Environment and development

Abstract

Interaction between human and environment has been a popular research topic for geographers. The rapid development in many Asian countries triggers further concern to Asian Geographers on the impacts of human activities to the environment. Many previous studies have conclusively indicated that human could bring both positively and negatively impacts to our surrounding environment that influences the quality of our life. In this regard, enhancing our understanding about the human activities and their impacts on environment are vital to formulate appropriate strategies to tackle the environmental problems caused by the development. In this special issue, scholars are invited to examine the above topics. The scope of research ranged from local to global scale and it is hoped that insights on the relationship between environment and development can offer the readers a holistic understanding on the human–environment relationship. This special issue is originated from the invitation of Prof. Xu Jiang – the Editor-in-Chief of Asian Geographer. Five papers are included in this special issue. Briefly, the first paper is about a comprehensive review on the role of climate change on wars in history. Lee (2018) offers a holistic review on the large-N quantitative studiesmeasuring the effect of climate change onwars in recent history. Two papers are about tourism in both rural areas in China and global geopark of Hong Kong. Chan and Zhang (2018) investigate the destination image of the Hong Kong UNESCOGlobal Geopark and Lee andAbrahams (2018) examine how tourism representations mirror state discourses and ideologies in amanner that reflects the highly state-managed nature of the nature’s tourism economy. Xu et al. (2018) andMorley (2018) articles focus on the industrialization of China and urban development in Baguio of Philippines.