Traditionally, Indian farmers kept bovines, especially cattle, for draught purposes in agriculture and transportation with milk as an adjunct. However, with increasing farm mechanization and rising demand for milk, the bovine functions have shifted more towards dairying. While bovine population has been increasing, the chronic scarcity of feed and fodder reinforces the need for optimization of bovine population for sustainable growth of dairying.

With increasing pressures from global changes (urbanization, climate change, etc.), cities in Africa will experience difficulties in efficiently managing water resources. Most of the urbanization in Africa over the next 30 years will occur in fast-growing small towns that lack mature infrastructure. This offers a unique opportunity to implement innovative solutions based on integrated urban water management (IUWM). While IUWM approaches have been widely reported in the literature, their application has been limited.

As the global population continues to increase, rural areas are expected to accommodate future growth at the same time as continuing to feed growing populations. This tension is greatest on those who farm land that is earmarked for future urban growth. Yet, little is known about the attitudes and values of the affected rural farming communities or farmers’ perceptions of the challenges and opportunities that population growth presents.

Cities and Urban Areas play a crucial role as engines of development as well as centers of connectivity, creativity, innovation, and as service hubs for the surrounding areas. Kenya has experienced unprecedented urban growth. At independence the urban population was about 8%. This had grown to be about 40% by 2015. It is projected that by year 2030 at least half of the Kenyan population will be urbanized. The rapid rate of urbanization exerts increased pressure on authorities to meet the needs of growing urban populations.

This publication is the result of the workshop on “Responding to Climate Change and Tenure Insecurity in Small Island Developing States – The Role of Land Professionals” held in Christchurch, New Zealand 30 April – 1 May 2016 in connection with the FIG Working Week 2016. It includes a report of the seminar and a FIG Christchurch Declaration as the main outcome of the workshop.

Transit-oriented development (TOD), as a sustainable supporting strategy, emphasizes the improvement of public transportation coverage and quality, land use density and diversity of around public transportation stations and priority of walking and cycling at station areas. Traffic, environmental and economic problems arising from high growth of personal car, inappropriate distribution of land use, and car-orientation of metropolitan area, necessitate adoption of TOD. In recent years, more researches on urban development and transportation have focused on this strategy.

Transit oriented development (TOD) has gained popularity as a means to address urbanizations problems such as traffic congestion, air pollution and affordable housing strategies. It simply refers to integration of urban development and public transportation facilities, together with some other characteristics such as “intensified land uses near TOD stations”, “landownership and car-ownership variety”, mixed use, “lower car dependency”, compact form, mass transit stations, open spaces, walkability, etc.

Activity centers are areas of strong development of a particular activity, such as residence, employment, or services. Understanding the subway system impacts on the type, combination, distribution and totally the development of basic activities in these centers, have an important role in managing development opportunities created along the Tehran subway lines. The multi criteria and fuzzy nature of evaluating the activity centers development make the issue as complex as cannot be addressed with conventional logical systems.

The New Urban Agenda represents a shared vision for a better and more sustainable future – one in which all people have equal rights and access to the benefits and opportunities that cities can offer, and in which the international community reconsiders the urban systems and physical form of our urban spaces to achieve this.