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Many cities of various types are distributed in the large area of mountainous regions in China. In these cities, there are acute contradictions between man and earth. Considering that the space growth mode of mountainous cities is widely different from that of flatland cities, the fractal method was adopted in the research aimed at demarcating the urban growth boundary of mountainous cities. The fractal features of the investigated mountainous cities in space were figured out via inference from their function, dimension, region, grade, and environment, and the fractal mode and conceptual framework of urban growth boundary of Qin-Ba mountainous region were constructed according to some concepts and methods such as fractal dimension, fractal network, and fractal order. In the research, the traditional urban growth boundary form-was decomposed into scattered points (point form), paths (linear form), and patches (plane form) to form the fractal theory units for the research of urban growth boundary, and the leading idea, procedure, and control method for “fractal demarcation of urban growth boundary” were established to provide strategies for demarcation of urban space growth boundary of Qin-Ba mountainous region.

In this chapter, the question posed is how the CDRI, applied at various cities spread across a country like India, can draw implications that are applicable for other cities in this country. The aim is to understand the risks, vulnerabilities, and capacities (resilience) of 12 Indian cities to respond to potential climate-related disasters. Surjan, Sharma, and Shaw (in press) highlight that particularly the Asian region is experiencing rapid urban growth, which is not only leading many cities to become megacities, with a population above 10 million, over the next decades (UN, 2010), but also making many smaller and middle-sized cities experience the phenomenon of urbanization (UNISDR, 2009). As it is perceived that more densely populated areas are at greater risk from potential disasters than the less populated ones, like rural areas/villages, cities require particular attention when it comes to reducing risks (UNISDR, 2009). Unplanned urbanization and poor urban governance are regarded as the two main underlying factors accelerating risk to disasters (UNISDR, 2009). The tool to assess the current condition and resilience of these 12 Indian cities is a contextualized CDRI addressing the Indian characteristics. In an era where climate change–related natural hazards (floods, storms, droughts, etc.) are expected to occur more frequently and with higher intensity (IPCC, 2007), Indian cities are becoming more vulnerable to such events (Revi, 2008).

Planning for underground spaces has become an effective way to use central areas in cities given the steady economic growth in China. The development of underground spaces in mountainous cities has satisfied the needs of the diversification of the city commercial areas and pedestrian movement. Safety issues exist because these underground spaces were originally used for civil air defense. This study was based on the underground commercial street in Chongqing, which is a typical mountainous city. Based on the results of combined fieldwork and survey, this paper summarized current safety issues, which include the not-fully-open exit, the imbalanced exit location, blocked evacuation routes, and the poor awareness of the potential safety issues. This paper proposed a framework of the safety factors for the underground space and synopsized prevention strategies that are specific to potential disasters in the underground environment. The framework comprises ensuring that the exits are fully open, the underground corridors are kept unblocked, the open space on the street is increased for disaster prevention, and equipment security is maintained and managed. At last, This paper summarized disaster prevention strategies, which include ensuring unimpeded exits, balancing the locations of the exits, avoiding blocks, increasing the disaster prevention square area in the underground space, maintaining and managing the security of the equipment.

Many small- and medium-sized Japanese cities are located along the coast and have become vulnerable to both coastal and mountain hazards. The vulnerability is increased by a rapidly growing aging population, low resources, and lack of capacity in the local governments. In this scenario, it is important that the community's potential should be fully utilized through proper awareness raising and capacity building. Town watching is considered as a useful tool to reduce urban risk in small- and medium-sized cities, where local students, teachers, parents, resident associations, and local government members collectively watch both good and bad (vulnerable) parts of their city. This collective watching and participatory mapping enhance the engagement of school children and communities in risk reduction activities. Town watching is considered as a process and it is important to continue the initiative for effective risk reduction at the community level.

On the basis of the research data of 120 enterprises from 10 development zones in Gansu Province, we conducted regional planning research combining enterprise architecture with ecological green space environment system. We determined that the largest part of the green space pattern is the “other green space,” which mainly depends on the formation of super large plantation. However, this part is consistently decreasing in recent years. Affiliated green space became the largest in the green space patterns because of the high degree of vertical greening of the enterprise architecture in the development zones. The high fragmentation of the affiliated green space also leads to the high fragmentation of the entire green space of the development zone. In future regional planning of development zones, future planning of the green space can take the current green space as the basis, use the road green space and green corridors nearby waters as the basic framework to connect other patterns of green space, and form a ring-shaped enclosure, reticular structure, and wedge-shaped and dotted supplemented regional pattern. Meanwhile, the road green space system can be reasonably arranged by setting new green space spots at road intersections and key strategic positions to connect the isolated green space patches and improve the connectivity of the green space.

The purpose of this paper is to document the contribution of alternative forms of tourism in the eco-development of mountain areas with rich natural and cultural environment.

The paper follows two methods: first, bibliographical research and second, personal fieldwork and study which included interviews with the local body and citizens; collection of information from public agencies; research of the particular characteristics of the natural and cultural environment and registration of socioeconomic activities; visits in the villages, photographing of landscapes and traditional houses and data from the author’s participation in the research program “Possibilities of a self-reliant local development, respecting the environment“, which refers to the mountainous region of Xanthi Prefecture District and with the involvement of Greek and German scientists.

The utilization of the existing tourism resources of the region with ecological perception, combined with the excellent management of the two national parks, will contribute to eco-agritourism in the eco-development of the area. The ecological center in Drymia, with its completion and expansion to a European Ecological Centre, in direct connection with the national parks, will contribute significantly to the attraction of Greek and European researchers and eco-agritourists.

The scientific community has not thoroughly studied the region of Drymia, which presents unique ecological interest in Greece and Europe.

Cartago City is located in the central valley of Costa Rica. Situated at the southern foot of the Irazu volcano and characterized by rugged mountainous topography, the city in general is exposed to multiple natural hazards including floods, volcanic eruption, and pyroclastic flows. Indeed, the city has experienced catastrophes in 1724, 1861, 1891, 1928, and 1951. The most recent one was a combination of pyroclastic flows and several floods in 1963–1964. This catastrophe caused US$3.5 million of economic damage as well as 20 deaths (ICE, 1966).

International research has found that Homeowners Association (HOA) is capitalized in housing price in the West. Is that result applicable in Chinese cities? In China there is also widespread applause for HOA. Will that leave trail in the housing market? This paper aims to answer these questions by presenting empirical evidence from 113 private gated communities in Chongqing, China.

The data set comes from three different sources including a telephone survey. The research methodology includes hedonic models with an endogenous dummy variable of the presence of HOA in a community.

HOA is not capitalized in housing price.

The empirical finding helps to explain why about 80% of private communities in big Chinese cities have not formed an HOA.

This is the first empirical study on HOA capitalization in housing price in China.

Extreme weather events introduced by climate change have been frequent across the world for the past decade. For example, Takeda City, a mountainous area in the south-western Japan, experienced a severe river flood event caused by the factors of high flow, presence of bridges and driftwood accumulation in July 2012. This study aims to focus on this event (hereafter, Takeda flood) because the unique factors of driftwood and bridges were involved. In the Takeda flood, high flow, driftwood and bridge were the potential key factors that caused the flood. The authors studied to reveal the physical processes of the Takeda flood.

The authors conducted a fundamental laboratory experiment with a miniature bridge, open channel flow and idealized driftwood accumulation. They also performed a numerical simulation by using a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method, which can treat fluid as particle elements. This model was chosen because the SPH method is capable of treating a complex flow such as a spray of water around a bridge.

The numerical simulation successfully reproduced the bridge- and driftwood-induced floods of the laboratory experiment. Then, the contribution of the studied key factors to the flood mechanism based on the fluid forces generated by high flow, bridge and driftwood (i.e. pressure distributions) was quantitatively assessed. The results showed that the driftwood accumulation and high flow conditions are potentially important factors that can cause a severe flood like the Takeda flood.

Simulated results with high flow conditions may be helpful to consider the countermeasure for future floods under climate change even though the test was simple and fundamental.