OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development
Open access peer-reviewed journal
Rehabilitating dryland river systemsin arid and semi-arid environments focusing on water sensitive urban design approaches
Behnaz Avazpour a, Paul Osmond b, Linda Corkery c
a University of New South Wales, Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW Sydney, High St,
Kensington, NSW 2052, Australia
b Sustainable Built Environment Program, Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW Sydney,
High St, Kensington, Australia.
C University of New South Wales, Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW Sydney,
High St, Kensington, NSW 2052, Australia.
Volume 11, Issue 12, Pg. 11-20, 2018.
Abstract: This research presents a review of water sensitive urban design (WSUD)approaches to rehabilitating dryland rivers, with the objective of identifying common elements to support design interventions in arid and semi-arid urban environments. Exacerbated by climate change, drought conditionshave been increasing across the globe especially in arid and semi-arid regions.These conditions limit economic development, degrade the environment and adversely affect the social well-being of the citizens. Water scarcity has been identified as a key driver for future global conflicts as well as making water conservation a major focus for current research.The excessive heating driven by urban development, the water crisis and the growing effects of climate change have generated a variety of policy and planning responses.However, in some arid cities, particularly in developing countries, the severity of the issue makes these regions stand out as extreme cases in the necessary search for appropriate solutions. Rivers are part ofthe urban landscape, and as such play an important role in the delivery of urban ecosystem services and enhancingliveability for city dwellers. The urgent need to preserve and manage rivers and streams in these dynamically changing circumstances has led researchers to develop new or modified methods to improve the condition of urban waterways in many parts of the world. In particular, there is a significant interest inrestoring rivers and streams in arid and semi-arid environmentswhich face the unprecedented dual threats of climate change and population growth.Counter-intuitively, dryland rivers are resilient systems that can play an important role in water management in both drought or flood conditionsand at the same timecontribute to enhancingurban liveability. Ineffective water resource development planningfor dryland rivers causes high ecological costs to both the natural environment and cities. Rehabilitating dryland rivers in urban areas will require new water management and water sensitive urban design (WSUD) interventions. Another important aspect of WSUD is considering measures to decrease the effects of climate change on rivers that arepotentially facing long-term drought conditions. In other words, WSUD provides a mechanism for retaining water in the urban landscape through rehabilitating dryland rivers while alsohelping to improve the condition of urban areas. The focus of this paper is on identifying suitable WSUD initiatives to reinvigorate dryland rivers in the context of urban landscape planning and management. To address the human and climatic factors affecting dryland rivers, both long-term and short-term WSUD solutions must be considered. This paper adopts a staged approach to this challenge; first the condition of dryland rivers in arid and semi-arid regions is investigated, based on the literature.Particular attention is given to urban (and urbanising) locations in developing countries. Drawing on both academic and ‘grey’ literature (such as government and NGO reports) some of the key outcomes from WSUD revitalisationefforts and research projects focused on dryland rivers in arid and semi-arid regionsare presented. Based on analysis of the lessons from the above review of theory and practice, a set of key WSUD principles relevant to the rehabilitation of urban dryland riversis introduced. The intent is to test these principles in practice through application to case studies in a subsequent stage of this research.
Key words:Arid cities; Dryland rivers; Water crisis; WSUD
Sociological Study of the Suburban-life Pattern and its Impact on Sustainable Development and Health
of Kurdistan, Iran
Seyed Yasin Hosseini
University of Tehran Markaz, Kurdistan Province, Iran.
Volume 11, Issue 12, Pg. 21-27, 2018.
Abstract: The rapid growth of urbanization without the accompanying growth and development of economic and social indicators as a prerequisite for sustainable urbanization has hit the cities with many problems and crises. One of these problems is suburbanization. Suburbanization has devastating effects on sustainable urban development in terms of environmental health, mental health, social health, urban sustainability, etc. The suburbs, with features such as poor quality of life, poor housing conditions, high population density, urban problems, and suburban people, with characteristics such as low levels of literacy, unemployment, insecure jobs, and etc. have created an environment conducive to growth and the emergence of various kinds of social harm such as addiction, theft, spree, sale and consumption of drugs, sale and consumption of alcohol, prostitution, etc., where this would be a serious threat to sustainable urban development and growth. This study is a survey which uses a researcher-made questionnaire and researcher’s experience about the suburbs of the cities of Saqez and Sanandaj to examine the suburbanization problem as a serious threat to sustainable urban development. Sample size includes 523 suburban inhabitants of Saqez and 376 inhabitants of the Sanandaj suburbs. Findings of the research show that about 63 percent of respondents were not happy with their neighborhood health or had low satisfaction. The suburban households had, on average, two rooms in terms of housing quantity. About 43 percent of them have evaluated their financial and economic status as bad and weak in terms of the spread of poverty neighborhoods.
Keywords: suburbanization, urban health, urban sustainability development
Corporate social responsibility and customer equity in smart phone industry, a Chinese customer perspective
Dongyong, Zhang a, Xiaolu, Li b, Qiaoyun Ma c
a,b,c College of Information and Management Science,
Henan Agricultural University, China.
Volume 11, Issue 12, Pg. 29-41, 2018.
Abstract: Customer equity is the total value of potential future revenue generated by a company’s customers in a lifetime. It is a result of customer relationship management. The more loyal a customer, the more is the customer equity. Since the concept of customer equity was introduced into China, it has become the center of discussion in academia and industry. Scholars have tried to explore drivers of customer equity and factors that stimulate these drivers. But studies on the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and customer equity are sparse. The purpose of this study is to explore how a company’s customer equity can be enhanced by improving its performance in CSR. The smart phone industry is selected as a case study, and 171 smart phone users are questionnaire surveyed. Market responsibility, social responsibility and environment responsibility are included as three dimensions of CSR, and value equity, brand equity and relationship equity are regarded as three drivers of customer equity. 10 hypothesized relationships between CSR and customer equity are tested. Structural equation model (SEM) is employed to analyze data. It was found that a company’s CSR performance has significant impact on customer equity (with path coefficient of 0.767), and the relationship between the dimensions of CSR and the drivers of customer equity are also significant. However, the impact of market responsibility and social responsibility on value equity is more significant than that of environmental responsibility (with path coefficient of 0.754, 0.582, and 0.349 respectively). Social responsibility and market responsibility have closer relationship with brand equity than environmental responsibility does (with path coefficient of 0.789, 0.460, and 0.207 respectively). In addition, social responsibility is strongly related to relationship equity while environmental responsibility has a relatively weaker relationship with relationship equity, and market responsibility works in between (with path coefficient of 0.831, 0.779, and 0.290). These results indicate that for smart phone industry, customers pay more attention to a company’s performance in social responsibility, then its performance in market responsibility, and lest attention is paid to environmental performance. But it does not mean that Chinese smart phone industry should invest less on environmental protection and resource preservation because almost half of our respondents agree on green packaging and less wastes. Along with the increasing awareness Chinese people gain, environmental performance will soon become an important affecting factor of customer equity. The results suggest that smart phone companies should focus on improving their CSR performance so as to build and improve their customer equity, which will eventually help them achieve profit goals.
Keywords: Customer Equity; Corporate Social Responsibility; smart phone industry; China
Determinant Factors of Percapita Income and Poverty Level in the Eastern Indonesia
Period Year 2004 – 2016
Muhammad Yudhi Luthfi a, Muhammad Zilal Hamzah b, Sabila Aqlima Izazi c
a Economics and Business Faculty, Universitas Trisakti, Indonesia.
b Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Ekonomi Bisnis Indonesia (Indonesian Business School), Jakarta, Indonesia.
Volume 11, Issue 12, Pg. 41-52, 2018.
Abstract: Eastern Indonesia is a marginalized area compared to western part of Indonesia. This is proven by high inequality. In terms of fastening the realization of economic development expansion and equity distribution so it can be enjoyed evenly by the group of people, so Indonesian government make a concept of development planning what-so-called The Acceleration of Master Plan And Economic Development Expansion (MP3EI). This concept divided the development based on Economic Corridor.
The development of economic corridor in Indonesia has been done based on potential and the advantages of each region that scattered throughout Indonesia with the purpose of economic development, which followed by the decreasing of economic gap. Based on this situation, this research’s purpose is to analyze the determination of income per capita and poverty in economic corridor of Papua – Maluku Islands. Method for this research is using regression method panel data year 2004 – 2016 in Economic Corridor of Papua – Maluku Islands.
Based on this research’s outcome: (i). allocation of education budget and allocation of infrastructure budget have a positive and significant effect toward income per capita. Meanwhile, FDI and DDI has no significant effect toward per capita income; (ii). Foreign investment, allocation of education budget, and tax has positive and significant effect toward consumption expenditure but DDI, Subsidy and Per capita income have no significant effect toward consumption expenditure; (iii). Per capita Income, FDI and education have a significant effect toward Poverty level but DDI has no significant effect on Poverty level at in Papua Province and Maluku Islands.
For reaching the purpose of MP3EI, the achievement of welfare is characterized by decreasing the level of economic gap and increasing of income per capita so that, it necessary to pay attention to supporting variables such as: infrastructure that really needed for increased the revenue and income distribution. The existence of infrastructure can give connectivity and increase income per capita in economic corridor area. Distribution of infrastructure budget allocation throughout the economic corridor is able to encourage economic growth of Indonesia and help area which is less developed to catch up with more developed area. The allocation of education budget is necessary for high public consumption expenditure indicates sufficient income as well as public consumption is determined by price. Controlled prices are due to the policy of price monitoring and improvement of commodity trading, improvement of central and regional policy coordination, and the stable core inflation.
The investment consists of FDI and DDI. Investment encourages economic activity among others are increased regional growth, increased competitive advantages and technology transfer. In attracting investment so that the value of increased investment conducted improvements in competitiveness and investor perceptions. The improvement of competitiveness has driven by strategic infrastructure development programs and improvements in the business climate as well as the continued impact of policy packages that are expected to drive business activities. The implication of this research is that the crucial problem facing the government today is how to increase investor appeal to invest capital in various regions of Indonesia, especially Eastern Indonesia.
Keywords: investment value, infrastructure budget allocation, education budget allocation, per capita income, consumption level, labor force
The impact of Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) on Economic Growth in Iran and some selected countries
Yadollah Dadgar a, Rouhollah Nazari b, Fatemeh Fahimifar c
a Department of Economics, Economics, Beheshty University, Iran.
b Department of Economics, Ferdowsi University, Iran.
c Department of Economics , Allame Tabatabaie University, Iran.
Volume 11, Issue 12, Pg. 53-61, 2018.
Abstract: The starting point for achieving to high economic growth requires realizing factors affecting growth in question. A key factor for economic growth would be improving competiveness. Thus, this paper is investigating the impact of competiveness on economic growth for two groups of countries including Iran. Meanwhile we are stressing on Iranian case much more seriously. Our selected countries includes two high income and upper middle income ones for 2006- 2016 period. Some findings of this paper indicate that in addition to competiveness, there is a positive and significant relationship between labor force and physical capital on economic growth for both groups of countries. The impact of human capital and competitiveness on economic growth is significantly positive too. The impact of human capital and competitiveness are, however, higher in upper middle-income countries. Iranian competiveness circumstances, although better after applying, joint comprehensive plan of action, JCPA, is not in its desirable status yet. For, it lags behind its competitors among developing countries in the region.
Keywords: competiveness, economic growth, high- income countries, upper middle-income countries, Iran.