Multi-Actor Geo-Collaborative Device for Collecting Household Waste in Urban Areas: A Case Study of Lamkansa District, Casablanca, Morocco

The aim of this paper is to develop a Multi-Actor Geo-Collaborative Device to improve the processes of household waste collect (HWC) in urban areas. The proposed device will be tested in the Lamkansa district, in the southwestern part of Casablanca city, Morocco. The approach used is a systemic analysis of communication in order to act on a territory. We have been inspired by several methodological developments concerning multi-actor processes of land use planning. We focused our work on the involvement of the inhabitants in the process of household waste collect. The results show that the urban population can help and contribute to the development of complementary solutions to improve the urban environment and their living environment. Moreover, by integrating citizens in HWC processes, as well as decision communication, we can reduce household waste management costs and make it faster and more efficient, through a geo-collaborative, participatory and incentive logic. The approach described in this article is original, not only considering the technologies used to present and share the collected information, but also regarding the concept of integrating several actors in a collaborative/incentive mode. It arouses great interest by combining geomatics with communication and information sciences. It contributes to improve the participation of the inhabitants in the life of their urban environment in order to establish a reinforced dialogue on the future of their city and public health. Also, it involves the development and testing of new devices and tools for multi-actor collaboration.

直接和间接消费所引起的中国城乡空气污染相关过早死亡不平等性

Household consumption in China is associated with substantial PM_(2.5)pollution,through activities directly(i.e.,fuel use)and/or indirectly(i.e.,consumption of goods and services)causing pollutant emissions.Urban and rural households exhibit different consumption preferences and living areas,thus their contributions to and suffering from air pollution could differ.Assessing this contrast is crucial for comprehending the environmental impacts of the nation’s ongoing urbanization process.Here we quantify Chinese urban and rural households’contributions to ambient PM_(2.5)pollution and the health risks they suffer from,by integrating economic,atmospheric,and health models and/or datasets.The national premature deaths related to long-term exposure to PM_(2.5)pollution contributed by total household consumption are estimated to be 1.1 million cases in 2015,among which 56%are urban households and 44%are rural households.For pollution contributed indirectly,urban households,especially in developed provinces,tend to bear lower mortality risks compared with the portions of deaths or pollution they contribute.The opposite results are true for direct pollution.With China’s rapid urbanization process,without adequate reduction in emission intensity,the increased indirect pollution-associated premature deaths could largely offset that avoided by reduced direct pollution,and the indirect pollution-associated urban–rural inequalities might become severer.Developing pollution mitigation strategies from both production and consumption sides could help with reducing pollution-related mortality and associated urban-rural inequality.

Modeling urban housing price： The perspective of household activity demand

Existing studies about the modeling of urban housing price have figured out sets of factors and the main focus is on the relative spatial location. Generally, this line of research is descriptive rather than modeling in nature. The underlying reasons for the distribution of housing price are largely unexplored and more research is needed. The paper therefore attempted to systematically explore the spatial heterogeneities of urban housing price based on the urban activity interaction rule. Using Beijing as a case study, this study first developed a new measurement of accessibility which directly depicts the cost and possibilities to access opportunities of different activities such as employments, educational, shopping and medical services. From the perspective of demands of different households, the paper then modelled the relationships between urban housing price and these accessibilities and found that the distribution pattern of housing price can be relatively well represented by this model that the R^2 could achieve 0.7. We investigated the relationship between housing price and the demands of different kinds of households categorized by households of one-generation, two-generation, three-generation and four-and-plus-generation and found that the demands of household of four-and-plus-generations is the most highly correlated with housing prices. The reason might be that this kind of household has more household members and the demands are more diverse and complex, which is more similar to the distributions of all kinds of activity opportunities in the real world. In the end of the paper, some implications for policy-making are proposed based on the results of the analyses.

Living together with children and elderly:the impact of family structure on the consumption of migrants and residents in urban China

Using data from the first wave of the“China Family Dynamic Survey”conducted in 2014,this study compares the impact on consumption of the presence of children or elderly people in migrant households and to that in urban resident households,and then examines the extent to which lack of access to public services might explain the differences in consumption patterns that do exist.The results indicate that migrant households with infants and toddlers increase their consumption of healthcare services,while those with preschool children increase their consumption of educational services.Migrant households with elderly members significantly increase their consumption of healthcare services.The comparison of migrant households with urban resident households shows that there are considerable differences between migrant households and urban resident households in terms of how educational and healthcare expenditures are affected by the presence of children and elderly.The differences grow out of a huge gap in the accessibility of low-cost,subsidized public preschool education and government-funded health insurance programs.