Search Results (112)

Urban informality in amphibious territories represents a critical yet understudied dimension of contemporary urbanisation in the Global South. This article analyses the interrelations between spatial transformation, social equity, and environmental change in Las Flores, an informal settlement located between the Mallorquín Lagoon and the Magdalena River in Barranquilla, Colombia. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach combining GIS interpretation, participatory mapping, and in-depth interviews, the study examines how processes of informal territorialisation have reshaped both the physical landscape and the social fabric of this amphibious environment. Results indicate that the settlement has expanded progressively over the past two decades, occupying areas of the wetland previously covered by mangroves and natural vegetation. This expansion has been accompanied by environmental degradation, soil infilling, and declining water quality. Residents face persistent infrastructural deficits, limited access to education and healthcare, and increasing social fragmentation between the formal and informal sectors. Yet, the community also exhibits strong organisational capacity, adaptive livelihoods, and a deep sense of place that sustains local identity and resilience. These dynamics exemplify the paradox of amphibious life: coexistence with water as both a resource and a source of vulnerability. Building on these findings, the study develops an urban socio-ecological conceptualisation of Amphibious Justice, a framework for interpreting equity, recognition, and governance in hybrid territories where urbanisation and land–water dynamics intersect. The article proposes a framework of equitable amphibious urbanism that integrates environmental restoration, social inclusion, and participatory governance. The findings suggest that sustainability in such territories cannot be achieved through technocratic restoration or forced resettlement, but through co-produced strategies that recognise local knowledge, tenure security, and ecological stewardship. Ultimately, the case of Las Flores offers insights into how cities in the Global South can pursue just and adaptive coexistence with water amid growing climate and urban pressures. Full article

Land-use transformation driven by large-scale water conservancy projects profoundly reshapes regional ecosystem structures and the supply capacity of ecosystem services, yet targeted quantitative assessments linking land-use evolution to ecosystem service values (ESV) in the Xiaolangdi Reservoir resettlement zone remain insufficient, restricting scientific ecological management and territorial spatial governance for reservoir-affected counties and districts. This study draws on the latest ecosystem service valuation theories proposed by domestic and international scholars and applies the value equivalence method to quantify variations in land-use pattern changes and ESV across nine resettlement counties and districts (including the Sanmenxia urban area) affected by the Xiaolangdi Reservoir relocation project. Data collected included historical records (1995–2020), digital elevation models (DEM, 30 m resolution), and land-use information. By applying value equivalence theory and analyzing land-use change impacts, the study calculated changes in ESV and conducted sensitivity analyses across different land types. The findings reveal significant impacts on surrounding counties following the reservoir’s completion. Data indicate that the expansion of water areas drove the total ESV to rise from US$3.3261 billion in 1995 to a peak of US$3.6557 billion in 2010, followed by a decline to US$3.6128 billion in 2020. The most pronounced changes occurred during the first five years post-reservoir filling (2000–2005), marked by elevated water sensitivity indices. This research clarifies the differentiated responses of ecosystem service functions to land-use changes across reservoir-affected counties, provides quantitative decision-making support for coordinated ecological restoration, cultivated land protection, and sustainable land management in the resettlement area of the Xiaolangdi Reservoir, and offers a replicable technical framework for ecosystem service valuation of large sediment-laden river reservoir regions worldwide. Full article

The global mining sector plays a vital economic role but frequently results in the displacement of communities, generating profound environmental, social, and cultural consequences. In South Africa mining remains a key economic driver. The literature on the sustainable livelihood framework (SLF) attests to the impact of mining on communities and the industry’s influence on the five capitals, namely social, physical, natural, financial and human. However, research on SLF offers a limited assessment of the long-term effectiveness of livelihood restoration initiatives directed at communities resettled elsewhere because of mining. The research gap in this study can be explained as the sparseness of research in clarifying and amplifying the voices of mining-resettled communities. Research, besides being limited, has focused on the activities of mining companies and their supposed economic benefit. Adopting a qualitative approach within an interpretivist paradigm, data was collected through semi-structured interviews with seven community leaders and activists from Gauteng, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga. Contestations, inaccessibility and possibilities of victimisation by mining companies, and non-universality in interview sample numbers are some of the issues justifying those seven interviewees in this study. Additionally, the interviewees in this study are leaders, activists, and family and community members directly affected by mining resettlement. Based on the nature of the research inquiry, the number of interviewees is adequate and enabled the study to establish its findings as a multi-case study of the communities in the three provinces. Thematic analysis using ATLAS.ti revealed that resettlement significantly disrupted livelihoods through loss of productive land, diminished agricultural activities, and the erosion of social and cultural networks. Although mining companies provided compensation, housing, and skills training, these measures were largely fragmented, short-term, and insufficient to restore pre-displacement living standards. Weak governance and limited community participation further undermined outcomes. Although limited to seven participants doubling as activists, community leaders, and former farm owners, the study concludes that existing livelihood restoration efforts are largely unsustainable from the perspective of community leaders and activists based in three mining provinces of South Africa. The study proposes a sustainable livelihood framework that embraces justice and guarantees the socio-economic resilience of the resettled communities. Full article

Livelihood space serves as a fundamental medium for the livelihood practices of rural households. Understanding its optimization and reconstruction is essential for promoting the sustainable development of resettled households. This study adopts a spatial perspective to develop a multidimensional measurement framework for livelihood space. Focusing on resettled households in the karst regions of Guizhou, China, we integrate the Optimal Parameter-based Geographical Detector (OPGD) with fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to systematically analyze the driving mechanisms and equifinal configuration pathways involved in the reconstruction of livelihood space. The key results are as follows: (1) The overall livelihood space is characterized as moderate. Among the various dimensions, institutional and cultural spaces receive the highest scores, followed by social and production spaces, while residential space is rated the lowest. (2) Excluding residential space, there are significant dimensional disparities across different resettlement and livelihood typologies. Households resettled in county towns outperform those in non-county areas. In terms of livelihood types, integrated and off-farm households rank the highest, whereas farming-dependent and subsidy-dependent households rank the lowest. (3) The OPGD analysis indicates that household income and accessibility to public services are primary drivers, exhibiting a bivariate nonlinear synergistic enhancement. (4) The fsQCA findings confirm that the reconstruction of livelihood space is not driven by a single factor; rather, it is influenced by four equifinal pathways formed through nonlinear interactions of multiple conditions, collectively contributing to the enhancement of high-livelihood space. The integration of OPGD and fsQCA moves beyond conventional linear approaches, yielding fresh empirical evidence and new perspectives on livelihood space reconstruction and the sustainability of fragile regions. Full article

As cities worldwide pursue sustainable and inclusive mobility, understanding the travel behavior of vulnerable populations in peri-urban resettlement areas is essential for designing equitable built environments. In Shanghai, as in many rapidly urbanizing megacities, government-led redevelopment in central Shanghai displaces residents to the urban periphery, creating accessibility deficits and raising transport inclusivity concerns. Using travel diary data from five peri-urban affordable housing communities collected in 2012 (N = 8390)—a critical baseline before major infrastructure improvements—this study documents limited mobility (residents make significantly fewer trips than the city average) and examines its correlates via logistic regression. A core finding is a type-based threshold effect: awareness of a nearby large shopping mall is associated with higher shopping trip frequency (coefficient −0.332, p = 0.024), whereas awareness of small-to-medium supermarkets shows no significant association. This pattern is consistent with elastic demand theory and challenges the assumption that any retail facility improves accessibility equally. Our models explain very little variance (Nagelkerke R² = 0.078 for overall trip frequency; 0.048 for shopping frequency). This low explanatory power is itself a diagnostic signal—and a core motivation for our hypothesis-generating approach—indicating that unmeasured psychological (attitudes, perceived behavioral control), social (networks, norms), and technological (e-commerce) factors likely dominate travel decisions—directing future research priorities. Methodologically, the 2012 data provide an uncommon early-stage baseline for policy-induced resettlement, enabling future longitudinal comparisons and mechanism identification (e.g., before/after metro or mall openings). For contemporary policy, the findings suggest a testable hypothesis that anchor-type facilities (e.g., mid-sized community hubs with mixed use, rather than merely small supermarkets) may activate suppressed demand, requiring re-evaluation with recent data and causal designs. Readers should not extrapolate numeric trip rates to today’s Shanghai. The primary contributions are theoretical (type-based threshold effects, the anchor-vs.-routine facility distinction, the role of basic spatial awareness) and methodological (historical baseline). The 2012 data predate widespread e-commerce; digital substitution may substantially attenuate these relationships in contemporary contexts. Full article

Recurrent flooding along the Wabi Shabelle River has repeatedly displaced communities in Beledweyne, Somalia, prompting a 2020 government-led relocation policy intended to reduce long-term flood risk exposure. Whether such resettlement constitutes a durable change-detection method disaster risk reduction strategy in semi-arid East Africa remains empirically untested. We integrate ten years of Sentinel-1 SAR (259 scenes, 2015–2025), three global DEMs (Copernicus GLO-30, FABDEM, SRTM), CHIRPS precipitation, and BFAST changepoint analysis to map flood frequency at 10 m resolution. The Z-score showed the strongest coupling with 12-day cumulative precipitation (Pearson r = +0.338; block-bootstrap 95% CI [+0.13, +0.49], excluding zero) and strong agreement with the log-ratio method (r = +0.676), whereas the conventional fixed −17 dB threshold produced a physically implausible negative correlation (r = −0.248). These conclusions were stable across alternative thresholds. HAND from all three DEMs was positively associated with flood frequency (Spearman ρ ≈ +0.30); GLO-30 and FABDEM were near-equivalent in this low-relief setting (median pairwise difference, 0.13 m). BFAST detected 476,955 changepoints (49.9% post-2020 vs. 35.6% pre-2020), concentrated in high-flood-frequency pixels (Kolmogorov–Smirnov D = 0.854, p < 0.001). The mean flooded area fraction rose from 4.68% to 5.61%, a relative increase of +19.8% (95% CI 9.1–32.0); this remained significant after controlling for precipitation (+0.96 pp, p < 0.001) and excluding the extreme 2023 events (+0.81 pp). Because standard optical and multi-year surface water products are unsuitable for pixel-level validation in this turbid seasonal river, we demonstrate that SAR flood frequency is significantly higher within independently mapped JRC water corridors (median, 0.070 vs. 0.042; p < 0.001). These convergent lines of evidence are consistent with re-encroachment into hazardous floodplains, suggesting that structural relocation alone is unlikely to deliver durable flood risk reduction without parallel investment in tenure security, livelihoods, and inclusive governance (SDGs 11.5, 13.1). The reproducible, open-source SAR framework provides a transferable monitoring template for data-sparse Horn of Africa floodplains. Full article

In the context of the influx of about 1 million displaced Rohingya people from Myanmar into the Cox’s Bazar District of Bangladesh in 2017, it is critical to examine their impacts on the sustainability of the social–ecological system in host Bangladesh. The specific objectives of the study are to assess the nature of intergroup conflicts between the resettled and host communities, the emerging threats posed by resettlement to social–ecological sustainability, and the adaptation and resilience of both communities. A Case Study approach was adopted in the Rohingya resettlement area of Ukhia Upazila of Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh. Primary data were collected through Key Informant Interviews, Focus Group Discussions, and oral history conversations. The findings reveal that the average population density in the Rohingya refugee camps is 20 m² per person, whereas the international guideline for refugee camp population density is 30–45 m²/person. The sudden Rohingya population influx has resulted in considerable land cover change, livelihood competition, and deteriorated security conditions. Between 2015 and 2023, a rapid decline in the extent of dense forest was observed—from 93 sq km to 63 sq km. The sense of land loss among the host community created a resentment towards the resettled Rohingyas that turned into social conflicts and unrest. Despite these damages, socioeconomic evolution, the implementation of adaptive measures, and successful restoration programs by the relevant institutions have revealed some degree of community resilience. An inclusive development planning strategy is recommended to sustain livelihood opportunities for both communities and local social–ecological systems. Full article

The South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) in China involves a vast number of resettlers with far-reaching impacts. As a crucial carrier of resettlers’ daily lives, the indoor thermal comfort of resettlement housing directly affects their physical and mental health. However, existing empirical and field studies have paid limited attention to the thermal comfort and thermal adaptation of the resettlers. This study focuses on resettlers of the SNWDP, employing a combination of questionnaires and on-site measurements to analyze thermal benchmarks and thermal adaptation behavior data. The study introduces the concept of relative deprivation theory from social psychology, compares the correlations between vertical and horizontal deprivation and thermal perception across different relocation modes, and validates the predictive performance of commonly used thermal comfort models. The results show that as the relocation distance increases, the summer indoor thermal neutral temperature rises sequentially, and both the sensitivity to temperature changes and the width of the comfort zone also increase. Regarding thermal adaptation behaviors, the short-distance group primarily relies on passive adjustments such as using electric fans and reducing clothing, while the long-distance group significantly shifts toward active mechanical cooling like air conditioning. The sense of relative deprivation has a significant impact on the thermal comfort of medium- and long-distance resettlers, and its correlation even exceeds that of physical factors such as air temperature and black globe temperature. Among all groups, the ePMV and ePTS models modified by the expectancy factor exhibit the best predictive performance, with the smallest average deviation from the actual Thermal Sensation Vote (TSV), making them the optimal evaluation models for indoor thermal comfort of resettlers in the SNWDP. The findings provide theoretical guidance for creating healthy and comfortable indoor thermal environments in resettlement areas and for the sustainable development of subsequent phases of the SNWDP. Full article

As a policy-driven land use transition initiative bridging poverty eradication and sustainable development, China’s Poverty Alleviation Relocation (PAR) program exemplifies how state-led resettlement can reconfigure land use patterns while balancing immediate livelihood security with long-term community capacity development. The integration of large-scale PAR communities into new urbanization is a critical postrelocation task that is essential for consolidating poverty eradication achievements and enhancing endogenous development capacity. This study examined how the configuration of policy instruments shapes the endogenous development capacity of PAR communities during their transition to new urbanization. Employing a “tool–goal” analytical framework, we conducted a content analysis of 38 provincial-level policy documents (2021–present) using NVivo 20 software. The findings reveal that while local governments have established a preliminary policy system, structural imbalances persist: (1) uneven deployment of policy tools, (2) underutilization of demand-based policy tools, (3) tool–goal misalignment, and (4) insufficient market/societal participation in government-led measures. The discussion further reveals that the land use transition in the PAR program emphasizes the “living mode” (housing and public services) over the “livelihood mode” (productive resources and nonagricultural employment), creating structural dependency and leaving industrial land underutilized—as evidenced by weak policy support for industrial development (14.83%) and labour outmigration from resettlement areas. Drawing on the sustainable livelihoods framework, we further demonstrate how this exogenous-dominated policy mix disproportionately enhances physical and financial capital while constraining the accumulation of human and social capital—the very foundations of endogenous development capacity. To address these issues, we propose three key recommendations: (1) optimizing the policy mix to strengthen the endogenous development capacity of PAR communities; (2) realigning policy tools with objectives to achieve diversified yet coordinated goals; and (3) addressing implementation gaps to better leverage market mechanisms and social forces in promoting the sustainable urban integration of resettlement areas. Full article

Social sustainability is central to resettlement induced by development. However, the long-term dynamics of cultural change among involuntary resettlers remain underexplored. This paper draws on a 25-year longitudinal ethnographic study of Three Gorges Dam migrants relocated to rural Anhui, China (2000–2025), including participant observation, archival research and in-depth interviews with 22 households. It also examines how cultural adaptation, rupture and continuity unfold over extended time horizons. A rationality-driven analytical framework is used. Three coexisting modalities of cultural change are identified. They are adaptations in livelihood strategies and household labor divisions, rupture via the abandonment of low-return farming and distant kinship ties, and continuity in dialect, cuisine, funerary rituals and close kinship. This paper demonstrates that these modalities are selectively mobilized by three interacting rationalities: survival (ensuring subsistence security), economic (maximizing material returns) and social rationalities (upholding identity and moral obligations). When these rationalities are in conflict, survival rationality commands the highest priority, while social rationality retains veto power in identity-defining domains. In the long run, this leads to a stable pattern of “segmented acculturation”, which involves separation in social interactions, assimilation in economic spheres and cultural distinctiveness in identity-relevant domains. These findings reconceptualize cultural change as an agency-driven process of strategic selection and offer policy guidance for the long-term governance of resettlement communities. Full article

The urban remoteness of warehouses and distribution centres, known as logistics sprawl, has been observed for several decades. According to some, this increase in distances between logistics facilities and hypercentres contributes to the environmental worsening of transport operations, especially in densely populated places such as the Paris metropolitan area. Therefore, the question of logistics tightening—the opposite phenomenon—arises in the context of reducing pollutant emissions in the territories concerned. The objective of this work is to clarify the “hidden” mechanisms of freight transport services. It evaluates, through a simulation, the carbon footprint and operational efficiency of logistics tightening in the city of Paris. The input data we use comes from a large courier service company that can be regarded as an interesting case study when it comes to the Paris region. In our scenario, the ecological consistency of the journeys and the logistical requirements of the transport chain may be contested. Indeed, the inner resettlement of hubs for greener deliveries suggests the actual scheme of the company gets closer to optimum and ironically illustrates the relevance of the current locations. Logistics tightening mainly focuses on the last mile, but such a problem is complex, as each link of the chain has its own peculiarities, meaning the sustainability of one can undermine that of another. Full article

Poverty reduction, which is central to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, drives strategies like poverty alleviation relocation. China’s poverty alleviation relocation program represents a systematic government project to achieve national modernization. However, a holistic perspective of examining the process of reconstructing the social space of resettlement areas in poverty alleviation relocation is relatively limited. Drawing on spatial production theory, this study examines the mechanisms of spatial reconstruction in the Mu’en Di Resettlement Area in China from a holistic perspective, focusing on institutional, material, and spiritual spaces. This study primarily employs field-based ethnography, supplemented by a text analysis of policy documents. The findings reveal that the reconstruction of social space in resettlement areas constitutes a dynamic arena of interactions among state planning, market regulation, and migrant adaptation. This study offers insights for the practice of spatial reconstruction for impoverished migrants and emphasizes the importance of empowering migrants as active agents in this process. Full article

Under tightening land, fiscal, and environmental constraints, hydropower resettlement must shift from a compensation-oriented model toward synergistic development. Existing studies fail to clearly define the boundary between statutory responsibilities and incremental synergistic action, and lack a tripartite quantitative framework capturing the closed-loop interaction among hydropower enterprises, local governments, and resettled households. This study contributes to the literature by explicitly conceptualizing synergistic development as incremental collaboration beyond statutory responsibilities, and constructing a tripartite evolutionary game model with a gradient strategy space from routine compliance to active collaboration. The model incorporates key parameters like additional collaboration costs and synergy premium, and uses replicator dynamics to identify equilibrium regimes and threshold conditions. The results show that reasonable cost–benefit structures enable convergence to a full synergistic equilibrium, while excessive additional collaboration costs lead to low-level compliance lock-in; strategy-dependence coefficients only affect convergence speed, not the long-term evolutionary tendency toward synergy. The findings provide a quantitative basis for designing incentive-compatible resettlement governance mechanisms. Full article

Ensuring the rights of involuntary resettlers is fundamental to a law-based state and essential for achieving social equity and sustainable development. However, institutional improvement depends not only on the intent of top-level design but also on the capacity for dynamic adaptation amid evolving social contexts. Moving beyond the predominant research focus on policy design principles, this study investigates the dynamic evolution of China’s reservoir resettlement rights protection policies from 1949 to 2025. We first constructed a corpus of 32 core policy documents. Employing a bibliometric analysis within a multi-dimensional framework, we statically examined the developmental patterns of these policies. Subsequently, we applied the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) to dynamically analyze their policy changes, identifying a trajectory marked by both long-term stability and significant punctuations. Our findings reveal that over 76 years, the policy process has undergone two major equilibrium periods and two critical punctuation nodes, demonstrating a clear pattern of “protracted stability interspersed with short bursts of rapid transformation.” The policy image has correspondingly evolved through four distinct stages: “Administratively Mobilized Resettlement,” “Development-Oriented Resettlement,” “Harmonious Society for Resettlers,” and “Common Prosperity.” The study argues that this evolution is driven by the interplay of shifting central government attention, the occurrence of focusing events, and the reinforcement of evolving Policy Images, which collectively broadened the policy venue and led to non-linear institutional change. Based on these findings, the paper recommends: first, adopting a dynamic approach to policy formulation; second, maintaining sustained political commitment and robust institutional safeguards; and third, fostering multi-stakeholder consultation and collaborative governance mechanisms. These strategies are essential to more effectively secure the multifaceted rights of reservoir resettlers. Full article

Land transition in China has led to the emergence of highly heterogeneous neighborhoods. This process challenges the social sustainability of public green spaces. This research investigates the driving mechanisms of place attachment within green space across diverse community typologies in Beijing. This study constructed a structural equation model (SEM) based on 626 valid questionnaires, using the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S-O-R) framework. The overall SEM results indicate that place identity significantly contributes to civic behavior (β = 0.439, p < 0.001). However, a persistent ‘value-action’ gap remains, with 65.81% of residents demonstrating high identity yet low participation. Furthermore, the multi-group analysis (MGA) reveals that place attachment logic diverges significantly across groups. Regarding user identity, public events promote visitors’ place identity, but this effect remains insignificant among residents (β = −0.064, p > 0.05). Regarding generational differences, the macro-spatial environment is significantly associated with place dependence for young people (β = 0.330, p < 0.001) but is insignificant for the elderly. Community heterogeneity reveals distinct failure modes. In commodity housing communities, a disconnect exists where daily usage fails to foster dependence (β = 0.026, p > 0.05). Conversely, urban–rural resettlement communities display an identity deficit where public events fail to translate into place identity (β = 0.131, p > 0.05). The study proposes differentiated renewal pathways tailored to three community types. For commercial housing communities, it advocates precise interventions that prioritize social engagement. Meanwhile, for urban–rural resettlement communities, the focus shifts to accessibility and culturally rooted activities to help reconnect displaced populations. Full article