The current issue of the UGEC Viewpoints was conceptualized at the end of the 7th Open Meeting of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change which was held in Bonn, Germany between April 26-30. The conference was deemed a great success with nearly 1,000 participants including researchers, NGOs, practitioners, and decision makers in attendance for the four-day conference and more than 100 sessions. The Open Meeting clearly demonstrated that humans and societal challenges are now and should continue to be at the forefront of the global environmental change research agenda.

For this issue of UGEC Viewpoints case-studies presented at the Open Meeting that span across regions and themes were collected: from Australia and the United States, as well as the less developed nations in Africa, megacities of Asia such as Dhaka, Bangladesh and Delhi, India, vulnerable coastal areas of the Yucatan Peninsula, and the largest rainforest in the world, the Brazilian Amazon. Several commonalities are readily identifiable in the authors’ research, some of which include an attention to the roles of the governance structures within cities; the functioning of ecosystem services, water, food, and sanitation service provision; as well as the role of research in assisting the successful development of sustainable urban plans and policies.

For the UGEC project it was clear that the interest in the theme of cities and urban areas has, more generally, “taken off” in the last few years. A significant portion of the sessions have been devoted to the theme of urban areas. This issue of UGEC Viewpoints highlights a few of the papers presented and discussed at several Open Meeting sessions, pinpointing a wide array of social challenges present in urban areas across different world regions.

While each article focuses attention on a unique set of challenges dependent upon the respective region and its geophysical characteristics, existing political and governance systems, infrastructure, service provision capacities, culture, and economic structure, also present are unique opportunities for overcoming these challenges and rethinking urban development globally. A better understanding of how cities function as social systems and how they interact with and influence economic and environmental systems will not only further advance the knowledge base of urban dynamics, but taken to the next step, can assist policymakers and practitioners with designing better, more sustainable cities in the face of global environmental changes.

The next years of research in the field of Urbanization and Global Environmental Change promise to be exciting and will bring about significant findings for the enhancement of human wellbeing in urban settlements. Contributing to this goal, the UGEC project is currently planning its first International Urbanization and Global Environmental Change Science and Practice Conference for Fall, 2010. As the planning process moves forward, there will be circulating more details and information about participation and how to submit your abstracts. For relevant news please join the UGEC mailing list.