Singapore's Urban Coastal Area


Book Description







Muddied Waters


Book Description

This book examines the history of human interaction with forest and marine ecosystems in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Rainforests falling to snarling chainsaws, and factory trawlers emptying the life out of tropical seas, are nowadays among the most familiar images of Southeast Asia. Yet the present excessive levels of logging and fishing have emerged only within the last generation. Until a few decades ago it was common for marine and forest-related economic activities in Southeast Asia to have limited, and in the long run rather stable, effects on the environment. Did this relative stability simply reflect lower population densities, less well developed markets, and less efficient extraction technologies? Or was it the result of successful resource management techniques and institutions? If so, why have these since failed or been abandoned? Seventeen contributions by an international selection of expert authors cover topics ranging from the collection of rattan, beeswax and forest resins in the seventeenth century to the management of modern marine nature reserves. Muddied waters is essential reading for anyone interested in the environmental history of Southeast Asia, whether in connection with other aspects of this particular region, or in relation to patterns of environmental change and resource management in other parts of the world.




Singapore Biodiversity


Book Description

A magnificently illustrated and superbly written guide to the unique and simply astounding biodiversity of Singapore.




The Environment in Asia Pacific Harbours


Book Description

Urbanization has reached unprecedented levels in the estuarine and coastal zone, particularly in the Asia Pacific region where mega-cities and mega-harbours are still growing. This book demonstrates the different solutions and pitfalls, successes and failures in a large number of ports and harbours in the Asia Pacific Region, and shows how science can provide ecologically sustainable solutions that apply wherever the growth of mega-harbours occurs.




Tropical Urban Heat Islands


Book Description

This book explores the complex relationships between climate, buildings and plants, especially in urban heat islands to form a reference for researchers and professionals.




The Economics of the Modernisation of Direct Real Estate and the National Estate - a Singapore Perspective


Book Description

The Economics of The Modernisation of Direct Real Estate and The National Estate - A Singapore Perspective Chapter 1 takes a close look the vector auto regression (VAR) model, offering a dynamic system of solely direct real estate variables, for international direct real estate investors and policy makers, to enable their decision-making. Chapter 2 examines the association of residential price and aggregate consumption. A cross-spectra analysis is helps to so validate, because of its model-free characteristics Chapter 3 is concerned with the underlying housing market dynamics and housing price time-series variation, via the Singapore (SG) generalized dynamic factor model (GDFM). Chapter 4 is concerned with the in-depth market analysis and empirical analysis of the structural behavior of the important SG private housing sector. Chapter 5 acknowledges that an in-depth sector analysis and an empirical analysis are imperative to better understand the structural behavior of the SG office sector. Chapter 6 is concerned with the Main Upgrading Programme (MUP), a highly targeted subsidized Housing Development Board (HDB) policy, since the 1990s. Chapter 7 recognizes the ‘National Estate’, denoting SG’s built environment, due to physical planning, integrated urban design, and the direct influence of the SG government in providing physical infrastructure via government ministries, statutory boards and public authorities. Chapter 8 offers the book’s conclusion.




Singapore's Permanent Territorial Revolution


Book Description

Ever since Singapore became an independent nation in 1965, its government has been intent on transforming the island’s environment. This has led to a nearly constant overhaul of the landscape, whether still natural or already manmade. Not only are the shape and dimensions of the main island and its subsidiary ones constantly modified so are their relief and hydrology. No stone is left unturned, literally, and, one could add, nor is a single cultural feature, be it a house, a factory, a road or a cemetery. Given one of Singapore’s unique feature, namely that the state is the sole landlord, all types of property in all parts of the island, rural as well as urban, were and remain subject to expropriation, fortunately always with due compensation. This atlas illustrates, essentially through diachronic mapping of the changing distribution of all forms of land use, the universality of what has become a tool of social management. By constantly “replanning” the rules of access to space, the Singaporean State is thus redefining territoriality, even in its minute details. This is one reason it has been able to consolidate its control over civil society, peacefully and to an extent rarely known in history.