Gabriela Mez Gomez, Edith Manchego Huaquipaco, Cinthya Lady Butrón Revilla, Carlos Zeballos Velarde

Guang Yang

Resilience is known as the capacity to adapt or resist adverse situations. In rural territories it is observed that this capacity is based on social capital. In this sense, this research analyzes ancestral practices and their relationship with the hydraulic infrastructure called "irrigation canals" with a risk and disaster management approach. The methodology developed presents the case study of the Colca Valley, in Arequipa, Peru, where 10 population centers exposed to the risk of natural disasters and directly related to water sources were selected. Data was collected using Geographic Information Systems, where urban population centers, agricultural areas and irrigation canals were located. Semi-structured interviews were also carried out to obtain testimonies of the reciprocity activities with respect to the hydraulic infrastructure from Irrigation Organizations and Rural Communities. As a result, the network of irrigation canals constitutes a backbone of the Colca Valley from the agricultural activity. The social organizations present a clear hierarchical structure and reciprocity activities related to the hydraulic infrastructure established for generations such as cleaning canals, ceremonies for the birth of springs and payment to the gods. In conclusion, the construction of Andean rural resilience is based on ancestral activities based on reciprocity and redistribution known in Andean culture as "ayni" and "minka". These practices have been transmitted from generation to generation and have been adapted for hundreds of years to the needs and requirements of the communities in the face of volcanic eruption and earthquake risks.

Oliver-Valentin Dinter (p), Lucian Roșu Corneliu Iatu, Abdelillah Hamdouch

Cinthya Lady Butron Revilla

Urban sprawl represents a result of unplanned expansion of the built environment in most of the countries. Many scholars have tried to define this unsustainable process, which takes multiple forms, but no universal definition could depict the complexity of all the characteristics it has worldwide. However, it is agreed that urban sprawl leads to no spatial coherence and low population density, being driven by a multitude of factors. Post-socialist states record nowadays the highest rates of unsustainable urban growth, as immediately after the fall of socialism, all the harsh planning rules were dismissed. The developers found the generous surface of land available in the suburban areas as the only opportunity to fulfil the high demand for housing and commercial buildings accumulated in the communism, in a context of loose planning rules.
As different contexts lead to various patterns of urban sprawl, this paper aims to fulfil a comparative analysis of the patterns of this process in the Functional Urban Areas of 4 post-socialist countries in order to determine if they are driven by national factors or they develop as a result of local factors. Thus, starting from a population density grid, this study will compute 4 indicators as average population density, decentralization index, population-to-density allocation, land-to-density allocation and variation of population density for each Functional Urban Area, following a Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development methodology. These indicators will be calculated for 1990 and 2020 in order to observe the evolution of the urban sprawl in the 30 years of transition. Their value will be compared to determine if there is any spatial correlation at national (or regional) level as a result of the implementation of policies and strategies. As a result, we will be able to determine the importance of these documents in the management of urban sprawl and observe the areas where this process requires more focus from the authorities.

Javier Lopez-Otero (p), Rosa Jorda-Borrell, Jesus Ventura-Fernandez

Oliver-Valentin Dinter

Greenways are linear spaces that have gained popularity since the 1990s and have received considerable attention for their versatility as recreational areas, venues for physical activity, places of solitude, or even as transportation corridors for intra- or inter-urban commuting. Typically, they run parallel to riverbeds, valleys, mountain ridges, or disused railway networks, and often serve as a means of connecting urban areas with nearby cultural or natural heritage sites within the metropolitan area, thereby integrating urban and natural environments into a cohesive network.
In this regard, the extensive railway network in many developed countries, which has fallen into disuse and deteriorated progressively since the transportation revolution of the 1950s, has constituted an important foundation for planning new greenways. These greenways, however, are not limited to urban spaces but also extend to rural areas. While scientific literature has extensively studied the factors explaining the use of greenways in urban areas, fewer studies have analyzed the factors explaining the use of greenways originating from railway tracks in rural environments. The importance of integrating the pathway into its environment, and more specifically, the network's characteristics to encourage usage in both urban and rural spaces should be highlighted. Furthermore, research is required to examine the support of local tourism infrastructure for the use of rural greenways and the impact of social support and knowledge on their usage.
Consequently, this study aims to conduct a comparative analysis of the factors that promote the usage of greenways converted from railway tracks in both urban and rural areas of the Spanish Mediterranean region. Specifically, this research will examine the impact of intermodal network configuration, local tourism infrastructure, and social support and knowledge on the usage of greenways. The study will be based on a sample of 800 interviews with cyclists and pedestrians collected from four greenways, which are assigned to two geographic profiles - mountainous and near-medium density urban areas in the Spanish Mediterranean region. Moreover, the analysis will employ a double modeling approach, specifically PLS-SEM and Random Forest, to further investigate the factors affecting the usage of greenways.

Yuri Yegorov (p)

Javier Lopez-Otero

The paper addresses the dynamics of urbanization and cities, their structures, driving forces for evolution and sustainability. It addresses a variety of issues, starting from the history of urbanization in the world, difference across regions and driving forces for it. Industrialization as well as wage differential between a city and rural area often becomes a driver of urbanization. Cities grow heterogeneously and form a complex pattern of cities with different sizes, in interaction between themselves and with rural area. An equilibrium emerges at the level of a city, as a balance of attracting and repelling forces. Attracting forces are usually linked with scale economies, while repelling with congestion. Then it also emerges between cities and rural areas, as well as between the network of cities. There are also externalities and global challenges for future cities, including natural hazards, hazards driven by humans as well as consequences caused by global warming and green transition. The special features of urbanization in Russia are also addressed. It has urbanization caused by industrialization in the 20th century, but now suffers from low population density in Siberia and its rural areas, which makes an access to its high endowment of natural resources per capita difficult.

Guang Yang (p), Xiaodong Ji, Jianmin Liu

Yuri Yegorov

Urban-rural relation is one of the basic economic and social relations in China’s development system. Since the reform and opening up in the early 1980s, the urban and rural dual structure which strongly favours urban development, wealth allocation for urban residents and manufacturing industry development has led to an imbalanced development between the urban and rural areas, and become the key reason behind rural hollowing, marginalized agricultural activities and other "rural disease" such as poverty and lack of public facilities both in terms of quantity and quality in China.

In order to solve this problem, the report to the 19th CPC National Congress elevated rural revitalization to a national strategy and proposed to establish a system, mechanism and policy system for integrated urban-rural development, which has been reinforced in the 20th CPC National Congress in 2022. Integrated urban and rural development has become a key new policy principle to guide a balanced development of urban and rural areas in China and the building of new urban and rural relations. Its purpose is not to turn rural areas into cities, but to promote better rural development and coordinated regional development as compared to siloed urban and rural development often at the expense of the latter in the past.

The key to achieving this goal is to facilitate the urban-rural integration that suits local development conditions and peculiarities. From the governance point of view, the biggest obstacle to integrated urban and rural development is the lack of an institutional and governance system and mechanism as well as capacity and capability that meet and actively address local development needs.

Using a regional governance lens, the research will investigate existing urban-rural linkages in selected provinces and regions such as the Beijing-Tianjian-Hebei Province area in such areas, including city size and urbanization rates, development gap between urban and rural areas, capacity of absorbing population of established towns and townships, urban planning and institutional innovation. Based on the analysis, recommendations and discussions will be made in such institutional and governance areas as innovation of urban management networks, township finance, capacity building in integrated urban and rural planning, infrastructure investment financing, public service delivery and land system reform.