Review of the hydraulic capacity of urban grate inlet: a global and Latin American perspective

The most recent numerical models of urban drainage allow the integration of runoff from roads with the network of sewer pipes, thus evolving towards a holistic version of the system. A fundamental part of this integration is the capture of stormwater in urban drain inlets. These studies have recently increased, resulting in different methodologies to represent the uptake process and making it difficult to apply unified or general formulations. Therefore, this document intends to be a review of the most representative experimental and numerical studies on the capture of rainwater through grates. In addition, the review includes the proposed methodologies for estimating the flow captured by urban storm drains to define a starting point for new and complementary studies to be carried out by researchers, manufacturers, and operators involved in public drainage service systems. Particularly in Latin America, research on the subject is limited even though it is a highly urbanized region. In this context, this document has an additional interest in presenting a particular analysis of the concept of urban drainage in Latin American cities.

Improve the roles of nature reserves in conservation of endangered pheasant in a highly urbanized region

Nature reserves play an extraordinarily important role in conserving animal populations and their habitats. However, landscape change and unreasonable zoning designations often render these protected areas inadequate. Therefore, regular evaluation of the efficacy of protected lands is critical for maintaining and improving management strategies. Using species distribution models and GAP analysis, we assessed the changes in suitable habitat for the Brown Eared-pheasant (Crossoptilon mantchuricum) in two Chinese nature reserves between 1995 and 2013. Our results showed that the habitat suitability of Brown Eared-pheasant has changed dramatically during this period, and fragmentation analyses showed an increase in concentration area and decrease in patch area. In particular, our findings show that the national nature reserves need to adjust their ranges to ensure the conservation of this flagship species. Our study further provides a new viewpoint for evaluating the efficacy of protected lands, particularly in highly urbanized regions where conservation goals must be balanced with changing landscapes.

DIVERSITY OF POLISH REGIONS IN THE LEVEL OF TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT

The study aims to identify spatial diversity and possible concentrations of 16 Polish regions regarding their infrastructure development levels in the period of 2005–2018. Measuring development of technical infrastructure requires the use of several variables due to its multidimensional character. It justifies the use of multivariate analysis. Based on the method of Hellwig’s development measure, three groups of regions were defined. Five of the analysed regions did not change their position in the 2018 ranking as compared to 2005. These were regions from the top three: Śląskie, Dolnośląskie and Małopolskie (south-western Poland), as well as two regions in the class with the lowest level of technical infrastructure development: Warmińsko-Mazurskie and Podlaskie (north-eastern Poland). Although the leader of both rankings, Śląski region, took the most favourable values in 2018 concerning density and quality of roads, density of railway lines or green areas in towns, as a typically industrial, mining-related, intensely urbanized region is has needed to cope with a serious problem with air pollution, relating from the smallest amount of gas pollution retained or neutralized. In the other side, the two weakest regions were characterised by valuable environmental conditions (Warmińsko-Mazurskie) and a large share of agricultural area (Podlaskie). These natural and economic conditions may, on the one hand, prevent the development of technical infrastructure (e.g. road construction in Natura 2000 areas), and on the other hand, maintenance of such infrastructure could be unprofitable for both local government units and its users.

Variable Urbanization Warming Effects across Metropolitans of China and Relevant Driving Factors

Urbanization is mainly characterized by the expansion of impervious surface (IS) and hence modifies hydrothermal properties of the urbanized areas. This process results in rising land surface temperature (LST) of the urbanized regions, i.e., urban heat island (UHI). Previous studies mainly focused on relations between LST and IS over individual city. However, because of the spatial heterogeneity of UHI from individual cities to urban agglomerations and the influence of relevant differences in climate background across urban agglomerations, the spatial-temporal scale independence of the IS-LST relationship still needs further investigation. In this case, based on Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager and Thermal Infrared Sensor (Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS) remote sensing image and multi-source remote sensing data, we extracted IS using VrNIR-BI (Visible red and NIR-based built-up Index) and calculated IS density across three major urban agglomerations across eastern China, i.e., the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH), the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), and the Pearl River Delta (PRD) to investigate the IS-LST relations on different spatial and temporal scales and clarify the driving factors of LST. We find varying warming effects of IS on LST in diurnal and seasonal sense at different time scales. Specifically, the IS has stronger impacts on increase of LST during daytime than during nighttime and stronger impacts on increase of LST during summer than during winter. On different spatial scales, more significant enhancing effects of IS on LST can be observed across individual city than urban agglomerations. The Pearson correlation coefficient (r) between IS and LST at the individual urbanized region can be as high as 0.94, indicating that IS can well reflect LST changes within individual urbanized region. However, relationships between IS and LST indicate nonlinear effects of IS on LST. Because of differences in spatial scales, latitudes, and local climates, we depicted piecewise linear relations between IS and LST across BTH when the IS density was above 10% to 17%. Meanwhile, linear relations still stand between IS density and LST across YRD and PRD. Besides, the differences in the IS-LST relations across urban agglomeration indicate more significant enhancing effects of IS on LST across PRD than YRD and BTH. These findings help to enhance human understanding of the warming effects of urbanization or UHI at different spatial and temporal scales and is of scientific and practical merits for scientific urban planning.

The Chaos of War

This chapter details how the Polish nobility and the Jews fled from the Khmelnytsky uprising, which took many forms, depending on the circumstances. The uprising began in early 1648 with the fomenting of unrest in the Cossack heartland of Zaporizhia, particularly the region of the lower Dniepr River. The trouble soon spread to more northerly regions of left-bank Ukraine, causing panic among the Polish nobles settled there, who began to flee, calling for a military invasion to put an end to the unrest. This was not a very urbanized region, so formal Jewish communities were few and far between. Most of the Jews there lived as one- or two-family units in villages where they leased and ran taverns. As the violence began to take its toll, many of them decided to flee too, making for the larger and well-fortified towns to the west of the Dniepr River. The chapter then recounts the “ethnic cleansing” and religious violence the Jews faced.

Development of entrepreneurship in valuable natural rural areas

The values of the natural environment in the subject literature are commonly indicated as an asset conducive to development shaping the competitiveness of areas with such values. The paper attempts to assess the use of endogenous potential of such areas in shaping the multifunctional, sustainable development of rural areas that have such qualities. In particular, the aim was to check to what extent the sme sector, dominating in the economic structure of rural areas, solves the key problem of labour market imbalance and population migration in environmentally valuable areas. The area of detailed research is Podkarpacie, the Polish region considered as a peripheral, border region, the least urbanized region with the highest share of areas covered by various forms of nature protection and forestation, with one of the lowest gdp per capita indicator in the country. For the purpose of implementing the research assumptions, a taxonomic unit (using the complete linkage method) consisting of powiats with the highest concentration of features characteristic for rural areas of high natural values was separated. Synthetic indicators calculated on the basis of the Hellwig taxonomic development pattern method and a positional method using Weber's median were used to assess the diversity of entrepreneurship level. The research confirmed that the non-agricultural economic activity sector is less developed in areas of high natural value. Despite positive developments in the enterprise sector, their potential is too weak an economic base for addressing unsustainable labour market problems, as evidenced by high unemployment and a high negative migration balance. This limits the use of the endogenous potential of these areas and is not conducive to the concept of multifunctional, sustainable development. Migration poses a threat to the depopulation of these areas with all the negative consequences associated with such processes. This is a challenge for the studied areas and regional policy.

Evaluation and Dynamic Mechanism of Ecological Space in a Densely Urbanized Region During a Rapidly Growing Period—A Case Study of the Wu-E-Huang-Huang Metropolitan Interlocking Region

Ecological space in a densely urbanized region plays a very important role in its development. Therefore, a scientific evaluation of ecological spaces in a densely urbanized region is the main prerequisite for corresponding ecological space planning. Taking the Wu-E-Huang-Huang Metropolitan Interlocking Region as the study area, the paper selects six types of ecological factors, including the location index, land status, terrain conditions (elevation, slope), hydrological conditions (rivers, lakes), landscape value, and road traffic. By using a single factor evaluation and a multi-factor comprehensive evaluation method involving GIS, the paper presents an evaluation of the ecological space conditions of the Wu-E-Huang-Huang Metropolitan Interlocking Region. In line with the result, the ecological environment of the region is divided into four levels: highly sensitive areas, sensitive areas, weakly sensitive areas and insensitive areas. On this basis, the underlying problems and mechanisms are explored further.

Jan Gottman’s concept of megalopolis

The article deals with Jean Gottmann’s concept of the megalopolis. In the middle of the twentieth century Gottmann fixed the beginning of a new stage of urbanization, which is characterized by the formation of vast urban regions. “Regional iconography” is the basis for his concept of the megalopolis. According to “regional iconography” borders are formed under the influence of culture and lifestyle, and so they are symbolic entities. The development of information and communication technologies, according to Gottmann, changes the daily lives of people, in particular, simplifies moving over long distances, which makes the formation of a megalopolis possible. The researcher focuses on the urbanized region of the northeast coast of the United States, which covers the territory from Boston to Washington. This urbanized region without significant differences between urban and rural areas is called “megalopolis” by Gottmann. Megalopolises, according to Gottmann, are one of the leading forms of urbanization of the 20th century and are considered as the result of the formation of a post-industrial society, with an increasing number of people employed in the service sector who are actively involved in the suburbanization process. One of the main problems is the lack of megalopolises’ effective management, because decision-making requires combined actions from the authorities of several administrative-territorial units. Nevertheless, city planning should be gradually superseded by regional planning, since it corresponds to the urbanization trends fixed in the second half of the 20th century. Gottmann’s ideas on the formation of urbanized regions become common, their continuation are the works of researchers at the Los Angeles School, for example.