Noise exposure can impair the hearing system, producing temporary or permanent deafness. Studies indicate that urban noise has adverse effects on human health, which may result in behavioural, psychological and physiological processes that pose risks to health. Soil and water pollution can compound the problems and can cause human diseases directly. Urban environmental change includes air pollution and noise caused by construction and transportation, and soil pollution and water pollution caused by waste disposal. Such inputs have repercussions for the availability of safe food, and also for the price of food, as fertilizer costs increase in line with oil prices. Reduced cultivated land places pressures to intensify agricultural production which depends on both the progress of agricultural technology and deeper dependence on usage of fertilizer and pesticides. Accelerated urbanization along with explosive economic growth has further worsened the shortage of agricultural land over the last two decades with possible consequences for food security and nutritional deficiencies threatening the overall health status of the population. Urban expansion is one of the major driving factors of land use/coverage change in China, with extensive effects on local ecological systems through reducing biodiversity, air deterioration and contributing to water shortages. Rapid and often unplanned, urban growth is a source of environmental hazards, which have direct and indirect effects on human health. Relationship between urbanization, urban environmental change and public health įigure 1 illustrates in particular how systemic changes in the environment as a result of urbanization pose numerous threats to human health. In this paper, we provide a systems overview of the relationship between urbanization, urban environmental change and health, and put forward possible solutions at national, local and individual levels based on evidence-based understandings of the links between urbanization and health in contemporary China.

Rapid urbanization impacts on natural and built infrastructure, environmental health and human wellbeing. ĭespite numerous benefits originating from urbanization, as with other countries that are urbanizing rapidly, China also faces intensified resource scarcity and environmental degradation. In March 2014, China unveiled the New-style Urbanization Plan (2014–2020) in an effort to steer the country’s urbanization onto a more human-centered and environmentally friendly path. However,the urbanization process has progressed faster than economic growth since 2004, and it is now time to consider urbanization quality rather than a continuation of the spatial expansion from large scale “destroy and build”. To accommodate this significant immigration and population growth within cities, China’s urban area has increased rapidly, with large areas of farmlands converted to urban use. Nearly 40 % of people living in urban areas are migrants, with migrant populations numbering roughly 260 million. Urban population growth in China is characterized by rural-to-urban migration. In China, urbanization has entered a period of accelerated development since the 1990s. Contemporarily, world urbanization has entered a special period with some new features including information cities or smart cities, multi-centred metropolitan areas, and further globalization involving the transmission of novel ideas and risk behaviours beginning in cities. Generally, urbanization is accompanied by an increase in the proportion of urban to rural population, population growth in built-up areas with urbanism referring to the urban lifestyle and its associated social and behaviour features. Urbanization is an important social process underpinning the dynamics of human society, and it is especially impactful in the 21st Century.

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