Urban areas are complex and dynamic systems that reproduce, within their territory, the interactions among socio-economic, geopolitical, and environmental processes on a local, regional, and global scale. The interactions of urban areas with global environmental change are bi-directional, with a large proportion of the human impact on these changes originating in urban areas, but its (GEC) consequences in turn, have severe effects on urban areas, particularly the urban poor. The specific aspects however, have been understudied – particularly the latter. The focus of this new Urbanization Project will be on understanding the nature of the interactions between global environmental change and urban processes, the direction, rate, intensity and scale of these processes, as well as the challenge of global environmental change to the functioning, stability and sustainability of urban areas.

Main Research Themes

• Urban processes that contribute to global environmental change. This theme includes questions on lifestyle and consumption patterns, urban land use and land cover change as well as effects of social and biophysical “teleconnections”.

• Pathways through which global environmental change affects the urban system. This theme explores the consequences of global environmental changes on human behavior and interactions, their contribution to shaping the built environment and their impact on the resource base upon which urban systems rely.

• Interactions and responses within the urban system. This theme poses questions on how interactions between the human and the physical systems shape the impact of and the responses to global environmental change as well as their consequences for urban livelihoods.

• Consequences of interactions within urban systems on global environmental change. This theme focuses on the feedbacks of interactions within the urban system to various components of global environmental change.

IHDP Core Project

Currently in Implementation