Several cities are facing water emergencies related to urbanization impact and amplified by climate change. Most of the cities have responded to these crises through short-term measures. However, some cities have incorporated a watershed approach to water management in seeking more sustainable solutions. Although the importance of a watershed approach in land management is generally acknowledged, studies on this topic have typically focused on theoretical models, water management in rural areas or single case-studies of cities or countries. In this research, a scoping review of the literature was performed, based on the PRISMA 2020 statement, in three databases: Web of Science, Google Scholar and SciELO. Forty-one studies were identified analyzing 17 city cases implementing urban actions from a watershed approach in water management. These cities were from the Global North and Asian rising world powers. The lack of results of cities from the Global South, based on the research undertaken, was the main limitation and bias identified. Most of the Global South results identified in this research were theoretical models, scenarios and cases of rural areas instead of urban contexts. The results obtained indicate that the main motivations for cities to implement a watershed approach were water scarcity, floods and contamination of water bodies. The implemented actions focused on the shift from gray to green and blue infrastructure and on conservation measures. Lastly, the challenges to introduce those actions were mainly the lack of economic investment, insufficient experience, stakeholder opposition, and regulatory obstacles. Urban water management could be seen as an opportunity to change the way we relate to urban territory. Incorporating a watershed approach into urban planning and water management could promote more sustainable cities.

The presence of artificial light at night has emerged as an anthropogenic stressor in recent years. Various sources of light pollution have been shown to affect circadian physiology with serious consequences for metabolic pathways, possibly disrupting pineal melatonin production with multiple adverse health effects. The suppression of melatonin at night may also affect human mental health and contribute to the development or exacerbation of psychiatric disorders in vulnerable individuals. Due to the high burden of circadian disruption in affective disorders, it has been hypothesized that light pollution impacts mental health, mainly affecting mood regulation. Hence, the aim of this review was to critically summarize the evidence on the effects of light pollution on mood symptoms, with a particular focus on the role of circadian rhythms in mediating this relationship. We conducted a narrative review of the literature in the PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science datasets. After the screening process, eighteen papers were eligible for inclusion. The results clearly indicate a link between light pollution and the development of affective symptoms, with a central role of sleep disturbances in the emergence of mood alterations. Risk perception also represents a crucial topic, possibly modulating the development of affective symptoms in response to light pollution. The results of this review should encourage a multidisciplinary approach to the design of healthier environments, including lighting conditions among the key determinants of human mental health.

The urbanization process, which began with the Industrial Revolution, has undergone a considerable increase over the past few decades. Urbanization strongly affects ecological processes, often deleteriously, because it is associated with a decrease in green spaces (areas of land covered by vegetation), loss of natural habitats, increased rates of species extinction, a greater prevalence of invasive and exotic species, and anthropogenic pollutant accumulation. In urban environments, green spaces play a key role by providing many ecological benefits and contributing to human psychophysical well-being. It is known that interactions between plants and microorganisms that occur in the rhizosphere are of paramount importance for plant health, soil fertility, and the correct functioning of plant ecosystems. The growing diffusion of DNA sequencing technologies and \"omics\" analyses has provided increasing information about the composition, structure, and function of the rhizomicrobiota. However, despite the considerable amount of data on rhizosphere communities and their interactions with plants in natural/rural contexts, current knowledge on microbial communities associated with plant roots in urban soils is still very scarce. The present review discusses both plant-microbe dynamics and factors that drive the composition of the rhizomicrobiota in poorly investigated urban settings and the potential use of beneficial microbes as an innovative biological tool to face the challenges that anthropized environments and climate change impose. Unravelling urban biodiversity will contribute to green space management, preservation, and development and, ultimately, to public health and safety.

Early childhood caries (ECC) is a multifactorial disease in which environmental factors could play a role. The purpose of this scoping review was to map the published literature that assessed the association between the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, which tried to make cities and human settlements safe, inclusive, resilient and sustainable, and ECC.
This scoping review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. In July 2023, a search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus using tailored search terms related to housing, urbanization, waste management practices, and ECC. Studies that solely examined ECC prevalence without reference to SDG11 goals were excluded. Of those that met the inclusion criteria, a summary highlighting the countries and regions where the studies were conducted, the study designs employed, and the findings were done. In addition, the studies were also linked to relevant SDG11 targets.
Ten studies met the inclusion criteria with none from the African Region. Six studies assessed the association between housing and ECC, with findings suggesting that children whose parents owned a house had lower ECC prevalence and severity. Other house related parameters explored were size, number of rooms, cost and building materials used. The only study on the relationship between the prevalence of ECC and waste management modalities at the household showed no statistically significant association. Five studies identified a relationship between urbanization and ECC (urbanization, size, and remoteness of the residential) with results suggesting that there was no significant link between ECC and urbanization in high-income countries contrary to observations in low and middle-income countries. No study assessed the relationship between living in slums, natural disasters and ECC. We identified links between ECC and SDG11.1 and SDG 11.3. The analysis of the findings suggests a plausible link between ECC and SDG11C (Supporting least developed countries to build resilient buildings).
There are few studies identifying links between ECC and SDG11, with the findings suggesting the possible differences in the impact of urbanization on ECC by country income-level and home ownership as a protective factor from ECC. Further research is needed to explore measures of sustainable cities and their links with ECC within the context of the SDG11.

Stormwater ponds are increasingly becoming a dominant pond type in cities experiencing urban sprawl. These human-made ponds are designed primarily to control flooding issues associated with increased impervious surface in cities and serve to retain sediment and contaminants before flowing to urban downstream waterways. Along with these important functions, constructed ponds including stormwater ponds may be critical in urban freshwater conservation because they often represent some of the few remaining lentic environments (still water; e.g. ponds, wetlands, lakes) in many cities. We currently lack a clear understanding of the role that stormwater ponds play in serving as habitat for freshwater biodiversity. Here, we examined whether stormwater ponds support freshwater biodiversity in cities by reviewing the empirical literature on biotic community responses in urban stormwater ponds across a range of taxonomic groups. We conducted a meta-analysis on empirical papers that quantitatively examined differences in taxonomic richness between stormwater ponds and reference ponds (n = 11 papers, 22 effects). We also examined a broader set of 58 papers to qualitatively synthesize studies on stormwater pond communities and assess various indicators of habitat quality in stormwater ponds. In the studies examined, heterogeneity exists in the habitat quality of stormwater ponds and increased pollutant loads are often reported. However, the results highlight that stormwater ponds tend to contain alpha diversity comparable to reference ponds, and that overall, a range of ecologically important wildlife make use of and inhabit urban stormwater ponds. We find that stormwater ponds can often support communities with broad compositions of taxa, including those that are sensitive or vulnerable to environmental change. We compile recommendations provided within the studies in order to improve our understanding of the management of urban stormwater ponds for biodiversity conservation.

Over the last decades, bee biodiversity has dropped sharply due to land use change, including urbanization. To contrast this, recent research has pointed to cities as a hotspot for bees. Because of this ambiguity, a scoping review has been conducted to examine the urban characteristics that impact bees and how bees are impacted. A total of 276 articles were analyzed against landscape and local habitat characteristics. The key findings include first that natural areas are more valuable for bees since biodiversity levels are higher. Second, urban areas generally score better than agricultural and rural areas. Third, plant biodiversity positively influences bee biodiversity. Fourth, the urban environment strongly affects some bee traits and the proportion of native bees. For making cities bee friendly and bee inclusive, we recommend to maintain natural areas, connect natural areas to urban ecosystems, encourage floral abundance and diversity and increasing the size of urban green areas overall.

The appalling state of Liberia\'s municipal solid waste management system (MSWM) is the motivation for this review and analysis. Solid waste management protocols and system dynamic modeling support policy development as it uses waste prevention to explain the complex waste management systems and suggests methods for effective management. However, creating an effective waste system goes beyond the formulation of policies and legislation; it involves financial and technological proficiency, skilled human capacity, technical, social, resource recycling, educational awareness programs, and active public participation. Because of urbanization, Liberia\'s municipal solid waste (MSW) problems have become heightened, thereby impacting the economic, social, and political fabric of society by overburdening infrastructure and social facilities. The impact of urbanization must be addressed because urbanization, amongst several factors, including unsustainable management of MSW, degrades the environment and presents risks to public health. The purpose of this review was to highlight the current waste management activities in Liberia and provide information to the readers about the challenges facing the waste management sector and the challenges impeding the development of a sustainable waste management system. In Liberia, waste management activities are getting worse daily due to shortage of a comprehensive waste management framework, the absence of guidelines regarding the responsibilities of waste generators, and the decision-makers\' lack of intent to design and implement a sustainable and integrated management system. Recommendations for collaborative efforts are made by focusing on delivering a waste strategy which concentrates on waste minimization, recycling, resource recovery, and promoting sustainable waste management practices for communities, small businesses, corporations, and government institutions in Liberia and other developing countries.

Urbanization is a phenomenon that shows the expansion of urban areas in conjunction with industrial and economic progress. Rapid world urbanization is caused by the swift rise in urban residents as a proportion of the population. Efforts to examine the quality of urban life and urbanization as distinct risk factors for mental illness within specific age groups have been made. However, the issue remains contentious and largely unresolved. Urban mental health issues, such as substance abuse, fear of crime, poverty, and ethnicity, are associated with factors like depression, aggression, fear, sadness, and personality disorders. The entire gamut of the population, particularly adult males and females, is affected by these impacts of urbanization. The size of the population increases the prevalence of the preview study. India is expected to concentrate highly on the whole urban population, but this might inadvertently cause harm to urban residents. This review discusses the impact of urbanization on mental health and well-being. We search via PubMed (Medline), Google Scholar, and databases like WHO. The language of the study is English, and other language articles are excluded. The mental health challenges associated with urbanization impact the entire population, with a notable emphasis on adult males and females. They are raising awareness about various urban programs designed for urban populations. It will function as a coordinator of change in a rapidly modified Indian society to spread awareness about mental illnesses throughout all segments of society.

Urban rivers are affected at different levels by the intensification of human activities, representing a serious threat to the maintenance of terrestrial life and sustainable urban development. Consequently, great efforts have been dedicated to the ecological restoration of urban rivers around the world, as a solution to recovering the environmental functionality of these environments. In this sense, the present work aimed to investigate the effectiveness of interventions carried out aimed at the recovery of urban rivers, through a systematic review of the literature between 2010 and 2022, using the search term \"rivers recovery.\" The results showed that there have been notable advances in the implementation of river recovery programs in urban areas around the world between the years analyzed. The ecosystems studied were affected, for the most part, by the increase in the supply of nutrients from domestic and industrial effluents, in addition to having highly urbanized surroundings and with several changes in land use patterns. The preparation of this literature review made it possible to demonstrate that the effectiveness of river recovery is extremely complex, since river recovery projects are developed for different reasons, as well as being carried out in different ways according to the intended objective.

This review aims to provide an update on the association between urbanization and psychotic spectrum disorders, focusing on specific aspects of the urban environment that could be a bane or boon for the risk of psychosis.
Majority of the included studies support previous evidence suggesting that urbanization is linked to a higher risk of psychotic experiences and psychotic spectrum disorders. A small minority, however, have also found specific factors in the urban environment that could give rise to positive outcomes, such as better social functioning and lower mortality rates in psychotic spectrum disorders, or mitigate the risks associated with urbanization. The perception of the urban environment was also an important factor that increased or mitigated stress levels in patients with psychosis, which in turn affected their susceptibility to psychotic symptoms.
Specific aspects of the urban environment such as the availability and density of greenspaces are crucial for mitigating the effect of urbanization on risk of psychotic spectrum disorders, and should be incorporated into urban planning. At the same time, there is a need to further explore how modifiable risk factors of the urban environment such as air and noise pollution can be minimized to allow for more liveable cities in the context of psychotic spectrum conditions.