- Building a Sustainable Network of Settlements on the Caspian Sea Region of Kazakhstan    883 kb by    Junussova, Madina | mcny@rambler.ru    Short Outline The paper aims to present a regional case study on the implementation of environmental zoning in the Mangystau region based on the concept of building a network of sustainable settlements. Abstract Aggressive climatic conditions together with intensive processes of oil and gas exploration caused a lot of environmental issues on western coastal regions of the Caspian Sea. One of them is Mangystau area with spatially dispersed system of settlements. This isolated urban area and large free spaces of historically and environmentally valuable lands can hardy survive without creation of sustainable networks. The paper aims to present a regional case study on implementation of the project of environmental zoning of Mangystau region based on the concept of building the sustainable settlements’ network. The considered project gives practical instrument to decision makers that helps: (i) to keep a liveable balance between the built and non-built environment; (ii) to guide investors on their possible profitable activities in areas of intensive human activities or in areas of distinctive nature sensitivity and to increase quality of local population’s life. Keywords sustainable urban network, environmental zoning, investment map, interactive planning instruments for desicion makers Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2011: LIVEABLE CITIES: URBANISING WORLD, Meeting the Challenge   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper