Assessment of Population pressure on Urban Housing in Ngwa Road, Ohanku and Obohia Parts of Aba South, Abia State Nigeria

The effect of population growth on urban housing is a global challenge but the worst examples are found in the developing world which has led to an increased growth of poorly planned cities in the developing world, and loss of aesthetics. The aim of this research is to assess the level of population pressure on urban housing within Ngwa Road, Ohanku and Obohia environs in Aba South local government area in Abia State. The research evaluated housing demand and supply in the area, condition of houses in the area, factors encouraging population growth in the study area and level of compliance of buildings with town planning laws. The study area has an estimated 2021 population of 138017 as projected from 88,951 in 2016 with a growth rate of 2.94%. The research data was collected through household survey, Aba South Town Planning Authority, National Population Commission and the Aba South Street Naming and House Numbering Office. The simple random sampling technique and the purposive sampling technique were employed by the researcher with a sample size of 399.9 at 0.05 confidence level which was determined using the Taro Yamane method for sample size collection. The Principle Component Analysis (PCA), Principle Component Regression (PCR), standard deviation, weighted mean, percentages/proportions to analyze the data collected. The Principal Component Analysis result showed that component I have the highest loading with eigen value of 6.721 while component II has an eigen value of 3.279. The result showed that ease of access to commercial activities and educational level of heads of households are major factors encouraging population growth in the study area. The research revealed a housing demand and supply cluster estimate of 60.11% which was not considered statistically high. The average response of 93.2% is that houses in the study area are in a poor condition. The Aba South town planning authority revealed a 0.741 standard deviation which shows a high level of non-compliance with town planning laws. The research hypothesis was tested using Spearman Rank Correlation test at 0.05 level of confidence and the null hypothesis was accepted. Looking at the Land-UseLand-Cover images of the area obtained for 3 epochs from 1980-2020, the study area experienced an major growth in rate of housing stock after year 2000 and with increasing population growth, the area may soon be unable to carry the population that will be found there. This research calls the attention of the Abia State government in particular and the federal government in general to address these challenges through recommended public-private partnership and decentralization of pull factors. These recommendat

The formation of a Kinh traditional village in Huế in early modern Vietnam

This article traces the transformation of Huế from an open migrant society to a closed community from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries through an examination of the village documents of Thanh Phước in Thừa Thiên Huế province. In Thanh Phước, the expansion of cultivated land reached its limits around the end of the seventeenth century. Subsequently, continuous population pressure resulted in the emergence of social groups with closed and fixed membership called làng and dòng họ after the eighteenth century. A significant feature of this social development was that the patrilineal kinship favoured by Confucianism was used to protect the vested interests of the earliest inhabitants of the village and their descendants. This indicates that the penetration of Confucianism among the common people and the development and stagnation of agriculture in early modern Vietnam were mutual, complementary phenomena.

Research Trends and Challenges of Using CRISPR/Cas9 for Improving Rice Productivity

Nowadays, rice production faces significant challenges due to population pressure, global climate change, and outbreak of various pests and diseases. Breeding techniques used to improve rice traits include mutant breeding, cross breeding, heterogeneity, transformation, molecular markers, genome-wide association study (GWAS), and so on. Since the recently developed CRISPR/Cas9 technology can directly target a specific part of a desired gene to induce mutation, it can be used as a powerful means to expand genetic diversity of crops and develop new varieties. So far, CRISPR/Cas9 technology has been used for improving rice characteristics such as high yield, good quality, abundant nutrition, pest and disease resistance, herbicide resistance, and biotic and abiotic stress resistance. This review highlights the mechanisms and optimization of the CRISPR system and its application to rice crop, including resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, and improved rice quality and yield.

Air quality fluctuation monitoring and statistical data analysis during COVID-19 pandemic in Siliguri city, India

Introduction: Worldwide coronavirus created is a major problem for human health, food security, economy and many more. World Health Organisation (WHO) named this virus COVID-19. This virus is first detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and after that, it’s spreading over the world. Lockdown is healing the environmental condition because major Indian metropolitan cities are recovered from different pollutants. This study is to identify the air quality trend before, during and after the lockdown in Siliguri city, the third-largest city of West Bengal and this city is also a commercial and transportation hub. Materials and methods: The air quality data have been derived from West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) and proceed in MS-Office and ArcGIS 10.4. The air pollutant and week air quality data have been used for monitoring the environmental situation. Results: In this study, results show that around 70%-90% of air quality is increased during strict lockdown but again air quality is decreased after lockdown gradually. The weekly air quality graph significantly changes during lockdown but after lockdown, the graph was increased. The highest air quality shows 347 before lockdown but during lockdown it’s decreased 25 on 23-24 May 2020. After lockdown public transport, industrial area and small scale industries are reopened and again the air quality increased. The highest air quality shows 353 on 14 January 2021 during unlock 8.0. Conclusion: This pandemic taught how anthropogenic activates, like urbanization, population pressure and industrial works were endangering the environment and some caution is essential for future livelihood.

An Assessment of Urban Expansion Impacts on Land Transformation of Rajpur-Sonarpur Municipality

Urban expansion, population pressure, and increasing industrialization are influenced the world's natural environment, increased climate change, and global warming. Land use and land cover (LULC) changes are occurring due to anthropogenic activities and the results are land transformation, thermal variation, heat stress, and massive vegetation loss, which is increased oxygen deficiency and air pollution. Remote sensing-based Landsat TM and OLI/TIRS data were used to identify the land transformation and the effect of urbanization in Rajpur-Sonarpur Municipality in the years 2000 and 2020. The Built-up land was increased due to anthropogenic activities and around 12.16% area has been increased. Similarly, the agricultural land has been increased by 2.10 km2 area and vegetation area has been decreased around 6.52 km2 in the study area. The vegetation degradation areas were located in the South, South-west, and central parts of this study area. Correspondingly, North, North-west and central parts have a noticeable amount of built-up area developed. During twenty years, 6.97°C temperature was increased due to urban expansion, population pressure, transportation accessibility, and other urban amenities. The overall accuracies of classification maps were 96.25% and 91.64 % and the kappa coefficients were 0.95 and 0.89 respectively.

Enset Production, Its Challenges and Controlling Methods in South Omo Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Enset (Ensete ventricosum (Welw.) Cheesman) is economically a useful crop that provides forage for animals, construction materials, fuel and traditionally it is used as a medicine. The production and productivity of enset is mainly affected by many diseases and pests which causes serious devastating cultivar diversity and finally a yield lose of the crop. Moreover, its production sustainability is also threatened by many factors like wild animal pests, enset root pests, high population pressure and the shift of the producers to cash-oriented crop production. The assessment on enset production, its challenges and controlling methods was carried out in Debub Ari district of South Omo Zone, in southern Ethiopia from November 2021 to January 2021 in four randomly selected representative Kebeles. Simple random sampling method were employed to select a representative sample of the study (n = 138). Qualitative and quantitative data were collected through structured questionnaire, focus group discussions, individual interview and personal observations. The collected data were analyzed by using appropriate simple descriptive statistics. The land under enset production is declining from time to time, as well as its production also declines due to social, bio-physical and environmental factors such as land fragmentation, enset bacterial welt, insects and pests and environmental variability factors. To overcome these factors farmers practicing many controlling methods such as by burying the infected plants, restricting the movement of infected plant materials, sterilizing production tools and raising awareness about how to protect disease like enset bacterial welt and use of aluminum phosphate for pests like mole rate.

Turkish Migration Policy from the 1960s Until Today: What National Development Plans Tell Us

This paper is on migration and migration policy transition of Turkey. The focus is on the Turkish National Development Plans from the 1960s until today and the socio-political and economic context. We identify three distinct periods. The first period of the 1960s is characterized by an explicit support of out-migration to reduce population pressure and on remittances to promote economic growth. The second period from the 1970s to 2000 is marked by diaspora policies of Turkey relative to Europe, thereby acknowledging the role of the Turkish diaspora in the promotion of Turkish economic development and international relations. Since the year of 2000, Turkish migration policy turned to the promotion of highly skilled immigration, aiming at the promotion of technological progress towards a knowledge society with the support of intellectual elites. The policy transition towards the promotion of highly skilled immigration goes hand in hand with institutional and legal changes, which we specify.

Detecting spatio-temporal dynamics of urban growth and sprawl through geospatial technique and spectral indicators on Habra-I and Habra-II blocks of North 24 Parganas, India

The worldwide fertility rate is becoming a most significant context of anthropological condition. Rapid population pressure is one of increasing factors for the global land crisis and gradually affects the environment and boosting climatic vulnerability. But world population progressively increased and hammering the natural environmental condition. Urban heat island (UHI) is increased due to anthropogenic activities and urban expansion, which causes public health emergency. Space-based UHI identification methods are used to estimate the environmental degradation using Land surface temperature (LST) along with different spectral indicators derived from multi-temporal Landsat images. The Landsat imageries were used to calculated land use and land cover maps of 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020 were used for Habra-I and Habra-II blocks of North 24 Parganas. A supervised classification technique was applied for LU/LC classification. Shannon’s entropy model has been used for detecting urban expansion over the last 30 years. Land use and land cover (LULC) changes are notified in this study region because of urban expansion. 17.81 Sq.km of Agricultural land and 17.99 Sq,km of thick vegetation have been decreased similarly 43.24 Sq.km of the built-up area increased. Central Business District (CBD) is more densely population rather than the peripheral part. In the last thirty years around 6.52 ° C temperatures have been increased in this area. The highest values of NDBI are 0.16 (1990) to 0.59 (2020) respectively. The highest values of NDVI are 0.808 (1990) to 0.459 (2020) respectively. That spectral indicator shows that vegetated area has been affected due to urban expansion.

Book Review: Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare as a Crime Against Humanity and Nature

The subtitle of Emmanuel Kreike’s Scorched Earth foreshadows the goal of this impressive and comprehensive contribution to the field. His goal is to chip away at the Nature-Culture dichotomy that he argues drives, and limits, much of the analysis that is produced of historical, and modern, warfare. Kreike uses the concept of environcide, which he defines as “intentionally or unintentionally damaging, destroying, or rendering inaccessible environmental infrastructure”, and argues that the traditional assumptions about nature and culture in the study of warfare obscure the importance of the natural world in determining who lives and who dies. For the field of genocide studies, Kreike’s work promotes the analysis of mass violence and potentially genocidal conflicts by looking not simply at actions taken by perpetrators directly against victims, but also at a litany of actions that perpetrators might take that could reasonably result in mass death, joining those in the field who promote a shift in the definition of genocide that includes actions that do not simply meet the definition of dolus specialis to also those that demonstrate dolus eventualis. While confiscating food and burning fields may not fit our current understanding of genocidal acts, they can certainly have the same eventual outcome as the use of machine guns and poison gas. And, recent scholars of risk factors do note the importance of “crises, resource scarcity, population pressure, natural disasters” as increasing the likelihood of genocide.

Land cover transitions and effects of transhumance on available forage biomass of rangelands in Benin

This study examined the effects of transhumance pressure on total abavoe-ground biomass and forage availability on rangelands in Benin. We also investigated the implications of land cover transitions on rangelands over a 31-year period. Our work was carried out in three regions of Benin representing distinct phytogeographic regimes: Ketou, Tchaourou, and Sinende. Ground-truthing and biomass sampling of the herbaceous and phanaerophyte strata were carried out between the 2016 peak vegetation period and the onset of the 2017 rainy season. Herbaceous biomass was determined by destructive sampling, and biomass of shrub and trees was estimated using non-destructive sampling and allometric equations. Historical and present-day Landsat data allowed an analysis of land cover change for the 1986–2002 and 2002–2017 periods. Land cover analyses yielded evidence of significant expansion of agricultural areas, especially in the latter period. The data also revealed progressive landscape fragmentation and transformations to a land cover of reduced total phytomass. There were no long-term effects of transhumance on trees, but likely on herbaceous biomass. Land cover changes in the study regions seem primarily the result of population pressure, infrastructural changes, persisting norms, and traditions regarding environmental management and the increasing popularity of livestock keeping as an insurance strategy. Rangeland transformations had negative impacts on transhumant herds’ mobility and forage availability. As rangeland stability and consent between agricultural and pastoral land users are at a tipping point, informed policies, and land use planning that foster compromises among all stakeholders are needed.