Promoting Green Urban Development in African Cities : eThekwini, South Africa Urban Environmental Profile

World Bank

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AQUATIC HABITATS;    FISH;    ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY;    HABITAT TYPES;    STORMWATER;   

RP-ID  :  103643

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The city of eThekwini or Durban hasundergone a period of rapid urbanization that hascontributed to the degradation of the city’s naturalenvironment. Climate change is placing further strains onthe city’s ability to manage the urban environment. Theurban environmental profile of eThekwini has been preparedas the first component of the assignment promoting greenurban development in Africa: enhancing the relationshipbetween urbanization, environmental assets and ecosystemservices, a project being conducted under the leadership ofthe World Bank. An overall objective of this project is tolink the study of urban environmental issues with theadvancement of more sustainable urban growth. The profilesummarizes the existing quality of the terrestrial and otheraquatic environmental assets, identifies the key driversthat are the cause of their vulnerability, and describes thekey institutional challenges and constraining factors thatlimit the city’s ability to address environmental managementchallenges. Identification of the key environmental assetsand key drivers of environmental degradation within the cityrequired a more comprehensive review of reports on urbanplanning and infrastructure services. The urbanenvironmental profile is organized as follows: section onegives introduction. Section two, eThekwini context, sets thebackground, and context of the study of Durban, providing anoverview of the impacts of urbanization and climate changeand drawing the link to the urban environment. Sectionthree, quality of the environmental assets of eThekwinidescribes the state of the key environmental assets ofeThekwini: the terrestrial assets, aquatic assets, coastalassets, and the air, and attempts to infer the associatedhistoric and current trends. Section four, drivers ofenvironmental vulnerability and degradation describes thekey issues that are driving degradation, the impacts caused,and the reason for these challenges. Section five,institutional issues and challenges describes the keyfactors that constrain the eThekwini‘s ability toeffectively address environmental management challenges.Section six, key findings provides a synthesis of keyfindings of the study.