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This study examines the challenges faced by informal housing in Damascus, Syria; and its impact on sustainable development. The study categorizes and characterizes these informal settlements, exploring their origins and governmental policies aimed at their rehabilitation. Despite the Syrian government's strategies for sustainable urban development, the findings reveal that these initiatives remain largely theoretical, with slow implementation hindering progress towards sustainability. This study emphasizes the need for well-defined timelines and actionable plans to achieve desired improvements in these areas.

The rapid expansion of informal settlements near South African water bodies has led to a significant decline in water quality. Runof from inadequate sanitation and drainage systems contaminates rivers, wetlands and groundwater, posing risks to aquatic ecosystems and human health. Addressing these challenges requires innovative, low-cost solutions such as nature-based infrastructure (NBI), which can be implemented in a decentralised manner. Among these, constructed wetlands (CWs) stand out as potentially efective NBI solutions, providing a sustainable approach for water treatment without relying on additional chemicals or energy. They can remove pollutants such as total suspended solids (TSS), organic matter, nutrients and heavy metals, although their eficacy depends on site-specific conditions and water quality characteristics. Despite their potential, research on field-scale CWs for treating surface water polluted by informal settlements remains limited. This study evaluates the performance of a field-scale CW, incorporating vegetated and nonvegetated cells, to treat surface water from an informal settlement. Rigorous monitoring and operational protocols were implemented to optimise CW eficiency and enhance water quality for irrigation and environmental discharge. The CW efectively reduced ammonia nitrogen (NH₃-N), orthophosphate (PO₄³ -) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) concentrations by up to 84%, 75% and 100%, respectively. The treated water met standards for irrigation reuse, although additional disinfection was required in some cases. While the findings highlight CWs' potential, uncertainties persist about their sustained performance under fluctuating water quality and pollutant loads typical of informal settlement runo.f Further research is therefore needed to understand temporal water quality variations, optimise CW operation under peak pollutant loadings, and address emerging contaminants in surface waters afected by informal settlements.

The quality of surface water has a significant impact on human health and the entire ecological system. Sewer spillages from the surrounding informal settlements discharging into the river, carrying high concentrations of fecal coliforms, are one of the major causes of extreme pollution in the rivers of South Africa. These informal settlements are common in many developing countries, and they are usually located near waterways to compensate for basic demands for water, sanitation, and recreational space, where municipal infrastructure lags behind urban growth. One major problem has been poor sanitation and poor waste disposal practices in the informal settlements, which has led to the contamination of water resources. This study aims to assess the extent to which poor sanitation in informal settlements impacts the water quality of South African rivers, given the rapid rise in population and unemployment rate. The study also highlights health and environmental issues in the local regions caused by poor sanitation. Contamination of water bodies is associated with serious health problems and fatalities. Therefore, there is a need for frequent monitoring and management of waste products discharged into the neighboring aquatic environments.

Rapid urbanization has led to the emergence of slums in many developing and industrialized nations. It degrades the quality of life and burdens the urban amenities resulting in uneven distribution of slums. The majority of people in the developing world live in squatter settlements and these random gatherings disrupt the economic and social developmental plans of the concerned country. No suitable planning framework has been created for replicability on a considerable scale, despite the fact that slum upgrading is acquiring worldwide importance as a political issue. In recent years Jammu City has witnessed high population growth rates resulting in an uneven provision of urban amenities and a surge in slum areas. This paper focuses on a method-based approach using Management Information System (MIS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) for upgrading slums and recommends a planning outline using the approach formulated by the Government of India under the scheme named “Rajiv Awas Yojna” (RAY). The aim of this study is to assess the status of slums, propose redevelopment plans, and highlight the roles of different planning agencies to accomplish the redevelopment goals. The study concludes by postulating several recommendations for upgrading slums and formulating a framework that can be used in other similar areas for development.

Research and policy argue for more compact cities to respond to sustainable development challenges. However, what actually needs to be made more compact and how, is under examined, particularly in global South cities where north notions of urban qualities are adopted without being questioned. Informed by a qualitative study in informal and compact neighborhoods in Havana, this paper explores which qualities are important to deliver more just cities, and what strategies are developed by residents to strengthen beneficial qualities and address detrimental qualities in contexts of informal urbanization and compactness. It shows how the street, human capital, neighborhood, housing affordability, citizenship and vibrancy are significant compact city qualities neglected in the literature. Finally, the paper shows how diverse strategies are developed by residents to draw upon these qualities, such as self-help urbanism, learning and innovation, economic entrepreneurship, networks of solidarity, economies of reciprocity, local imaginaries and active citizenship.

The world is becoming increasingly urban. For the first time in history, more than 50% of human beings live in cities (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, ed. (2015)). Rapid urbanization is often chaotic and unstructured, leading to the formation of informal settlements or slums. Informal settlements are frequently located in environmentally hazardous areas and typically lack adequate sanitation and clean water, leading to poor health outcomes for residents. In these difficult circumstances women and children fair the worst, and reproductive outcomes for women living in informal settlements are grim. Insufficient uptake of antenatal care, lack of skilled birth attendants and poor-quality care contribute to maternal mortality rates in informal settlements that far outpace wealthier urban neighborhoods (Chant and McIlwaine (2016)). In response, a birth center model of maternity care is proposed for informal settlements. Birth centers have been shown to provide high quality, respectful, culturally appropriate care in high resource settings (Stapleton et al. J Midwifery Women’s Health 58(1):3–14, 2013; Hodnett et al. Cochrane Database Syst Rev CD000012, 2012; Brocklehurst et al. BMJ 343:d7400, 2011). In this paper, three case studies are described that support the use of this model in low resource, urban settings.

This article identifies and explains an underlying transition in global urban policy and discourse from the city as a sustainability problem to the city as a sustainability solution. We argue that contemporary policy discourses of cities saving the planet should be understood in the context of three major historical developments which have their roots in the 1970s and which intensified throughout the 1990s. The first is sprawl: the urban sustainability policy agenda in the Global North has been in large part a reaction to several decades of urban expansion and car-based planning. The second is informal settlements: since the introduction of UN-HABITAT in 1978, an international policy agenda has formed around addressing the environmental deficits associated with processes of informal urbanisation above all in the Global South. And the third is climate change, as the overarching concern that connects urban-environmental problems and policies in the North and South. We then contextualise the articles in this special issue by outlining a new research agenda for decoding the notion that cities can save the planet, which emphasises the need for an historical, multi-spatial, political and representational analysis of urban sustainability thinking and policy. 本文识别并解释全球城市政策和话语的一个潜在转变，即，城市从一个可持续性问题变成了一个可持续性解决方案。我们认为，当代关于城市拯救地球的政策论述应该在三大历史发展背景下理解，这三大历史发展根源于1970年代，并在整个1990年代得到强化。第一个历史发展是城市蔓延：全球北方的城市可持续发展政策议程在很大程度上是对几十年的城市扩张和基于私家车的规划的回应。第二个历史背景是非正规住区：自联合国人居署 (UN-HABITAT) 于1978年成立以来，围绕解决与非正规城市化进程相关的环境赤字（首先是在全球南方）形成了一个国际政策议程。第三个历史背景是气候变化，它是连接北方和南方城市环境问题和政策的首要问题。然后，我们概述了一个新的研究议程来解读“城市可以拯救地球”的概念，强调需要对城市可持续发展的思想和政策进行历史的、多空间的、政治的和代表性的分析，从而将这些文章置于本期特刊的背景中。

The informal settlements of the Global South are the least prepared for the pandemic of COVID-19 since basic needs such as water, toilets, sewers, drainage, waste collection, and secure and adequate housing are already in short supply or non-existent. Further, space constraints, violence, and overcrowding in slums make physical distancing and self-quarantine impractical, and the rapid spread of an infection highly likely. Residents of informal settlements are also economically vulnerable during any COVID-19 responses. Any responses to COVID-19 that do not recognize these realities will further jeopardize the survival of large segments of the urban population globally. Most top-down strategies to arrest an infectious disease will likely ignore the often-robust social groups and knowledge that already exist in many slums. Here, we offer a set of practice and policy suggestions that aim to (1) dampen the spread of COVID-19 based on the latest available science, (2) improve the likelihood of medical care for the urban poor whether or not they get infected, and (3) provide economic, social, and physical improvements and protections to the urban poor, including migrants, slum communities, and their residents, that can improve their long-term well-being. Immediate measures to protect residents of urban informal settlements, the homeless, those living in precarious settlements, and the entire population from COVID-19 include the following: (1) institute informal settlements/slum emergency planning committees in every urban informal settlement; (2) apply an immediate moratorium on evictions; (3) provide an immediate guarantee of payments to the poor; (4) immediately train and deploy community health workers; (5) immediately meet Sphere Humanitarian standards for water, sanitation, and hygiene; (6) provide immediate food assistance; (7) develop and implement a solid waste collection strategy; and (8) implement immediately a plan for mobility and health care. Lessons have been learned from earlier pandemics such as HIV and epidemics such as Ebola. They can be applied here. At the same time, the opportunity exists for public health, public administration, international aid, NGOs, and community groups to innovate beyond disaster response and move toward long-term plans.

Worldwide, cities with mountainous areas struggle with an increasing landslide risk as a consequence of global warming and population growth, especially in low-income informal settlements. Landslide Early Warning Systems (LEWS) are an effective measure to quickly reduce these risks until long-term risk mitigation measures can be realized. To date however, LEWS have only rarely been implemented in informal settlements due to their high costs and complex operation. Based on modern Internet of Things (IoT) technologies such as micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) sensors and the LoRa (Long Range) communication protocol, the Inform@Risk research project is developing a cost-effective geosensor network specifically designed for use in a LEWS for informal settlements. It is currently being implemented in an informal settlement in the outskirts of Medellin, Colombia for the first time. The system, whose hardware and firmware is open source and can be replicated freely, consists of versatile LoRa sensor nodes which have a set of MEMS sensors (e.g., tilt sensor) on board and can be connected to various different sensors including a newly developed low cost subsurface sensor probe for the detection of ground movements and groundwater level measurements. Complemented with further innovative measurement systems such as the Continuous Shear Monitor (CSM) and a flexible data management and analysis system, the newly developed LEWS offers a good benefit-cost ratio and in the future can hopefully find application in other parts of the world.

While evidence from several developing countries suggests the existence of socio-economic inequalities in the access to safe drinking water, a limited number of studies have been conducted on this topic in informal settlements. This study assessed socio-economic inequalities in the use of drinking water among inhabitants of informal settlements in South Africa. The study used data from “The baseline study for future impact evaluation for informal settlements targeted for upgrading in South Africa.” Households eligible for participation were living in informal settlements targeted for upgrading in all nine provinces of South Africa. Socio-economic inequalities were assessed by means of multinomial logistic regression analyses, concentration indices, and concentration curves. The results showed that the use of a piped tap on the property was disproportionately concentrated among households with higher socio-economic status (concentration index: +0.17), while households with lower socio-economic status were often limited to the use of other inferior (less safe or distant) sources of drinking water (concentration index for nearby public tap: −0.21; distant public tap: −0.17; no-tap water: −0.33). The use of inferior types of drinking water was significantly associated with the age, the marital status, the education status, and the employment status of the household head. Our results demonstrate that reducing these inequalities requires installing new tap water points in informal settlements to assure a more equitable distribution of water points among households. Besides, it is recommended to invest in educational interventions aimed at creating awareness about the potential health risks associated with using unsafe drinking water.