The Intersection of Slums and Environmental Justice in Morocco

© 2016, The Journal of Global Affairs is the official student research publication of the Department of International and Area Studies in the College of International Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Correspondence may be sent to: Journal of Global Affairs, C/O CIS/DIAS, 729 Elm Avenue, Hester Hall 150, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, United States of America. Email: [email protected] purpose of this research paper is to address environmental justice in Morocco as it relates to slum life and slum relocation efforts. As such, the paper deals with the kingdom’s waste management activities in both rural and urban areas, and political policies that shape slum life and slum relocation. The research was gathered through close readings of Moroccan and non-Moroccan academic books and online publications, official reports, newspaper clippings, and websites regarding the topics at hand. After analysis of the data, it was concluded that throughout the past few decades the Moroccan government has been instituting topdown policies that marginalize slum communities and deny them environmental justice. However, evidence collected through this research also shows the government has been taking an increasing interest in environmental protection and waste management since 2006, and hopefully this trend offsets some of the negative impacts of its authoritarian policies on Moroccans’ access to environmental justice.The Journal of Global Affairs is published in conjunction with the College of International Studies at the University of Oklahoma.undergraduat

Viviendo en Slums: determinantes de la locación residencial en asentamientos informales. El caso de Medellín, Colombia

Las características sociales, económicas y personales son parte fundamental de la elección de localización de vivienda -- En este documento se estudian los factores microeconómicos que afectan las decisiones de localización en asentamientos informales de los individuos, explicando que esta decisión no es solamente debido a la pobreza -- Estudiando el caso de Medellín, los resultados muestran que existe una alta probabilidad de vivir en estos asentamientos si se cumple con un conjunto de factores específicos tales como un bajo nivel de educación, estar en el rango de edad de 15 a 25 años, pertenecer a una minoría étnica y tener niños menores de siete años -- Existe, por tanto, un proceso de segregación socio-espacial en Medellín que es resultado de una discriminación que tiene en cuenta factores personales y condiciones sociales de un individu

Advances in remote sensing applications for urban sustainability

Abstract: It is essential to monitor urban evolution at spatial and temporal scales to improve our understanding of the changes in cities and their impact on natural resources and environmental systems. Various aspects of remote sensing are routinely used to detect and map features and changes on land and sea surfaces, and in the atmosphere that affect urban sustainability. We provide a critical and comprehensive review of the characteristics of remote sensing systems, and in particular the trade-offs between various system parameters, as well as their use in two key research areas: (a) issues resulting from the expansion of urban environments, and (b) sustainable urban development. The analysis identifies three key trends in the existing literature: (a) the integration of heterogeneous remote sensing data, primarily for investigating or modelling urban environments as a complex system, (b) the development of new algorithms for effective extraction of urban features, and (c) the improvement in the accuracy of traditional spectral-based classification algorithms for addressing the spectral heterogeneity within urban areas. Growing interests in renewable energy have also resulted in the increased use of remote sensing—for planning, operation, and maintenance of energy infrastructures, in particular the ones with spatial variability, such as solar, wind, and geothermal energy. The proliferation of sustainability thinking in all facets of urban development and management also acts as a catalyst for the increased use of, and advances in, remote sensing for urban applications

Computational socioeconomics

Uncovering the structure of socioeconomic systems and timely estimation of socioeconomic status are significant for economic development. The understanding of socioeconomic processes provides foundations to quantify global economic development, to map regional industrial structure, and to infer individual socioeconomic status. In this review, we will make a brief manifesto about a new interdisciplinary research field named Computational Socioeconomics, followed by detailed introduction about data resources, computational tools, data-driven methods, theoretical models and novel applications at multiple resolutions, including the quantification of global economic inequality and complexity, the map of regional industrial structure and urban perception, the estimation of individual socioeconomic status and demographic, and the real-time monitoring of emergent events. This review, together with pioneering works we have highlighted, will draw increasing interdisciplinary attentions and induce a methodological shift in future socioeconomic studies