Environment, Development, and Sustainability

Perspectives and cases from around the world

As the human population continues to place increasing demands on the planet we inhabit we face the biggest challenge of our time: how can we exploit the natural resources that we need – whether it be for water, food, or energy – in a way that preserves the environment, is equitable and doesn’t compromise the long-term future of the planet and its biodiversity?

Environment, Development, and Sustainability represents an examination of three integrated issues that form the main ongoing challenge of this century.

Featuring a range of perspectives and case studies from North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia, the book reflects the multiple ways in which environment, development and sustainability are intertwined everywhere – in rich and poor countries, and those in between.

Contributions from both practitioners and academics, bringing experiences as technologists, engineers, natural scientists and social scientists, expand further the many perspectives on the challenge. The book celebrates this diversity, using it positively as a resource for a more holistic learning approach to environment, development and sustainability.

Environment, Development, and Sustainability is written as a student textbook where individual chapters can be stand-alone, or where, helped by a linking narrative, the book can be read as a whole. Its accessible style, however, makes it suitable for a broader audience, including practitioners, activists and citizens who simply wish to know more.

Online Resource Centre

For registered adopters:
Figures from the book available to download

For students:
Library of web links cited in the book
Flashcard glossary

Table of Contents:

Section A Introduction

1 Making the connections between environment, development, and sustainability

Section B Learning from the local

2 The challenge for environment, development and sustainability in China.

3 Rural development and environment in Uganda

4 Traditional and modern (or improved) rural water supplies: stories from Ethiopia and Niger

5 The souvenirs of communism: missed opportunities for sustainable development innovations in the enlarged European Union?

6 Sustainable transport systems: learning from Cuba

7 At the coal face in Australia: the youth climate movement

8 Social dynamics of the US environmental challenge

9 Looking beyond the visible: contesting environmental agendas for Mumbai’s slums

Section C Major themes in environment, development and sustainability

10 Climate Change: causes and consequences

11 Can ecosystems be managed sustainably? Biodiversity and tropical forests

12 Conservation and development in Scotland and Uganda

13 Managing water for sustainable development across international boundaries: the Rhine river basin

14 Municipal waste management and the environmental health challenge: a tale of two cities

15 Environment, inequality, and the internal contradictions of globalization

16 Environmental ethics and development

Section D Action for environment, development and sustainability

17 Local governance and sustainable development in Wales: making a difference?

18 Cities and climate change: leading to a low carbon London

19 Exploring participation in science, technology and innovation: tissue-culture bananas in Kenya

20 Designing for sustainability

21 Corporate responsibility in practice: building an eco-city from scratch

22 Innovative partnerships for sustainable development in Harare, Zimbabwe

23 Community-led sustainable development: the champion approach

24 Why involve the public? Case studies of public involvement in environmental initiatives in South Africa

25 Tools and techniques for environmental decision making

Section E Conclusion

26 Scientific, social science and technological approaches to understanding environmental change

27 Conclusion