Eco-Cities: An Approach for Sustainable Development

Shushila Kumari

Abstract


Rapid urbanization has brought great challenges to cities and societies environmentally, socially, and economically. Rapid urbanization gradually degrades natural habitats, disrupt hydrological systems, and modify energy flow and nutrient cycling. Nowadays, these significant impacts of human activities, originated from population growth, rapid urbanization, increase in number of private motor vehicles, industrialization and mass livestock production, are increasing exponentially and causing great deal of environmental, social, and economic challenges both at global as well as local level. In such a situation, creation of sustainable cities, through sustainable urban development practices, is seen as a potential challenge responsibly, effectively, and efficiently. To create a sustainable city, these major challenges need to be faced efficiently and successfully. The present paper focuses on the environmental issues and investigates the ecological approaches for planning sustainable cities through a comprehensive review of the relevant literature. The paper also provides insights on the interaction between the natural environment and human activities by identifying environmental effects resulting from this interaction; provides an introduction to the concept of sustainable urban development by emphasizing the important role of ecological planning in achieving sustainable cities establishing principles for the management of their sustainability; describes urban ecosystem sustainability assessment by presenting a review of current assessment methods, and; proposals an outline of indexing urban environmental sustainability.

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.37628/ijsdt.v1i1.335

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