CC BY
0THE PROCESS OF URBANIZATION AND ITS CORRELATION WITH THE
ECOLOGICAL CIRCUMSTANCE
Latipov N.F.
PhD student at National University of Uzbekistan named after Mirzo Ulugbek https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11517240
Abstract. Cities and their development go back to the very distant past. At these stages of development, there were various impacts on them, and these impacts did not fail to affect the development of cities. This development, of course, did not leave aside the ecological condition of the cities. In recent years of development, this factor has been mentioned a lot, and issues such as the environmental condition of cities and the health of the population living there have become the main topic. From this point of view, this article examines the issues of the urbanization process and its interrelationship with the ecological situation. In this, the development stages of urbanization, the opinion of scientists on the process of urbanization, and some aspects that show its connection with the ecological environment are the main focus. As a conclusion, several opinions showing the impact of urbanization on the ecological environment are reflected.
Keywords. Urbanization, megapolis, ecological condition of cities, emission, UN, forecasting, GIS technology, heat island effect, air and water quality.
Аннотация. Города и их развитие уходят в очень далекое прошлое. На этих этапах развития на них оказывались различные воздействия, и эти воздействия не могли не сказаться на развитии городов. Такое развитие событий, конечно, не оставило в стороне экологическое состояние городов. В последние годы развития об этом факторе упоминается много, а главной темой стали такие вопросы, как экологическое состояние городов и здоровье проживающего там населения. С этой точки зрения в данной статье рассматриваются вопросы процесса урбанизации и его взаимосвязь с экологической ситуацией. При этом основное внимание уделяется этапам развития урбанизации, мнению ученых о процессе урбанизации, а также некоторым аспектам, показывающим ее связь с экологической средой. В заключение отражено несколько мнений, показывающих влияние урбанизации на экологическую среду.
Ключевые слова. Урбанизация, мегаполис, экологическое состояние городов, выбросы, ООН, прогнозирование, ГИС-технологии, эффект острова тепла, качество воздуха и воды.
Annotatsiya. Shaharlar va ularning rivojlanishi juda uzoq o'tmishga borib taqaladi. Taraqqiyotning bu bosqichlarida ularga turli ta'sirlar bo'lgan va bu ta'sirlar shaharlar rivojiga ta'sir etmay qolmagan. Bu rivojlanish, albatta, shaharlarning ekologik holatini chetga surib qo'ymadi. So'nggi taraqqiyot yillarida bu omil ko'p tilga olinib, shaharlarning ekologik holati, u yerda yashovchi aholi salomatligi kabi masalalar asosiy mavzuga aylandi. Shu nuqtai nazardan, ushbu maqolada urbanizatsiya jarayoni va uning ekologik vaziyat bilan o'zaro bog'liqligi masalalari ko'rib chiqiladi. Bunda urbanizatsiyaning rivojlanish bosqichlari, urbanizatsiya jarayoni haqidagi olimlarning fikri, uning ekologik muhit bilan aloqadorligini ko'rsatadigan ayrim jihatlar asosiy
e'tiborni tortadi. Xulosa sifatida urbanizatsiyaning ekologik muhitga ta'sirini ko'rsatadigan bir qancha fikrlar o'z aksini topgan.
Kalit so'zlar. Urbanizatsiya, megapolis, shaharlar ekologik holati, zararlimoddalar, BMT, prognozlash, GIS-texnologiya, issiqxona effekti, atmosfera havosi va ichimlik suvi sifati.
Introduction and problem statement. The widespread process of urbanization in the world coincided with the second half of the 20th century and began to accelerate in all parts of the earth's surface. According to UN data, at the beginning of the 20th century, urbanized areas occupied 1% of the entire earth's surface, in 1950 it was 29.6%, in 1960 it was 33.8%, in 1970 it was 36.6%, in 1980 it was 39.3%, In 1990, 43% of the population lived in cities. At the beginning of our century, the level of urbanization in the world was 46.7%, in 2010 it was 51.7%, in 2020 it was 56.2%, and this process is estimated to increase between years (Figure 1).
■ 1950 ■ 1960 ■ 1970 ■ 1980 ■ 1990 ■ 2000 B2010 ■ 2020 ■ 2030 B2040 12050
WORLD EUROPE AMERICA ASIA AFRICA
Figure 1. Level of urbanization by world and continent (1950-2050) Note:Prepared by the author based on UN data
Just as the economy affects the social sphere, the social sphere also affects the economy. It affects the economic sphere by increasing the level of knowledge and culture of a person, reducing morbidity, and creating comfortable housing and cultural and household conditions for city residents. Therefore, studying the dynamics and quality of living standards of the city population, and forecasting it is extremely important for the sustainable, proportionate, and consistent development of urbanization in general.
The history of the emergence of cities goes back a long way. In ancient times, people were mainly attracted to areas with fertile soil and wetlands. Over the years, the development of trade and crafts created densely populated areas, and thus the first cities began to appear one after another. The improvement of living conditions in these settlements, increased security, and the possibility of communication between people gradually increased the growth of ancient cities. At the beginning of our era, very large city-states such as Rome, Athens, and Sparta with a population of 1 million began to emerge, and in the early Middle Ages, during the "Renaissance" period, we can witness a significant increase in the number of cities. As a result, the population and its needs increased accordingly. The level of exploitation of nature has increased over time, with the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, and to date, the scientific and technological revolution. This caused cities to appear in different forms and functions.
Study of the problem. The analysis of the literature shows that in the study of urban ecology in our republic, only one aspect of the city is analyzed, such as climate, soil, internal waters, animal and plant life, the health of the population living there, atmospheric air and its
pollution, but a comprehensive study of the urban environment and the lack of analytical methodology makes it difficult to fully reveal the socio-ecological situation there. We can see that the integrated geographical study of the urban system is much more developed abroad in the works of Yanitssky, Petrov1*, R. Park, V.S. Visharenko, F. Zeman, S. Jorgensson, E. Best, P. Lavn.
In the 50s of the last century, more attention was paid to the issues of urban organization in the context of the tension between man and nature, and by the 70s, urban ecology was considered a multi-level integrated organism. Man and his needs occupy the main place in the center of foreign concepts in the study of urban ecology.
In the territory of the former Union, the first ideas related to this term can be found in the works of Sokolov, Kotelnikov, Saushkin, and Sochava. Recognizing human ecology as one of the main directions, Sochava thinks about the importance of the ecological approach in geography in the proper use of nature, optimization of the environment, and development of long-term forecasts of nature use. Later, the issue of creating an optimal geographical environment for the population through the study of human ecology became the main goal, and thus the study of urban ecology began to take a new shape. After that, studies on the content of the concept of "Ecopolis" and their organization began in scientific treatises. In these studies, mainly the opinions of citizens of small towns on environmental problems in their cities were studied.
In our republic, the geographical approach to the study of the environmental condition of cities began in the 80s and 90s of the last century, and the analysis of the urban environment based on natural and demographic characteristics was carried out by T. Raimov and Kh. Tursunov. Major works have been studied within a single component of the urban environment, but a comprehensive study has not yet been carried out. The environmental connection between the placement of production forces and atmospheric air pollution in the capital area was explained by V.I. We can see this in the works of Sokovkin.
The main part. The emergence of the urbanization process can be conditionally divided into three stages[2]:
In the first stage of urbanization, which lasted until the 16th and 17th centuries, the townspeople mainly used local sources of food and water, the energy of water and windmills, and horses as livestock, domestic animals, and manual labor prevailed in production. The wastes polluting the environment were mainly human and livestock waste. The environmental problems of the ancient cities were related to the contamination of water supply sources with these wastes, and as a result, the occasional outbreak of infectious diseases.
II. The second stage of urbanization coincided with the development of land and water transport, the development of highways, and the opening of opportunities for the use of thermal energy for transport and production purposes. From the 16th century, the number of cities and their population grew significantly. At this stage, the level of environmental impact of the increase in the share of industry in the city usually did not exceed the limit of its self-purification ability.
III. The beginning of the third stage of urbanization is associated with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, and this stage is characterized by a sharp increase in the impact on the natural environment.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Great Britain symbolically reached the status of the first modern urbanized state in the world, and other industrialized countries achieved this result
1 *Petrov studied the issues of morphological analysis in geourbanistics, and R. Park studied the impact of urban ecology on human behavior for the first time.
only 50 years later, and thus a step was taken from the ancient history of urbanization to the stage of modern urbanization (Table 1).
Settlement Character of the settlement The time it happened
Village Areas with populations of 50 to 100 people (examples include many areas around the Nile Valley) About 10 thousand years before Christ
Small city A city with a few thousand inhabitants (the Sumerian city of Eridu, an ancient city in present-day southern Iraq) In the 4th millennium BC
City Cities with a population of up to 50,000 and 5-8 people per 1 km2 (Cities of the Summer State) Before 3500 BC
A huge city A city with more than 1 million inhabitants (Rome) 10-44 BC
Megapolis A city with more than 10 million inhabitants and an area of several thousand square kilometers (London, New York, Mexico City) Since the 20th century
Agglomeration A system of interconnected settlements around major cities (Bombay, Buenos Aires, Karachi) The end of the 20th century
Megalopoli s Union of large agglomerations, including large and small cities (about 40 agglomerations in the distance from Boston to Washington, where 20% of the US population lives, 35 agglomerations between Chicago and Pittsburgh, Tokaido megalopolis, which includes 20 agglomerations) The end of the 20th century
An urbanized country A country whose natural landscapes have completely disappeared, replaced by cultural landscapes (England, small countries of Western Europe) 19-20th century
An urbanized planet Compression of the natural environment and destruction of biological diversity A process that can be observed in cities that are moving towards sustainable development
Table 1. Development chronology of urbanization Source: Development history of urbanization according to Teteor (2006) classification
The well-known geo-urbanist Yu.A. Pivovarov interpreted urbanization as a complex historical process of increasing the role of cities, urban lifestyle, and urban culture in the development of society, which is associated with the spatial concentration of activity in a relatively small number of centers and regions of the socio-economic development of society[20].
E.B. Alaev understands urbanization as a socio-economic process that has intensified during the scientific and technological revolution, the increase of urban areas, the concentration of people in them, especially in large cities, and the wide spread of settlements. and expressed the opinion that it is a reflection of deep structural changes in social life [3]. Urbanization as a global process is very complex and controversial, it has different forms. The main aspect of urbanization is expressed in the emergence of urbanized zones with the rapid development of urban settlements.
When studying the concepts of cities and urbanization, geographers approach them as a purely social phenomenon. In this case, cities of different sizes, and especially large centers, are a space that reflects a unique social environment, or in other words, an extremely dense location of the population in a relatively small area, its living conditions, and lifestyle. If we compare rural and urban life, we can witness two opposites. In the city, indicators such as the lifestyle, employment, social status, behavior, and health of the population are characterized by the fact that they are quite different from the countryside, and these aspects show the socio-geographical aspects of the city and urbanization. Urbanization and urbanization have positive and negative aspects. If the high level of urbanization indicates the power of social, economic, and political development of the state, its negative aspect is that due to the rapid growth of urbanization, it becomes difficult to regulate and manage it, and as a result, it can damage cultural life. In addition, the criminogenic situation, that is, the types of crime and its scope, is expanding. The worst aspect of urbanization is the deterioration of the ecological environment and public health as the infrastructure of the social environment is formed, and the rise of various diseases.
The assessment of the ecological condition of cities remains one of the most urgent issues today, because of the development of science and technology, as a result of the large-scale development of territories, changes in the ecological environment are occurring at various levels. The state of the environment is based only on statistical data, which is known to the general public, but it does not fully reveal the real state. For this purpose, it is very important to combine experimental monitoring results with national statistical data. In organizing and improving such a process, we can accurately assess the environmental condition of cities and achieve sustainable development of cities in the future by applying a new method of mapping, focusing on quality indicators.
In events dedicated to environmental change and its negative consequences, it has been said that the future of the world will be at risk if this analysis continues, including the 1992 Millennium Development Goals in Rio de Janeiro. ' since its development, the proportion of cities without access to improved water supply and improved sanitation has increased by 20 percent, nearly 1 billion people still need clean drinking water, 1.4 billion people still live in homes without electricity, and 1 billion people suffer from malnutrition. According to UN data in 2010, 2.6 billion people in the world did not have access to modern sanitation and improved sanitation, and by 2021 this figure will reach 3.8 billion2. Due to the strong anthropogenic load, environmental problems in cities are becoming more acute, because many man-made processes are clearly expressed here: the removal or accumulation of large amounts of substances, the mass of substances, the creation of technical facilities and structures, the mechanical impact of mobile devices and residents on soil and vegetation, excessive amounts or cities are areas where almost no component of the habitat has escaped significant man-made changes due to the introduction of chemicals unusual for local landscapes. The concentration of industrial production in cities, high saturation with motor transport, the presence of artificial structures and coatings intensify geochemical processes, disrupt the natural cycles of chemical elements and their compounds, which leads to radical changes in the natural landscape-geochemical conditions. At the same time, cities are powerful sources of man-made substances, providing them not only for the urban environment, but also for suburban and regional migration flows. As a result, in terms of intensity of pollution and distribution area of pollution anomalies, many cities represent man-made geochemical and biogeochemical
2 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets
provinces in different natural environments. According to studies, the impact area of the city affects the environment of areas within a radius of 20-50 km from the city area[5], according to data, the ecological footprint of London affects even 125 km away from its area[17]. As a result of the penetration of man-made chemicals into the urban environment, an unfavorable ecological situation is formed in the zones of the strongest man-made influence, which threatens the health of the population and the state of natural elements of urban ecosystems.
However, it would be a mistake to attribute only negative environmental consequences to the functioning and development of cities. As noted by V.R. Bityukova, cities contain the possibility of concentration of production and population, the use of a complex of engineering solutions and more efficient technologies to reduce the flow of pollutants into the environment and save resources, also contribute to the widespread of the urbanization process outside the cities[19]. So, on the one hand, cities are areas of concentration of environmental problems, on the other hand, they are centers of innovation, where the necessary conditions for the gradual solution of most problems are formed.
Recently, social-ecological problems of cities have become more and more important due to the strengthening of the urbanization process and a fundamental change in the relationship between man and nature (Glazychev, 1987). Insufficient attention to environmental factors causes problems in the development of measures aimed at preventing the deterioration of the health of the urban population and environmental problems both theoretically and practically. This requires that cities be considered as the main object of study among environmental problems.
The driving force of history
A
separate ecosyste
* City
Political structure
Figure 2. Approaches to the study of cities Note: Compiled by the author.
m
It can be seen that the city is a complex and multifunctional object of study, and its analysis and evaluation from the point of view of one or another discipline may lead to several difficulties. Therefore, there is no single concept of urban area research. Over time, the problems of the city, their types, and scale have increased. Especially today, environmental problems are showing
themselves as a kind of "background" to which the main attention should be paid. The most interesting thing is that these environmental problems appear and develop together with the emergence of cities. V.S. Visharenko (1988) in the retrospective development of cities divided their environmental condition into seven stages. However, these stages are specific to Europe and the Middle East, and some environmental characteristics may not be applicable to other regions[18].
Ecological imbalances have existed since the beginning of cities, and have become widespread over time. In the early stages, the main focus was on environmental issues related to solid waste and improved water supply, but over time, pollution from industrial waste and vehicle emissions was added. Due to non-compliance with existing environmental requirements and regulations, and the lack of environmental literacy among the population, the epidemic situation in many large cities on earth has led to the outbreak of infectious diseases, and due to severe environmental pollution, serious health problems and even death rates have been observed in urban residents. In Central Asian countries, including some cities of our republic, the quality of drinking water is not up to the required level, which causes specific endemic diseases in the region.
American scientist L. Mumford (1982) divides the history of cities from an ecological point of view into three stages:
1st stage of the symbiotic relationship between the city and the environment;
2nd urbanization stage;
3rd stage of imbalance of growth and ecological situation.
These stages are typical not only for cities in the Mediterranean but also for cities in developing countries today. In a slightly different way, cities in developing countries are experiencing a second phase.
As a result of cities occupying a small area in the ancient past, with the increase of human needs, they began to attract the surrounding areas to themselves, resulting in the emergence of modern urban agglomerations and highly urbanized areas. As a result of the emergence and development of such complex systems, instead of the areas occupied by natural landscapes, the increase of man-made and anthropogenic loads seriously affected not only the urban area but also the structure of the surrounding landscapes. In a word, the impact of urbanization went beyond the city.
Analyzing the ecology of cities allows us to study the problems in the area in two ways, that is, environmental problems within the city and problems of ecological interaction in the areas adjacent to the city. The study of the environmental condition of cities can be grouped from a socio-economic point of view as follows:
1. The problem of pollution of the city environment;
2. The problem of rational use of natural resources;
3. The problem of public health and sanitary-hygienic indicators.
Conclusion. Urbanization has profound effects on the ecological status of urban areas, influencing ecosystems, biodiversity, and overall environmental health. The following conclusions can be drawn regarding the impact of urbanization on the ecological status of urban areas:
1. Habitat Fragmentation: Urbanization often leads to the fragmentation of natural habitats as cities expand and infrastructures develop. This fragmentation can result in isolated pockets of green spaces, affecting wildlife migration patterns and reducing biodiversity.
2. Loss of Biodiversity: The conversion of natural landscapes into urban environments typically results in the loss of diverse plant and animal species. Urban areas tend to support a limited range of species adapted to human-altered environments, leading to a decline in overall biodiversity.
3. Air and Water Quality: Increased industrialization and human activities in urban areas contribute to air and water pollution. Emissions from vehicles, factories, and other sources can degrade air quality, while runoff from impervious surfaces can lead to water pollution. This negatively impacts the health of ecosystems and the species that inhabit them.
4. Heat Island Effect: Urbanization contributes to the development of heat islands, where built-up surfaces absorb and retain heat. This phenomenon can raise local temperatures, alter microclimates, and exacerbate the impacts of climate change, stressing local ecosystems and their inhabitants.
5. Loss of Green Spaces: The expansion of urban areas often results in the reduction of green spaces such as parks and forests. This diminishes the availability of natural areas that provide crucial ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, air purification, and recreational spaces.
6. Altered Hydrology: Urbanization changes the natural hydrological cycles by increasing impervious surfaces, reducing natural drainage areas, and altering river courses. This can lead to increased flooding, changes in water flow patterns, and disruption of aquatic ecosystems.
7. Introduction of Invasive Species: Urbanization can facilitate the introduction and spread of invasive species, either intentionally or unintentionally. These invasive species can outcompete native flora and fauna, further contributing to the decline of local biodiversity.
8. Public Health Implications: The ecological impacts of urbanization are interconnected with public health. Poor air and water quality, as well as the loss of green spaces, can negatively affect the physical and mental well-being of urban residents.
In conclusion, urbanization poses significant challenges to the ecological status of urban areas, causing habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. Sustainable urban planning and conservation efforts are essential to mitigate these impacts and promote a healthier coexistence between urban development and the natural environment.
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