Special Issue "Interaction between (Mega-)Urban Land Use and Water Management"

Guest Editor
Dr. Klaus Baier
Department of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, RWTH Aachen University, Lochnerstraße 4-20, 52064 Aachen, Germany
Website: http://webserver.lih.rwth-aachen.de/lih/content/e58/e514/index_ger.html
E-Mail:
Interests: mega-urbanization; megacities; land use and land use change; integrated water resource management; urbanization and water; socio-cognitive aspects of water usage

Dear Colleagues,

Humanity has crossed the line from being a rural to urban species since 2007. For the first time in history, more people live in cities and urban areas than in the countryside. Starting in the developed nations, where the urbanization process has been significantly decelerated in the meantime, urbanization has especially increased in Asia and South America as well as in Africa to a substantial extent in the second half of the last century. Especially in developing and emerging countries, the hydrological and hydrogeological setting of each region has deteriorated through growing urbanization processes. Urban areas show, in contrast to the rural areas, a rapid interaction between surface water and groundwater as well as between drinking water and sewage system. Urbanization and the attended changes in the settlement and land use structure will eventually lead to negative consequences for the environment as well as for the water resources. In this context, one of the key tasks of sustainable and long-term land and natural resources management is to optimize water resource utilization referring to the spatial distribution of people and their activities.

Klaus Baier, Ph.D.
Guest Editor

• Urban land use
• Land use change
• Analyse methods of land use change
• Modelling of land use change
• Urbanization
• Urban planning
• Megacities
• Water resource management
• Urban recharge
• Water quality/quantity in urban areas
• Modelling of urbanization effect on water resources
• Water basin management
• Health effects
• Vulnerability
• Water treatment / decentralized systems
• Water Landscape
• Environmental awareness
• Socio-cognitive aspects in water management

Title: The Potential for Abandoned Paddy Fields to Reduce Pollution Loads from Households in Suburban Tokyo
Authors: Jiro Kogi, Mariko Miyamoto, Jay Bolthouse and Makoto Yokohari
Affiliation: Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kasiwa, Chiba, 277-8563, Japan;
E-Mail:kogijiro@nenv.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Abstract: Similar to other Asian nations, suburban areas in Japan are characterized by dense intermixtures of residential areas and farmlands. These hybrid rural/urban areas are evaluated negatively in modern planning frameworks. However, mixed rural/urban landscapes may prove advantageous when attempting to reconstruct sustainable wastewater treatment systems. This research examines the potential for abandoned paddy fields to reduce nitrogen and phosphorous loads, an increasingly problematic source of eutrophication in many closed water areas, from households in suburban areas. Our results indicate that abandoned paddy fields remaining in mixed urban/rural areas have significant potential to reduce both nitrogen and phosphorous loads. Accordingly, we suggest that abandoned paddy fields can play an important role in reducing pollution loads in mixed urban/rural areas.
Keywords: domestic wastewater pollution, abandoned paddy field, wetland wastewater treatment, mixed urban-rural landuse