Geography

Tourism has become one of the most significant forces for change in the world today. Regarded by many as the world's largest industry, tourism prompts regular mass migrations of people, exploitation of resources, processes of development and inevitable repercussions on places, economies, societies and environments. It is a phenomenon that increasingly demands attention.

Research in transportation, urban design, and planning has examined associations between physical environment variables and individuals' walking and cycling for transport. Constructs, methods, and findings from these fields can be applied by physical activity and health researchers to improve understanding of environmental influences on physical activity. In this review, neighborhood environment characteristics proposed to be relevant to walking/cycling for transport are defined, including population density, connectivity, and land use mix. Neighborhood comparison and correlational studies with nonmotorized transport outcomes are considered, with evidence suggesting that residents from communities with higher density, greater connectivity, and more land use mix report higher rates of walking/cycling for utilitarian purposes than low-density, poorly connected, and single land use neighborhoods. Environmental variables appear to add to variance accounted for beyond sociodemographic predictors of walking/cycling for transport. Implications of the transportation literature for physical activity and related research are outlined. Future research directions are detailed for physical activity research to further examine the impact of neighborhood and other physical environment factors on physical activity and the potential interactive effects of psychosocial and environmental variables. The transportation, urban design, and planning literatures provide a valuable starting point for multidisciplinary research on environmental contributions to physical activity levels in the population. (Ann Behav Med 2003, 25(2):80-91)

Nothing inherent in the discipline steers planners either toward environmental protection or toward economic development --or toward a third goal of planning: social equity. Instead, planners work within the tension generated among these three fundamental aims, which, collectively, I call the "planner's triangle," with sustainable development located at its center. This center cannot be reached directly, but only approximately and indirectly, through a sustained period of confronting and resolving the triangle's conflicts. To do so, planners have to redefine sustainability, since its current formulation romanticizes our sustainable past and is too vaguely holistic. Planners would benefit both from integrating social theory with environmental thinking and from combining their substantive skills with techniques for community conflict resolution, to confront economic and environmental injustice.

The research conducted investigates the major determinants of water consumption in Rimin Kebe, Ungogo Local Government area, Kano State. The questionnaire was use in data collection from the respondent in the study area. The research was able to identify major determinant of water consumption as level of education, family size, income level and time travel to water sources. The resident of the study area has large family size with average of 32% have more than fifteen people in their houses. More than 34% trekked more than one hour from their destination to water sources. About 70% of the respondents have little or no western education in the study area. The research concluded that resident consumes less water due to the reasons, this affect their sanitation and personal hygiene drastically as such several health and environmental problems emanate in the study area.

In 1996, a Canadian company started geological explorations in the Rosia Montana area in the Romanian Carpathians. Two years later it formed a joint-venture with a Romanian state company to exploit what is believed to be Europe´s largest gold reserves. However, as of June 2011 extraction has not started yet and it may never start due to the opposition of numerous NGO´s that have pointed out the environmental, social and economic unsustainability of this mining project. This situation is highly unusual for a country that is hungry for foreign investment especially since up until very recently the state had supported any project promising to revitalize its mining sector. This paper will investigate the changes in the discourses surrounding this mining project taking into consideration the effects of globalization and the effects of Romania´s EU membership after 2007.