are the most vul-nerable. The evidence from a wide variety ofsituations also points to increasing wealth dis-parities and social differentiation among bothindigenous residents and immigrants as peri-urbanization proceeds. PUIs become increas-ingly closely integrated with urban economiesand resource flows, albeit in changing ways andaffecting different sets of people at differentstages. This underscores the urban footprintconcept, namely the extent of the wider arearequired to support a city and its people.

CONCLUSIONS

This review has broken with convention byseeking to explore environmental issues andproblems at the PUI or urban fringe in di-verse contexts worldwide rather than just in aparticular category of countries or geographi-cal region. Nevertheless, in order to illustratesome of the differences and similarities betweengroups of countries defined in terms of histori-cal political economies, they have been assessedseparately. However, this should not be takenas implying that they constitute somehow in-ternally coherent or homogeneous groupings.On the contrary, their diversity is profound,and the connections across groups are increas-ing. Moreover, despite that, the evidence sur-veyed shows that many processes, concerns, andproblems are similar, perhaps varying in ex-tent, severity, and likely impact, if only becauseof the differing resource bases, median livingstandards, and institutional capacities. In thefuture, such categorizations may be superflu-ous. New technologies, e.g., aircraft requiringlonger runways and larger terminals, increasethe land and infrastructural requirements ev-erywhere; the same applies to the spread ofmobile telephone transmitters and elite andmiddle-class recreational land uses,such as golfcourses in the urban fringe/edge city and PUI.

Land-use conflicts and changes to tradi-tional livelihoods are almost inevitable in such

www.annualreviews.org • Peri-Urban Environmental Issues 179

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

situations of flux and dynamic activity changes.Concerns about the loss of often high-potentialagricultural land are universal, although the sig-nificance for local or national self-reliance andfor households affected may be very different.A smallholder or farmer selling his land to ahousing developer in Europe or North Amer-ica is in a very different position to a subsistenceperi-urban household in Africa or Asia havingits family plot in communal lands sold from un-der it by the chief or village elders. Landfill sitesand sewage treatment works occur everywhere;however, construction standards and mainte-nance levels vary considerably, with the great-est redress available to citizens with the greatestmeans and in countries where the standards are,ironically, highest.

Capitalist globalization is weaving the worldever more tightly into an integrated systemdriven by profit seeking. Within this context,markets, commodity flows, and human migra-tion operate and articulate at various scalesand through diverse spaces. Previously sepa-rate areas with distinct identities and activitymixes are becoming linked through ongoing—and, as in China—dramatic urbanization andinfrastructural corridors. This applies also torural, peri-urban, and urban zones of individualcountries and which are increasingly formingin EMRs across national borders too, whetheralong the U.S.-Mexican border, within the Eu-ropean Union, the Singapore EMR (which em-braces adjacent parts of Malaysia and Indone-sia), or the increasingly integrated network ofmushrooming cities spanning the United ArabEmirates. The ways in which these spaces areorganized, and how they are lived and experi-enced by different groups of people, are alsoevolving. A common feature of PUIs in poorcountries is the diversity of livelihood activ-ities required by individuals and householdsin order to spread risk and gain adequate in-comes. This is far less true in richer contexts,where most people have considerable dispos-able leisure time.

Ironically, perhaps, almost all categoriesof urban(izing) place are becoming less self-reliant, more dependent on intensive resource

use and modern technologies, and often lesssustainable, just as sustainability and the likelyimpact of global environmental change (GEC)are beginning to feature more prominently onpublic agendas. Given the dynamic but urban-izing land-use mix and population structure inPUIs, these interface zones will contribute in-creasingly to GEC over time, as well as expe-rience its impacts. Urban footprints of all butthe smallest, most local service centers are ac-tually increasing as resources are acquired fromever-larger areas, even globally. Waste disposalalso covers greater distances as it is differenti-ated and dumped or recycled. Although unre-cyclable and organic waste may go no furtherthan a peri-urban municipal landfill site or in-cinerator, scrap metal and old computers maycross the world for smelting and reclamation ofvaluable metals.

In view of the diversity of conditions prevail-ing within and between countries, strategies toimprove conditions will necessarily have to bedesigned for local appropriateness. Certainly,no blueprint or off-the-shelf solutions will beworkable. However, a few broad policy implica-tions can be derived from the available evidenceand on the basis of the above review.

First, each city’s PUI needs to be includedwithin the urban planning system because itforms part of the functional urban area and theurban ecological footprint. Many large citiesand conurbations are hamstrung by the lack ofa strategic or integrated planning mechanismthat transcends their constituent local author-ity boundaries. Moreover, the fact that PUIscommonly straddle a substantial number of ur-ban and surrounding rural local authorities un-derscores the necessity of establishing such aintegrated metropolitan planning system. Thiswould also facilitate the urgent challenge of ad-dressing GEC at the scale of functional urbanareas rather than just the contiguous built-upzones.

Second, effective planning for such anextended geographical area will require ade-quate and appropriate levels of local authorityand metropolitan capacity and resources. Inmany poorer countries, governance capacity

180 Simon

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

is totally inadequate. Third, and linked to thesecond point, is that the PUI’s dynamic naturedemands a flexibility of planning mechanismsand institutions that is seldom evident even forthe fully built-up urban area under any systemof governance. In particular, a rather differentbalance between permissive and restrictiveplanning and development control is needed.Fourth, fast-growing urban areas in manypoor countries are characterized by conflictsbetween Western-derived and individualizedland tenure systems and those of indigenousorigin, which have traditionally been basedon communal principles. Inclusion of the PUIwithin the planning system may increase thiscomplexity by including more communal landalbeit areas where individualization of tenureis occurring rapidly.

Fifth, many urban mayors or governors andtheir administrations have little if any commit-ment to the PUI or concern for issues there.

This reflects their urban orientation plus thelower concentrations of infrastructure, build-ings, and voters in the PUI relative to coreurban zones. Changing such attitudes is es-sential and might most effectively be achievedby means of practical and financial demon-stration of the interrelationships between ur-ban and PUIs. Following directly from this isthe sixth and final implication, namely the im-perative of formulating and implementing sus-tainable strategies to address the often con-flicting resource and service demands of richand poor people, who are commonly concen-trated in separate and highly segregated neigh-borhoods. Although historically, PUI residentshave been relatively and/or absolutely poor,outmigration of wealthier people to constructlarge houses on cheaper land in the PUI of-ten changes the socioeconomic profile of resi-dents, perhaps thereby adding “voice” to PUIconstituencies.

SUMMARY POINTS

1. Urban fringe/peri-urban interface (PUI) issues are widespread nowadays but have dif-fering significance and importance according to various factors, including land tenuresystems, rate and scale of urbanization, availability of employment, standards of livingand median incomes, resources, and the capacity of local governance institutions.

2. Although generally considered a present-day phenomenon, new archaeological ev-idence suggests strongly that important PUIs/zones may have characterized major(pre)industrial cities in different world regions.

3. In western Europe and North America, counterurbanization during the late 1960s and1970s focused attention on the urban fringe and beyond; more recent beltway/edge citydevelopments have changed the nature of pressures there and focused attention anewon land-use zoning and planning. Environmental concerns are less prominent in Francethan the United Kingdom and North America.

4. Chinese urbanization and peri-urbanization has been unprecedented in rate, scale, anddistribution, combining mass migration with in situ rural urbanization and industrial-ization. The huge environmental costs of unbridled economic modernization are nowbelatedly receiving urgent official attention.

5. Key PUI issues in poor and middle-income countries include the rate and scale of land-use and land-cover change, loss of agricultural land but also some new opportunitiesfor commercial market-oriented cultivation of higher-value crops, unsustainable use anddepletion of both renewable and nonrenewable resources, and the environmental andhealth impacts of urban landfills and waterborne wastes.

www.annualreviews.org • Peri-Urban Environmental Issues 181

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

6. Intensifying globalization is integrating traditionally rural, peri-urban, and urban spacesincreasingly closely, both within and also across national boundaries. Although oftenstill sharp, similarities and differences in the nature of peri-urban environmental issuesaround the world appear to be becoming more comparable as urban footprints extend.The impacts of global environmental change will also be felt increasingly across thesetransition zones.

FUTURE ISSUES

1. Strategic/integrated urban planning is needed across numerous local authority bound-aries (including different categories of local authority).

2. Ensuring that local/metropolitan government has adequate capacity and resources.

3. Ensuring that planning systems in contexts of dynamic change remain flexible.

4. Conflicts between different land tenure and planning systems need resolution.

5. Political commitment to peri-urban/fringe issues is often regarded as marginal by therespective local authorities.

6. Conflicting resource demands of rich and poor people need to be addressed with sus-tainable strategies.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The author is not aware of any biases that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of thisreview.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Frauke Kraas and Andrew Adam-Bradford identified very useful sources; the latter also commentedhelpfully on the draft review, as did several editorial board members and other reviewers.

LITERATURE CITED

1. Berry BJ. 1973. The Human Consequences of Urbanisation. London: Macmillan. 205 pp.2. Christopher AJ. 1977. Early settlement and the cadastral framework. In Salisbury; a Geographical Survey

of the Capital of Rhodesia, ed. G Kay, M Smout, pp. 14–25. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 119 pp.3. Fielding AJ. 1989. Migration and urbanization in Western Europe since 1950. Geogr. J. 155(1):60–694. Champion AJ. 1999. Urbanization and counterurbanization. In Applied Geography: An Introduction to Useful

Research in Physical, Environmental and Human Geography, ed. M Pacione, pp. 347–357. London/New York:Routledge. 664 pp.

5. Garreau J. 1991. Edge City: Life on the New Frontier. New York: Doubleday/Anchor. 548 pp.6. Ginsberg N, Koppel B, McGee T, eds. 1991. The Extended Metropolis: Settlement Transition in Asia.

Honolulu: Hawaii Univ. Press7. Parnwell MJ, Wongsuphasawat L. 1997. Between the global and the local: extended metropolitanisation

and industrial decision making in Thailand. Third World Plan. Rev. 19(2):119–388. Wang MYL. 1997. The disappearing rural-urban boundary: rural socioeconomic transformation in the

Shenyang-Dalian region of China. Third World Plan. Rev. 19(3):229–50

182 Simon

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

9. Douglass M. 1998. A regional network strategy for reciprocal rural-urban linkages: an agenda for policyresearch with reference to Indonesia. Third World Plan. Rev. 20(1):1–33

10. Kelly PF. 1998. The politics of urban-rural relations: land use conversions in the Philippines. Environ.Urban. 10(1):35–54

11. Davila J. 2006. Falling between stools? Policies, strategies and the peri-urban interface. See Ref. 75,pp. 44–56

12. Simon D. 2001. Veranderungen von urban-landlichen Zonen in Afrikanishcen Stadten. Peripherie81/82:138–61

13. Simon D, McGregor D, Thompson D. 2006. Contemporary perspectives on the peri-urban zones ofcities in developing areas. See Ref. 75, pp. 1–17

14. Brook R, Davila J, eds. 2000. The Peri-Urban Interface: A Tale of Two Cities. Bangor/London: Univ. Wales,Dev. Plan. Unit, Univ. Coll. London

15. Mbiba B, Huchzermeyer M. 2002. Contentious development: peri-urban studies in sub-Saharan Africa.Prog. Devel. Studs. 2(2):113–31

16. Simon D, McGregor D, Nsiah-Gyabaah K. 2004. The changing urban-rural interface of African cities:definitional issues and an application to Kumasi, Ghana. Environ. Urban. 16(1):235–47

17. Montgomery MR, Stren R, Cohen B, Reed HE, eds. 2003. Cities Transformed: Demographic Change andIts Implications in the Developing World. Washington, DC/London: Natl. Acad. Sci./Earthscan. 560 pp.

18. Phillips D, Williams K, Andrews G, Clarke J, Carter M, et al. 1999. Literature review on peri-urbannatural resource conceptualisation and management approaches, Final Tech. Rep. Proj. R6949, DFID Nat.Resour. Syst. Program. Nottingham: Univ. Nottingham/Univ. Liverpool

19. Agossou C. 2005. Le continuum rural urbain: inter fonctionnalite et gesion des Reseaux sociaux a Cotonou(Benin). See Ref. 76, pp. 233–51

20. Jean Y. 2005. Espace periurbains en France: un tiers espace dechire entre la ville et la campagne. SeeRef. 76, pp. 89–123

21. Evans D, Pottier C, Fletcher R, Hensley S, Tapley I, et al. 2007. A comprehensive archaeologicalmap of the world’s largest preindustrial settlement complex at Angkor, Cambodia. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci.104(36):14277–82

22. Dep. Communities Local Gov. 2007. Homes for the future: more affordable, more sustainable. Housing GreenPap. Dep. Communities Local Gov., London. 133 pp.

23. Gallent N, Andersson J, Bianconi M. 2006. Planning on the Edge: The Context for Planning at the Rural-Urban Fringe. London/New York: Routledge. 266 pp.

24. Kunzmann KR. 2001. Welche Zukunfte fur Suburbia? Acht Inseln im Archipel der Stadtregion. SeeRef. 25, pp. 213–22

25. Brake K, Dangschat JS, Herfert G, ed. 2001. Suburbanisierung in Deutschland—Aktuelle Tendenzen.Opladen: Leske & Budrich. 284 pp.

26. Sieverts T. 2001. Jenseits von Zwischenstadt: de Regionale als Mobile; Ein Beitrag zu einer gestaltendenRegionalplanung. See Ref. 25, pp. 235–46

27. Hahn A. 2001. Lebenswelten am Rand: Interpretationen zum kulturellen Ausdruck von Wohnsuburban-isierung. See Ref. 25, pp. 223–34

28. Irwin EG, Bell KP, Geoghegan J. 2006. Forecasting residential land use change. See Ref. 77, pp. 55–8229. Templeton J, Hite D, Sohngen B. 2006. Forecasting development at the urban fringe. See Ref. 77,

pp. 83–9730. Lynch L. 2006. Critical mass: Does the number of productive farmland acres or farms affect farmland

loss? See Ref. 77, pp. 119–4731. Geoghegan J, Lynch L, Bucholtz SJ. 2006. Are agricultural land preservation programs self-financing?

See Ref. 77, pp. 149–6932. Batie SS. 2006. A multifunctional approach to northeast agriculture. See Ref. 77, pp. 205–1633. Nickerson CJ, Hellerstein DM. 2006. Farmland preservation programs and the importance of rural

amenities. See Ref. 77, pp. 217–3634. Johnston RI, Swallow SK. 2006. Introduction: Economics and contemporary land use policy. See

Ref. 77, pp. 1–18

www.annualreviews.org • Peri-Urban Environmental Issues 183

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

35. Adelaja S, Colunga-Garcia M, Gibson MA, Lake MB. 2007. Incorporating market and ecological goalsin setting farmland preservation targets. See Ref. 78, pp. 265–69

36. Erling G. 2007. Multifunctional agriculture and the urban-rural interface. See Ref. 78, pp. 275–7837. Carvalho Rodrigues MIM. 2007. Peri-urban agriculture and Mediterranean ecosystems: the Azeitao

cheese production system as an example of sustainable multifunctional agriculture in Lisbon metropolitanarea. See Ref. 78, pp. 279–82

38. Mathews LG, Lancaster A, Rex A, O’Leary D, Callahan A. 2007. Practising what we preach: usingcommunity-based research methods to facilitate multidirectional and multilayered information exchangealong the urban-rural fringe. See Ref. 78, pp. 32–35

39. Hiner C. 2007. Negotiating the rural-urban interface in rural Elk Grove: community advocacy andparticipation. See Ref. 78, pp. 36–39

40. Polyakov M, Zhang D. 2007. A comparison of econometric approaches to predict land cover dynamicsalong an urban-rural gradient. See Ref. 78, pp. 150–53

41. Friedmann J. 2005. China’s Urban Transition. Minneapolis: Univ. Minn. Press. 168 pp.42. Mc Gee TG, Lin CS, Marton A, Wang M, Wu J. 2007. China’s Urban Space. Development Under Market

Socialism. London/New York: Routledge. 288 pp.43. Webster D. 2002. On the Edge: Shaping the future of peri-urban East Asia. Asia/Pacific Res. Cent. Discuss.

Pap., Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA44. Webster D, Muller L. 2002. Challenges of peri-urbanization in the lower Yangtze region: the case of Hangzhou-

Ninbo corridor. Asia/Pacific Res. Cent. Discuss. Pap., Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA45. Webster D, Cai J, Muller L, Luo B. 2003. Emerging third stage peri-urbanization: functional specialization

in the Hangzhou peri-urban region. Asia/Pacific Res. Cent. Discuss. Pap., Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA46. Hudalah D, Winarso H, Woltjer J. 2007. Peri-urbanisation in East Asia. Int. Dev. Plan. Rev. 29(4):503–1947. Wang Y. 2004. Environmental degradation and environmental threats in China. Environ. Monit. Assess.

90:161–6948. Liu M, Tian H, Zhang C, Chen G, Ren W, et al. 2007. Effects of urbanization and land-use change on

water yield—a case study of Haihe Basin in China. See Ref. 78, pp. 94–10048a. Intergov. Panel Clim. Change. 2007. Climate Change 2007. http://www.ipcc.ch/49. Yankson PWK, Gough KV. 1999. The environmental impact of rapid urbanization in the peri-urban

area of Accra, Ghana. Danish J. Geogr. 99:89–10050. Allen A. 2006. Understanding environmental change in the context of rural-urban interactions. unity-

based waste management strategies: peri-urban interface, Kumasi, Ghana. See Ref. 75, pp. 30–4351. Douglas I. 2006. Peri-urban ecosystems and societies: transitional zones and contrasting values. See

Ref. 75, pp. 18–2952. Rees WE. 1992. Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: what urban economics leaves

out. Environ. Urban. 4(2):121–3053. Vij M. 2005. Changing rural land values at the urban fringe of Bhopal. See Ref. 79, pp. 231–4354. Losada H, Martınez H, Vieyra J, Pealing R, Zavala R, et al. 1998. Urban agriculture in the metropoli-

tan zone of Mexico City: changes over time in urban, suburban and peri-urban areas. Environ. Urban.10(2):37–54

55. Little PD. 1999. Confronting change: contract farming and production relations in peri-urban areas ofsub-Saharan Africa. BASIS-CRSP Res. Pap., Inst. Dev. Anthropol., Binghamton, NY

56. Singh RPB, Sen C. 2001. The structure of peri-urban agricultural environment in Varanasi DevelopmentRegion. Nat. Geogr. J. India 47:63–74

57. Fall ST, Fall AS, Cisse I, Badiane A, Fall CA, Diao MB. 2005. Integration horticulture—elevage dansles systemes agricoles urbains de la zone des Niayes (Senegal). See Ref. 76, pp. 445–78

58. Mazumdar M. 2005. Role of urban and peri-urban agriculture in metropolitan city management. SeeRef. 79, pp. 150–96

59. Harris F, Pasquini M, Dung J, Adepetu A. 2006. The environmental and social impacts of peri-urbanirrigated vegetable production around Jos, Nigeria. See Ref. 75, pp. 57–73

60. Lynch K, Poole N. 2006. Horticulture and market information at the peri-urban interface: agriculturalmarketing in Tanzania. See Ref. 75, pp. 74–93

184 Simon

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

ANRV357-EG33-08 ARI 15 September 2008 15:9

61. Brook RM, Bhat P, Nitturkar A. 2006. Livelihoods from dairying enterprises for the landless in theperi-urban interface around Hubli-Dharwad, India. See Ref. 75, pp. 94–103

62. Niang S, Balde D, ed. 2006. Providing the city with fresh vegetables from urban and peri-urban spaces. Socialand economic benefits and constraints, impacts on public health: the case of Patte d’Oie (Commune of Dakar,Senegal). Dakar/Ottawa: Minist. Health Med. Prev., Dep. Public Health, Int. Dev. Res. Cent.

63. Mycoo M. 2006. Sustainable livelihoods in the peri-urban interface: Anse La Raye, St Lucia. SeeRef. 75, pp. 134–48

64. Stevens L, Berger R, Kinyanjui MK. 2006. Promoting the interests of the poor in the peri-urban interface:the experience of the Intermediate Technology Development Group in Kenya. See Ref. 75, pp. 266–86

65. Balla MK, Awasthi KD, Pradhan BM. 2007. Analysis of land-use changes and associated socioeconomicfactors in Galaundu-Pokhare Khola watershed in Mid-Hills region of Nepal. See Ref. 78, pp. 105–9

66. Akintayo OI, Lawal BO. 2007. Livelihoods in the peri-urban interface of Ibadan: opportunities forsustainable development. See Ref. 78, pp. 110–13

67. Adam-Bradford A, McGregor D, Simon D. 2006. Community-based waste management strategies: peri-urban interface, Kumasi, Ghana. See Ref. 75, pp. 231–45

68. Mukherjee M. 2006. Waste-fed fisheries in peri-urban Kolkota. See Ref. 75, pp. 104–1569. Aberra E. 2006. Alternative strategies in alternative spaces: livelihoods of pastoralists in the peri-urban

interface of Yabello, southern Ethiopia. See Ref. 75, pp. 116–3370. Steinfeld H, Gerber P, Wassenaar T, Castel V, Rosales M, De Haan C. 2006. Livestock’s Long Shadow.

Rome: FAO. 416 pp.71. Allen A, Davila JD, Hofmann P. 2006. The peri-urban water poor: citizens or consumers? Environ.

Urban. 18(2):333–5272. Binns T, Maconachie R. 2006. Re-evaluating people-environment relationships at the rural-urban in-

terface: How sustainable is the peri-urban zone in Kano, northern Nigeria? See Ref. 75, pp. 211–2873. Thompson D, McGregor D, Kotei N, Poku O. 2001. Water quality in peri-urban Kumasi: preliminary

results and their significance. CEDAR/IRNR Kumasi Pap. 3. CEDAR, Dep. Geogr., Royal Holloway,Univ. London; Inst. Renew. Nat. Resour., Kwame Nkrumah Univ. Technol., Egham, Surrey/Kumasihttp://www.gg.rhul.ac.uk/kumasi/Project Related Papers/Cedar IRNR/Paper 3/paper 3.html

74. United Nations. 2004. World Urbanization Prospects: the 2003 Revision. New York: UN Dep. Econ. Soc.Aff./Popul. Div.

75. McGregor D, Simon D, Thompson D, eds. 2006. The Peri-Urban Interface: Approaches to SustainableNatural and Human Resource Use. London/Stirling, VA: Earthscan. 336 pp.

76. Fall AS, Gueye C, eds. 2005. Urbain-Rural: L’Hybridation en Marche. Dakar: Enda Tiers Monde. 478 pp.77. Johnston RI, Swallow SK, eds. 2006. Economics and Contemporary Land Use Policy: Development and Con-

servation at the Rural-Urban Fringe. Washington, DC: Resour. Future. 309 pp.78. Laband DN, ed. 2007. Proceedings, Emerging Issues Along Urban-Rural Interfaces II: Linking Land-

Use Science and Society. Atlanta, GA: Auburn Univ. Cent. For. Sustain. 320 pp. http://www.sfws.auburn.edu/urbanruralinterfaces

79. Thakur B, Sinha VNP, Prasad M, Sharma N, Pratap R, et al., eds. 2005. Urban and Regional Developmentin India, Vol. 1. New Delhi: Concept. 872 pp.

www.annualreviews.org • Peri-Urban Environmental Issues 185

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AR357-FM ARI 22 September 2008 22:50

Annual Review ofEnvironmentand Resources

Volume 33, 2008Contents

Preface � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �v

Who Should Read This Series? � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �vi

I. Earth’s Life Support Systems

Climate ModelingLeo J. Donner and William G. Large � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 1

Global Carbon Emissions in the Coming Decades: The Case of ChinaMark D. Levine and Nathaniel T. Aden � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �19

Restoration Ecology: Interventionist Approaches for Restoring andMaintaining Ecosystem Function in the Face of RapidEnvironmental ChangeRichard J. Hobbs and Viki A. Cramer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �39

II. Human Use of Environment and Resources

Advanced Passenger Transport TechnologiesDaniel Sperling and Deborah Gordon � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �63

DroughtsGiorgos Kallis � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �85

Sanitation for Unserved Populations: Technologies, ImplementationChallenges, and OpportunitiesKara L. Nelson and Ashley Murray � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 119

Forage Fish: From Ecosystems to MarketsJacqueline Alder, Brooke Campbell, Vasiliki Karpouzi, Kristin Kaschner,and Daniel Pauly � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 153

Urban Environments: Issues on the Peri-Urban FringeDavid Simon � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 167

Certification Schemes and the Impacts on Forests and ForestryGraeme Auld, Lars H. Gulbrandsen, and Constance L. McDermott � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 187

vii

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AR357-FM ARI 22 September 2008 22:50

III. Management, Guidance, and Governance of Resources and Environment

Decentralization of Natural Resource Governance RegimesAnne M. Larson and Fernanda Soto � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 213

Enabling Sustainable Production-Consumption SystemsLouis Lebel and Sylvia Lorek � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 241

Global Environmental Governance: Taking Stock, Moving ForwardFrank Biermann and Philipp Pattberg � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 277

Land-Change Science and Political Ecology: Similarities, Differences,and Implications for Sustainability ScienceB.L. Turner II and Paul Robbins � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 295

Environmental Cost-Benefit AnalysisGiles Atkinson and Susana Mourato � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 317

A New Look at Global Forest Histories of Land ClearingMichael Williams � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 345

Terrestrial Vegetation in the Coupled Human-Earth System:Contributions of Remote SensingRuth DeFries � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 369

A Rough Guide to Environmental ArtJohn E. Thornes � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 391

The New Corporate Social ResponsibilityGraeme Auld, Steven Bernstein, and Benjamin Cashore � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 413

IV. Integrative Themes

Environmental Issues in RussiaLaura A. Henry and Vladimir Douhovnikoff � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 437

The Environmental Reach of AsiaJames N. Galloway, Frank J. Dentener, Elina Marmer, Zucong Cai,

Yash P. Abrol, V.K. Dadhwal, and A. Vel Murugan � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 461

Indexes

Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 24–33 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 483

Cumulative Index of Chapter Titles, Volumes 24–33 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 487

Errata

An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Environment and Resources articles maybe found at http://environ.annualreviews.org

viii Contents

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AnnuAl Reviewsit’s about time. Your time. it’s time well spent.

AnnuAl Reviews | Connect with Our expertsTel: 800.523.8635 (us/can) | Tel: 650.493.4400 | Fax: 650.424.0910 | Email: [email protected]

New From Annual Reviews:

Annual Review of Statistics and Its ApplicationVolume 1 • Online January 2014 • http://statistics.annualreviews.org

Editor: Stephen E. Fienberg, Carnegie Mellon UniversityAssociate Editors: Nancy Reid, University of Toronto

Stephen M. Stigler, University of ChicagoThe Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application aims to inform statisticians and quantitative methodologists, as well as all scientists and users of statistics about major methodological advances and the computational tools that allow for their implementation. It will include developments in the field of statistics, including theoretical statistical underpinnings of new methodology, as well as developments in specific application domains such as biostatistics and bioinformatics, economics, machine learning, psychology, sociology, and aspects of the physical sciences.

Complimentary online access to the first volume will be available until January 2015. table of contents:•What Is Statistics? Stephen E. Fienberg•A Systematic Statistical Approach to Evaluating Evidence

from Observational Studies, David Madigan, Paul E. Stang, Jesse A. Berlin, Martijn Schuemie, J. Marc Overhage, Marc A. Suchard, Bill Dumouchel, Abraham G. Hartzema, Patrick B. Ryan

•The Role of Statistics in the Discovery of a Higgs Boson, David A. van Dyk

•Brain Imaging Analysis, F. DuBois Bowman•Statistics and Climate, Peter Guttorp•Climate Simulators and Climate Projections,

Jonathan Rougier, Michael Goldstein•Probabilistic Forecasting, Tilmann Gneiting,

Matthias Katzfuss•Bayesian Computational Tools, Christian P. Robert•Bayesian Computation Via Markov Chain Monte Carlo,

Radu V. Craiu, Jeffrey S. Rosenthal•Build, Compute, Critique, Repeat: Data Analysis with Latent

Variable Models, David M. Blei•Structured Regularizers for High-Dimensional Problems:

Statistical and Computational Issues, Martin J. Wainwright

•High-Dimensional Statistics with a View Toward Applications in Biology, Peter Bühlmann, Markus Kalisch, Lukas Meier

•Next-Generation Statistical Genetics: Modeling, Penalization, and Optimization in High-Dimensional Data, Kenneth Lange, Jeanette C. Papp, Janet S. Sinsheimer, Eric M. Sobel

•Breaking Bad: Two Decades of Life-Course Data Analysis in Criminology, Developmental Psychology, and Beyond, Elena A. Erosheva, Ross L. Matsueda, Donatello Telesca

•Event History Analysis, Niels Keiding•StatisticalEvaluationofForensicDNAProfileEvidence,

Christopher D. Steele, David J. Balding•Using League Table Rankings in Public Policy Formation:

Statistical Issues, Harvey Goldstein•Statistical Ecology, Ruth King•Estimating the Number of Species in Microbial Diversity

Studies, John Bunge, Amy Willis, Fiona Walsh•Dynamic Treatment Regimes, Bibhas Chakraborty,

Susan A. Murphy•Statistics and Related Topics in Single-Molecule Biophysics,

Hong Qian, S.C. Kou•Statistics and Quantitative Risk Management for Banking

and Insurance, Paul Embrechts, Marius Hofert

Access this and all other Annual Reviews journals via your institution at www.annualreviews.org.

Ann

u. R

ev. E

nvir

on. R

esou

rc. 2

008.

33:1

67-1

85. D

ownl

oade

d fr

om w

ww

.ann

ualr

evie

ws.

org

by U

nive

rsity

of

Lav

al o

n 07

/09/

14. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.