Sustainable Development--Education, Business and Management--Architecture and Building Construction--Agriculture and Food Security

Securing the future of the human race will require an improved understanding of the environment as well as of technological solutions, mindsets and behaviors in line with modes of development that the ecosphere of our planet can support. Some experts see the only solution in a global deflation of the currently unsustainable exploitation of resources. However, sustainable development offers an approach that would be practical to fuse with the managerial strategies and assessment tools for policy and decision makers at the regional planning level. Environmentalists, architects, engineers, policy makers and economists will have to work together in order to ensure that planning and development can meet our society's present needs without compromising the security of future generations. Better planning methods for urban and rural expansion could prevent environmental destruction and imminent crises. Energy, transport, water, environment and food production systems should aim for self-sufficiency and not the rapid depletion of natural resources. Planning for sustainable development must overcome many complex technical and social issues. This book contains the following chapters: (1) Indigenous Epistemologies, Sustainability and Schooling: The Case of South Africa (Anders Breidlid); (2) Malaysian Primary Pre-Service Teachers' Understanding and Awareness of Environmental Knowledge (Mageswary Karpudewan and Zurida Ismail); (3) Alternative Perspective to Funding Public Universities in Nigeria (Shina Olayiwola); (4) Sustainable Business Development--A Case Study of the International Logistics Industry (Anna Larsson, Ronald Muyingo, Dmytro Serebrennikov, Shohana Ahmed and Cecilia Mark-Herbert); (5) The Obligation of Sustainable Fisheries Management: Review of Endured Failures and Challenges in Exploitation of the Living Sea (Hans-Joachim Ratz); (6) Modelling for Sustainable Development: Inundation Risk Management and Decision Making in Water Sector (Sellami Mohamed Habib and Siddiki Ezeddine); (7) Sustainable Building in Malaysia: The Development of Sustainable Building Rating System (Ar Zuhairuse MD Darus and Nor Atikah Hashim); (8) Mapping is a Key for Sustainable Development of Coastal Waters: Examples of Seagrass Beds and Aquaculture Facilities in Japan with Use of ALOS Images (Teruhisa Komatsu, Tatsuyuki Sagawa, Shuhei Sawayama, Hideaki Tanoue, Akihiko Mohri and Yoshihiko Sakanishi); (9) Sustainable Development of the Built Environment: The Role of the Residential/Housing Sector (Tom Kauko); (10) Using Index to Measure and Monitor Progress on Sustainable Development (Geoffrey K. F. Tso and Jin Li); (11) Sustainability in Urban Ecosystems and Detecting Urban Vegetation from Different Images Using an Object-Based Approach (Metin Tunay, Ayhan Atesoglu, Aycan M. Marangoz, Serkan Karakis and Hakan Akcin); (12) Sustainable Solutions in Development Countries--Lithuania Case (Marija Burinskiene and Vitalija Rudzkiene); (13) Sustainable Farming Systems vs Conventional Agriculture: A Socioeconomic Approach (Athanasios Theocharopoulos, Stamatis Aggelopoulos, Panoraia Papanagiotou, Katerina Melfou and Evangelos Papanagiotou); (14) Improving Food Security Risk Management for Sustainable Development (Menghestab Haile and Lieven Bydekerke); (15) Three Totally Different Environmental/GDP Curves (Leif Bratt); (16) Temporal-Spatial Changes of the Oasis in the Heihe River Basin over the Past 25 Years (Yaowen Xie, Linlin Li, Xiaojiong Zhao and Chunxia Yuan); and (17) Saving the World's Most Precious Resource (Dewi Rogers and Alessandro Bettin).