Sustainable Cities and Communities

The problems related to the process of industrialisation such as biodiversity depletion, climate change and a worsening of health and living conditions, especially but not only in developing countries, intensify. Therefore, there is an increasing need to search for integrated solutions to make development more sustainable. The United Nations has acknowledged the problem and approved the "2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development". On 1st January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Agenda officially came into force. These goals cover the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection.

The Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals comprehensively addresses the SDGs in an integrated way. The Encyclopedia encompasses 17 volumes, each one devoted to one of the 17 SDGs. This volume addresses SDG 11, namely "Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable" and contains the description of a range of terms, which allows a better understanding and fosters knowledge. This book presents a set of papers on the state of the art of knowledge and practices about the numerous challenges for cities, solutions and opportunities for the future.

Concretely, the defined targets are:

• Ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums
• Provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport, with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations, women, children, persons with disabilities and older persons
• Enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries
• Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world's cultural and natural heritage
• Significantly reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected and substantially decrease the direct economic losses relative to global gross domestic product caused by disasters, including water-related disasters, with a focus on protecting the poor and people in vulnerable situations
• Reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management
• Provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities
• Support positive economic, social and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas by strengthening national and regional development planning
• Substantially increase the number of cities and human settlements adopting and implementing integrated policies and plans towards inclusion, resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, resilience to disasters, and develop and implement, in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, holistic disaster risk management at all levels
• Support least developed countries, including through financial and technical assistance, in building sustainable and resilient buildings utilizing local materials

Editorial Board
Samuel Borges Barbosa, Elisa Conticelli, Erin Hopkins, Olga Kuznetsova, Astrid Skjerven, Hari Srinivas

Walter Leal Filho (BSc, PhD, DSc, DPhil, DEd, DL, DLitt) is a Senior Professor and Head of the Research and Transfer Centre ＂Sustainable Development and Climate Change Management＂ at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany, and Chair of Environment and Technology at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is the initiator of the Word Sustainable Development Symposia (WSSD-U) series, and chairs the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme. Professor Leal Filho has written, co-written, edited or co-edited more than 400 publications, including books, book chapters and papers in refereed journals.

Anabela Marisa Azul is a Researcher at the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC) and the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research of the University of Coimbra (UC, Portugal). She holds a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences, specializing in Ecology (2002, UC), and pursued her investigation on biology and ecology of fungi to pinpoint the role of mycorrhizal symbiosis for sustainability of Mediterranean forests under different land use scenarios at the Centre for Functional Ecology (CFE-UC), where she became an Associate Researcher (from 2009 to 2014). At CFE-UC, Marisa Azul developed a holistic approach that combined innovation in food production with sustainable development and public scientific awareness to multiple actors. At CNC, from 2014 on, Marisa Azul focuses her investigation on basic research and participatory research dynamics to pinpoint links between metabolism, health/disease, and sustainability. She has broad academic experience as a researcher working in participatory research and interdisciplinary that link biomedical and life/environmental sciences, social sciences, science education, science communication, and artistic forms. Her research interests also lie in bringing together the academy and social/economical players. She has been successful in attracting national and international funding, coordinating projects, and mentoring young researchers on the topics mentioned. She has co-authored over 40 scientific publications and book chapters, co-edited 4 books on Climate Change Management Series and 1 onWorld Sustainability Series published by Springer, co-authored 4 books for children and 2 comics, and co-produced 1 animation.

Luciana Brandli, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the University of Passo Fundo, Brazil, working in the Ph.D. Program in Civil and Environment Engineering. Her current research interests include sustainability in higher education and green campus, management of urban infrastructure and sustainable cities, and the Agenda 2030 for sustainable development. She supervises a number of Master’s and Doctoral students on engineering and environment and sustainability issues and has in excess of 300 publications, including books, book chapters, and papers in refereed journals.

Pinar Gökçin Özuyar is a Faculty Member of Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences at Istinye University, Istanbul, Turkey. She received her B.S. degree in Environmental Engineering from Istanbul Technical University in 1992 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Bogazici
University Institute of Environmental Sciences, Istanbul, Turkey. Her Ph.D. thesis was based on the ＂Thermodynamic Analysis of Treatment Plants for Producing Energy from SolidWaste＂ which she conducted in Germany with a joint scholarship from Forschungzentrum Jülich and TUBITAK (NationalScience Foundation of Turkey). Defining herself as a pracademic, she has more than 25 years of experience not only in academia but also in the private sector working on environment and sector-specific activities in Turkey and Dubai (UAE). She has extensive expertise specifically in environmental auditing according to World Bank Standards which is required for international financing especially during company mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and greenfield projects. Working over the years in projects involving different stakeholder groups with different priorities, she has the proven capacity for establishing a dialogue between such stakeholder groups. Although coming from a technical background, her academic work focuses on involving sustainable development into the strategiesof corporations including higher academic institutions. Currently, she teaches and leads funded research on sustainability/sustainable development especially focusing on industrial ecology and regional development.
Tony Wall (BSc Hons, PGDip, PGCHE, MA, MSc, EdD, MCIPD, NTFHEA) is a Professor, Founder and Director of the International Thriving at Work Research Group in the United Kingdom where he is the institutional lead for the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme. His research impact work has won multiple Santander International Research Excellence Awards and a National Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. Apart from being a visiting scholar in the US and Australia, his change work includes co-founding of the Washington Ethical Leadership Summit and the TS Eliot Foundation’s International Creative Practice for Wellbeing Framework.