Monsoon flood risks in urban areas of Pakistan: A way forward for risk reduction and adaptation planning.

Climate change poses a significant threat to sustainable urban development. Heavy rainfall has led to severe urban flooding, disrupting human life and causing widespread damage. This study aims to examine the impacts, preparedness, and adaptation strategies related to monsoon flooding in Lahore, Pakistan's second-most populous metropolitan area. Using Yamane's sampling method, a total of 370 samples were surveyed and analyzed using descriptive analysis and chi-square tests. The results indicate that houses and parks were the most commonly damaged properties, with common impacts including roof collapse, house fires, seepage, and wall dampness. These impacts not only caused physical damage but also disrupted basic amenities and damaged roads, resulting in significant socioeconomic costs. Despite these challenges, residents adopted a variety of adaptation strategies such as the use of temporary tarps, moving household appliances to upper floors, and shifting to tiled floors and wall paneling to mitigate damage. However, the study highlights the need for further measures to reduce flood risks and promote adaptation planning in order to effectively address the ongoing challenges posed by climate change and urban flooding.

The impact of brick kilns on environment and society: a bibliometric and thematic review.

Bricks have a long history of being utilized as a construction material across the globe. The production processes involved in the manufacture of bricks have a significant impact on the environment, human health, economy, and society. This study conducts a thematic and bibliometric analysis to provide an in-depth review of the effects of brick kilns on humans and the environment. The PRISMA framework was used to identify relevant articles from the Web of Science database, resulting in the selection and critical review of 348 articles. The bibliometric analysis included an evaluation of historical growth, keywords, citation and co-citation, organizations, and countries. The articles were published in 213 journals, written by 1396 authors from 670 institutions in 66 countries. Thematic analysis revealed that brick kilns have a negative impact on the environment, including soil damage, and cause health problems for kiln workers and animals. Modern slavery and societal issues also persist in developing countries. The current research is focused on finding alternative materials for brick manufacturing, improving industry energy efficiency, managing waste, and technological advancements, such as the implementation of the zigzag or Hoffmann kiln to reduce pollution. In developing countries, utilizing waste from other industries in brick production can effectively lower production costs. While developed countries have embraced advanced technologies for brick production, it is recommended that developing countries adopt awareness campaigns to encourage the upgrading of kilns to cleaner and more sustainable systems. Future research directions should aim to support brick kiln owners in adopting such systems.

Risk reduction via spatial and temporal visualization of road accidents: a way forward for emergency response optimization in developing countries.

To achieve an effective emergency response and road safety, this study aims to assist a semi-automated dynamic system to analyze and predict the spatial distribution and temporal pattern of road crashes. Kasur, an intermediate city of Pakistan, was selected and data including location, time and reasons of accidents for five years (2014-2018) was utilized. Radar charts, Getis-Ord Gi* statistic, Moran's I spatial auto-correlation, and time series indices were engaged to present temporal, spatial and spatial-temporal variation of accidents, using python-based tools and jupyter notebook. A dynamic user interface was created using Github and Tableau to visualize a real-time zoom-able spatiotemporal variation of accidents. The results explain that out of 12 months, October faces the peak while April sees the least of road accidents. 7am is the peak hour for accidents and the weekends record a significantly higher number of road accidents as compared to weekdays. The city core witnesses the major hotspot areas with huge cluster of accidents. The findings contribute towards a well-informed decision support system, the knowledge of spatial analytics and its application in road safety science, and the preparedness of the rescue agencies for rapid response to reduce the impacts of road accidents.