Ethiopia has experienced rapid urbanization over the past three decades. Several cities expanded rapidly and many satellite towns sprung up around the major cities. The high rate of urbanization and urban growth resulted in high demand for urban land, mainly for industrial, commercial, and residential purposes. In order to meet the demand, an enormous amount of land has been made available for urban use, mainly through land conversion. However, we know very little about how efficiently cities use urban land.
Tracking progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires monitoring of various social-ecological indicators over space and time, including the ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate (LCRPGR), an indicator of land-use efficiency (SDG 11.3.1). In this study, we analyzed state-of-the-art Earth observation data (1975–2015) to address three key questions. First, how has the LCRPGR varied over space and time? Second, how is built-up expansion related to population increase across regions?
Agriculture is fundamental to all three pillars of sustainability, environment, society, and economy. However, the definition of sustainable agriculture and the capacities to measure it remain elusive. Independent and transparent measurements of national sustainability are needed to gauge progress, encourage accountability, and inform policy. Here, we developed a Sustainable Agriculture Matrix (SAM) to quantify national performance indicators in agriculture and to investigate the trade-offs and synergies based on historical data for most countries of the world.
Coral reefs worldwide are facing impacts from climate change, overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution. The cumulative effect of these impacts on global capacity of coral reefs to provide ecosystem services is unknown. Here, we evaluate global changes in extent of coral reef habitat, coral reef fishery catches and effort, Indigenous consumption of coral reef fishes, and coral-reef-associated biodiversity. Global coverage of living coral has declined by half since the 1950s.
The COVID-19 pandemic has stalled and rolled back progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Ecosystem services (ESs), defined as the contributions of ecosystems to human well-being, underpin the achievement of SDGs. To promote SDG achievement in post-pandemic era, we teased out the links between ESs and SDGs while examining the impact of COVID-19. We found that ESs benefited all SDGs, yet man-made pressures led to degradation of ecosystems and their services. There is broad consensus that the virus lurks in degraded ecosystems and generates spillover due to human interference.
This article examines how improved water security affects the success of other SDGs, when all the goals are examined simultaneously.
Increasing the production of food from the ocean is seen as a pathway toward more sustainable and healthier human diets.
Cities have a significant influence on people's mental and physical health. City planning has the potential to change behaviors and incentivize a healthier lifestyle through the provision of public goods and urban infrastructure. The bulk of the evidence correlating city configuration and population health comes mostly from cities in the global north, with little evidence from cities in developing countries. This analysis seeks to contribute to bridging this evidence gap.
This study investigated the empowerment status of urban women in Pakistan using a multidimensional approach in Lahore – a metropolitan city. Analysis of survey data of 260 women revealed that around two-thirds of women were not empowered. Three dimensions of women's empowerment (WE) – control over resources, mobility and participation in household decision making are relatively weak. A significant proportion of women (49%) did not have control over spending of family savings. A majority of them (70-85%) neither had ownership rights of fixed property (i.e.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the guiding policy for agriculture and the largest single budget item in the European Union (EU). Agriculture is essential to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but the CAP's contribution to do so is uncertain. We analyzed the distribution of €59.4 billion of 2015 CAP payments and show that current CAP spending exacerbates income inequality within agriculture, while little funding supports climate-friendly and biodiverse farming regions.
