Search results for "Urbanization"
showing 10 items of 150 documents
Modelling urban networks at mega-regional scale: Are increasingly complex urban systems sustainable?
2015
Are the dynamics of mega-regions sustainable or not? We explore the hypothesis that increasing complexity in mega-regions implies less demands on resources needed to generate organized information, thereby making the systems more efficient and stable. This article aims to identify structural indicators for measuring urban networks at the mega-regional scale. We use night-time light data from the broad band near-visible infrared channel of the DMSP-OLS to monitor the dynamics of urbanization. We study the urban networks as graphs, where nodes are cities, and the main road and railway infrastructures represent the edges. We propose four indicators for measuring the complexity, polycentricity,…
Potential implications of climate change and urbanization on watershed hydrology
2017
Abstract This paper proposes a modeling framework able to analyze the alterations in watershed hydrology induced by two recurrent drivers for hydrological changes: climate change and urbanization. The procedure is based on the coupling of a stochastic weather generator with a land use change model for the generation of some hypothetical scenarios. The generated scenarios are successively used to force a physically-based and spatial distributed hydrological model to reconstruct the basin response under different conditions. Several potential climate alterations are simulated by imposing negative and positive variations in the mean annual precipitation and a simultaneous temperature increase.…
Gender as a key factor in trace metal and metalloid content of human scalp hair. A multi-site study
2016
This multi-site study discusses the content of metals and metalloids (MM) in scalp hair of children, living in different environmental contexts, with the purpose of verifying if hair level of some MM is distinctively gender-specific. A total of 943 hair samples (537 females and 406 males) from adolescents were analysed for their content of Al, As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Li, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Rb, Sb, Se, Sr, U, V and Zn. Elemental quantification was performed by ICP-MS. The obtained data identified different metal distributions in adolescent girls which exhibited significantly higher hair concentrations of some trace metals, especially Sr, Zn and Ni, than boys. On the base of the median value, hai…
Menarcheal age and socio-economic factors in Poland
2005
Menarcheal age is the most important measure of sexual maturation in girls and a sensitive indicator of environmental conditions during childhood.The study analysed the association between age at menarche and socio-economic characteristics (urbanization, population size, education of parents and number of children in the family).Questionnaire data were collected from 3271 female schoolchildren born between 1981 and 1984, living in three provinces of southern Poland. Menarcheal age was estimated by the recall method and based on the date of menarche given by the study participants. ANCOVA and multiple regression analyses were applied to test statistical significance of differences between gr…
Physiological stress does not increase with urbanization in European blackbirds: Evidence from hormonal, immunological and cellular indicators
2020
Urbanization changes the landscape structure and ecological processes of natural habitats. While urban areas expose animal communities to novel challenges, they may also provide more stable environments in which environmental fluctuations are buffered. Species´ ecology and physiology may determine their capacity to cope with the city life. However, the physiological mechanisms underlying organismal responses to urbanization, and whether different physiological systems are equally affected by urban environments remain poorly understood. This severely limits our capacity to predict the impact of anthropogenic habitats on wild populations. In this study, we measured indicators of physiological…
Two-level resolution of relative risk of dengue disease in a hyperendemic city of Colombia.
2018
Risk maps of dengue disease offer to the public health officers a tool to model disease risk in space and time. We analyzed the geographical distribution of relative incidence risk of dengue disease in a high incidence city from Colombia, and its evolution in time during the period January 2009—December 2015, identifying regional effects at different levels of spatial aggregations. Cases of dengue disease were geocoded and spatially allocated to census sectors, and temporally aggregated by epidemiological periods. The census sectors are nested in administrative divisions defined as communes, configuring two levels of spatial aggregation for the dengue cases. Spatio-temporal models including…
Lived experiences of self-care among older physically active urban-living individuals
2013
- Published article -cc-by-nc Background: Promoting physical activity is a public health priority in most industrial countries, and physical function is an important factor when taking into consideration older people’s self-care and health. Despite the increasing challenges associated with urbanization and the aging population, urban life appears to be positive in many ways for urban dwellers. However, the manner in which older people live in urban settings and how this influences their ability to take care of themselves should be considered important knowledge for health professionals and politicians to acquire. The aim of this study was to describe the lived experiences of self-care and f…
Identification of Risk Factors Associated with Obesity and Overweight-A Machine Learning Overview.
2020
Social determining factors such as the adverse influence of globalization, supermarket growth, fast unplanned urbanization, sedentary lifestyle, economy, and social position slowly develop behavioral risk factors in humans. Behavioral risk factors such as unhealthy habits, improper diet, and physical inactivity lead to physiological risks, and &ldquo
La costa dels jubilats. La migració nord-europea de persones retirades a la Costa Blanca
2014
Aquest treball investiga la migració internacional de nord-europeus jubilats a la Costa Blanca i la influència que ha tingut en l’expansió urbana d’aquesta àrea turística. Aquest document, a més, analitza les raons per les quals emigren aquests jubilats, que estan principalment relacionades amb el clima i l’estil de vida. També explora els avantatges i desavantatges d’aquesta migració i l’impacte ambiental i paisatgístic sobre la Costa Blanca.
Urban growth (1956-2012) and soil sealing in the metropolitan area of Valencia (Eastern Spain)
2019
[EN] The aim of this study is to understand the urban growth dynamics from the mid-1950s to 2012 in the Metropolitan Area of Valencia, eastern Spain, and its impact on soils. The study area is a very interesting example of the many changes in land use and land cover in the landscape of Mediterranean alluvial plains. The analysis of urban growth was based on photo interpretation of aerial photographs and GIS based methodology. At a detailed scale (1:10,000), results show that there has been a highly dynamic process produced by the extent of land developed as urban area. In 1956 only 3,441 hectares (9.3% of the overall study area) were occupied by urban use. In 2012 the total sealed surface w…