The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations state that cities and human settlements need to be more inclusive, safe and resilient. In Europe cities have experienced dramatic physical, social and economic changes during the last decades while historic centres of European cities, among the most important assets of the European cultural heritage, are living paradoxes. They are defined as “a collection of beauty, icon of well-being, model of sustainability, but abandoned”.

Indonesian forestry challenges in attributional land-use conflicts of overlapping villages and state forests have affected community livelihoods and forest sustainability for decades. This empirical research uncovers the socio-economic attributes of villages in order to gain a better understanding of people−forest relationships in order to guide improved forest management and governance for long-term sustainability. Data were obtained from 69 villages located in the forest management unit of Lakitan Bukit Cogong in South Sumatra Province.

In this paper, we provide a novel approach to distinguish livable urban densities from crowded cities and describe how this distinction has proved to be critical in predicting COVID-19 contagion hotspots in cities in low- and middle-income country. Urban population density—considered as the ratio of population to land area, without reference to floor space consumption or other measures of livability—can have large drawbacks.

There has been an increasing interest among scholars regarding the impacts of climate change on agriculture and possible adaptation strategies for farmers. Little attention has been paid, however, to reviewing adaptation initiatives amongst farmers in Asia. This article fills this knowledge gap by examining the current literature on Asian farmers’ perception of climate change, their adaptation strategies, key factors influencing their choices, and the barriers to change. A systematic quantitative literature review is undertaken of 48 papers taken from a range of sources.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) offer multiple solutions to urban challenges simultaneously, but realising funding for NBS remains a challenge. When the concept of NBS for societal challenges was first defined by the EC in 2017, financing was recognised as one of the major challenges to its mainstreaming. The complexity of NBS finance has its origin in the multiple benefits/stakeholders involved, which obscures the argument for both public and private sector investment.

The compossessorates in Transylvania (Romania) are traditional varieties of commons. During the inter-war period two types of compossessorates were most common in the Olt Land, between the Olt River and the Southern Carpathians: those of the former boyars and the ones owned by the former serfs.

At present, the ecological environment and resources of the global coastal zones are facing great pressures. Climate change leads to sea level rise, environmental change, stressful population increases and changes in demographics, all of which affect existing coastal management systems. Therefore, all coastal countries begin to increasingly attach importance to the integrated management of coastal zones. How to better adapt to current changes in global coastal zones is a question that every coastal country should think about.

Urban blight functions inversely to city development and often leads to cities’ deterioration in terms of physical beauty and functionality. While the underlying causes of urban blight in the context of the global north are mainly known in the literature to be population loss, economic decline, deindustrialisation and suburbanisation, there is a research gap regarding the root causes of urban blight in the global south, specifically in prime areas.

The Maloti-Drakensberg (MD) is the largest and highest-elevation mountain system in southern Africa. Covering 40,000 km2 and reaching 3500 m, the MD provides a range of ecosystem services (ES) to the entire southern African region—benefitting diverse users and extending well beyond the mountains. Rapid socioecological change threatens the provision of ES and presents multidimensional challenges to sustainable development. However, the continued land degradation and persisting socioeconomic problems indicate that development policy has not been effective in tackling these issues.

Climate change is unequivocal. Farmers are increasingly vulnerable to floods and drought. In this article, the negative impact of climate hazards on rice cultivation in the Tonle Sap and Mekong River influenced by climatic variability between 1994 and 2018 are analyzed. A cohort of 536 households from four Cambodian districts participated in household surveys designed to consider how various vulnerability factors interacted across this time series.

Concrete made with Portland cement is by far the most heavily used construction material in the world today. Its success stems from the fact that it is relatively inexpensive yet highly versatile and functional and is made from widely available raw materials. However, in many environments, concrete structures gradually deteriorate over time. Premature deterioration of concrete is a major problem worldwide. Moreover, cement production is energy-intensive and releases a lot of CO2; this is compounded by its ever-increasing demand, particularly in developing countries.

The ability of farmers to operate redistributed farms in a profitable and sustainable manner is crucial for both successful integration into agricultural value chains and sustainable production systems. The performance of redistributed farms is becoming increasingly important as the number of redistributed farms increases in light of correcting previous anomalies in land ownership in South Africa while ensuring continued food security.