This paper examines the impact of climate change on children’s health, in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. Twenty one years climatic data were collected to analyse climatic conditions in the province. The study also employs 12 years hospital records of clinically diagnosed climate-related ailments among children under 13 years to examine the incidence, spatio-temporal, age and sex variations of the diseases. Regression analysis was employed to examine the relationships between climatic parameters and incidence of diseases and also to predict distribution of disease by 2050. The results show that the most prevalent diseases were diarrhea (42.4%), followed by respiratory infection (31.3%), asthma (6.6%) and malaria (6.5%). The incidence varied within city, with the high density areas recording the highest proportion (76.7%), followed by the medium (9.4%) and low (2.5%) density residential areas. The most tropical location, Mussina, had the highest incidence of the most prevalent disease, diarrhea, with 59.4%. Mortality rate was higher for males (54.2%). Analysis of 21 years of climatic data show that maximum temperature is positively correlated with years in four cities with r coefficients of 0.50; 0.56, 0.48 and 0.02, thereby indicating local warming. Similarly rainfall decreased over time in all the cities, with r ranging from −0.02 for Bela Bela to r = 0.18 for Makhado. Results of the regression analysis show that 37.9% of disease incidence is accounted for by the combined influence of temperature and rainfall.

The Gauteng city region forms the economic hub of socio-economic development and growth in South Africa. The province itself includes the Johannesburg metropolitan city, Ekurhuleni metropolitan city as well as Tshwane municipality—key urban growth regions of Gauteng province, South Africa, and by extension Southern Africa. The region exhibits the rapid urbanisation challenges typical in any developing country city. Rural–urban migration, pressure on infrastructure demand, supply and capacity constraints and mismatches in urban governance structures with respect to service delivery have remained stubborn challenges. Initiatives and strategies to resolve urban traffic congestion such as through road construction and highway expansion (physical instrument), e-tolling of roads (financial instrument), innovative housing and waste management technology deployment (technology instruments) as well as presenting advanced spatial planning and development and management systems (planning and regulatory instruments) have been employed with mixed fortunes in attempts to (re)solve the urban problems in the study area. Making use of a thematic approach and technique, the major urbanisation issues are explored and solutions proffered. Recommendations revolve around the need to implement robust and progressive rafts of projects, programmes, activities, measures and actions to reverse spatial fragmentation and spatially inefficient transport induced and perpetuated disadvantages.

This paper reviews the solutions to the matters of sustainable transport at a crossroads in developing countries. In the process, the paper...

Aim: Against the background that most disease eradication drives dwell more on controlling the proximal causes of diseases and the development of innovative measures for diseases treatment, this study investigates the impact of climatic parameters and the population’s socioeconomic conditions on disease prevalence on the premise that these conditions promote the preponderance of the proximal causes. Study Design: The study employed a quantitative research design of the correlational type. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria, 2015 – 2016. Methods: The study assesses the temporal patterns and contributions of rainfall and temperature and four socioeconomic indices on malaria prevalence in Nigeria between 1985 and 2014 using Standard Deviation, Kurtosis, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Multiple Regression statistical techniques. Results: The results show a minimal but steady increase in malaria prevalence while changes in the climatic parameters and socioeconomic conditions in the period reviewed accounted for 78.6% of the variations in malaria prevalence (R² = .786, P < .001). The regression equation was used to project the incidence of malaria in the study area from 310 cases per 1,000 Population in 2016 to 366 cases per 1,000 Population in 2050. Conclusion: The paper recommends that to achieve noticeable improvements in malaria eradication, greater attention should be paid to improving the socioeconomic conditions of the population as these have implications for their susceptibility to ill health and also affect their adaptation to climate change.

This study examines adolescent sexual behaviour within the context of the home environment (urban low, medium and high residential density) in which the yougsters live. Spatial variations in five variables measuring sexual behaviour: first sex experience, age of first sex, identity of sexual partner, use of family planning (FP) and number of sexual partner were analysed with ANOVA. The data obtained from a survey of 1670 adolescents in two pre-colonial cities in South Western Nigeria reveals that pre-marital sexual relations among urban adolescents is not only becoming a near universal phenomenon, but also the mean age of first sexual encounter is declining. Of great concern is the identity of sexual partners, which now includes commercial sex hawkers. Also noteworthy is the high level of sexual activity with about 3 out of every 4 adolescents having sex with more than one partner in the last six months of the study. These practices are most prominent in the high density home environment. Against the background of observed widespread non-use of FP, the findings of this study raise concern about the public health importance of STIs, and the fact that conventional STIs facilitate the acquisition and transmission of HIV. The need to focus more policy and programme attention on adolescent sexuality behaviour is compelling.

Rapid ecohydrological changes in semi-arid landscapes are increasingly threatening humanity’s life-support systems and eroding many of the ecosystem services (ESs) upon which humans occupying such regions depend. Knowing which services and ecohydrological changes to be most concerned about is indispensable to maintaining the general health of such ecosystems and for developing effective ecosystem management practices. In the semi-arid regions of southwestern Zimbabwe where a large population of rural households depend on ESs extracted from the Colophospermum mopane tree, such understanding may be critical in reversing potential ES losses that may have catastrophic effects on the lives of many. We surveyed a total of 127 rural households who occupy the semi-arid landscapes of the Colophospermum mopane belt in southern Zimbabwe. We assessed the ecohydrological conditions characterising ecosystems where they obtain ES provisioning goods using a number of ecohydrological variables commonly cited in the literature on ecohydrology. Building on principal component analysis (PCA), we employed a hierarchical agglomerative clustering method to create unique clusters of households that depicted different levels of risks or threats associated with their ES provisioning harvesting practices. Multiple regression analysis was further performed to identify significant ecohydrological cluster-defining variables. Our results showed that spatial differences in ecohydrological parameters resulted in four distinct ES resource thresholds depicting four categories of risks that households face in extracting such resources in nearby landscapes. We concluded by proposing a number of landscape restoration or management practices targeted at reversing potential ES losses and subsequently safeguarding the livelihoods of many who depend on ESs.