Topic
Megacity
About: Megacity is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1427 publications have been published within this topic receiving 26929 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
1 / 2
Papers
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the current state of understanding of the air pollution problems in China's mega cities and identify the immediate challenges to understanding and controlling air pollution in these densely populated areas.
2,449 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors quantify global urban water scarcity in 2016 and 2050 under four socioeconomic and climate change scenarios, and explored potential solutions to solve the water scarcity problem in cities.
Abstract: Urbanization and climate change are together exacerbating water scarcity-where water demand exceeds availability-for the world's cities. We quantify global urban water scarcity in 2016 and 2050 under four socioeconomic and climate change scenarios, and explored potential solutions. Here we show the global urban population facing water scarcity is projected to increase from 933 million (one third of global urban population) in 2016 to 1.693-2.373 billion people (one third to nearly half of global urban population) in 2050, with India projected to be most severely affected in terms of growth in water-scarce urban population (increase of 153-422 million people). The number of large cities exposed to water scarcity is projected to increase from 193 to 193-284, including 10-20 megacities. More than two thirds of water-scarce cities can relieve water scarcity by infrastructure investment, but the potentially significant environmental trade-offs associated with large-scale water scarcity solutions must be guarded against.
861 citations
TL;DR: Air pollution has serious impacts on public health, causes urban and regional haze, and has the potential to contribute significantly to climate change, yet, with appropriate planning, megacities can efficiently address their air quality problems through measures such as application of new emission control technologies and development of mass transit systems.
Abstract: About half of the world's population now lives in urban areas because of the opportunity for a better quality of life. Many of these urban centers are expanding rapidly, leading to the growth of megacities, which are defined as metropolitan areas with populations exceeding 10 million inhabitants. These concentrations of people and activity are exerting increasing stress on the natural environment, with impacts at urban, regional and global levels. In recent decades, air pollution has become one of the most important problems of megacities. Initially, the main air pollutants of concern were sulfur compounds, which were generated mostly by burning coal. Today, photochemical smog—induced primarily from traffic, but also from industrial activities, power generation, and solvents—has become the main source of concern for air quality, while sulfur is still a major problem in many cities of the developing world. Air pollution has serious impacts on public health, causes urban and regional haze, and has ...
793 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify the different processes and mechanisms of urbanization that substantially affect urban structures as well as human behavior, and find that various mechanisms within the different sectors of the economy lead to a substantial increase in urban energy demand and to a change in the fuel mix.
648 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the potential for air pollution that cities will experience in the future unless control strategies are developed and implemented during the next several decades is mapped and analyzed in 20 of the 24 megacities of the world (over 10 million people by year 2000).
575 citations
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2026 | 7 |
| 2025 | 318 |
| 2024 | 482 |
| 2023 | 631 |
| 2022 | 1,013 |
| 2021 | 155 |