Perspectives In Urban Ecology

This book gives an interdisciplinary overview on urban ecology. Basic understanding of urban nature development and its social reception are discussed for the European Metropolitan Area of Berlin. Furthermore, we investigate specific consequences for the environment, nature and the quality of life for city dwellers due to profound changes such as climate change and the demographic and economic developments associated with the phenomena of shrinking cities. Actual problems of urban ecology should be discussed not only in terms of natural dimensions such as atmosphere, biosphere, pedosphere and hydrosphere but also in terms of social and cultural dimensions such as urban planning, residence and recreation, traffic and mobility and economic values. Our research findings focus on streets, new urban landscapes, intermediate use of brown fields and the relationships between urban nature and the well-being of city dwellers. Finally, the book provides a contribution to the international discussion on urban ecology.

Urban Ecology is a rapidly growing field of academic and practical significance. Urban ecologists have published several conference proceedings and regularly contribute to the ecological, architectural, planning, and geography literature. However, important papers in the field that set the foundation for the discipline and illustrate modern approaches from a variety of perspectives and regions of the world have not been collected in a single, accessible book. Foundations of Urban Ecology does this by reprinting important European and American publications, filling gaps in the published literature with a few, targeted original works, and translating key works originally published in German. This edited volume will provide students and professionals with a rich background in all facets of urban ecology. The editors emphasize the drivers, patterns, processes and effects of human settlement. The papers they synthesize provide readers with a broad understanding of the local and global aspects of settlement through traditional natural and social science lenses. This interdisciplinary vision gives the reader a comprehensive view of the urban ecosystem by introducing drivers, patterns, processes and effects of human settlements and the relationships between humans and other animals, plants, ecosystem processes, and abiotic conditions. The reader learns how human institutions, health, and preferences influence, and are influenced by, the others members of their shared urban ecosystem.

This trailblazing book outlines an interdisciplinary "process model" for urban design that has been developed and tested over time. Its goal is not to explain how to design a specific city precinct or public space, but to describe useful steps to approach the transformation of urban spaces. Urban Ecological Design illustrates the different stages in which the process is organized, using theories, techniques, images, and case studies. In essence, it presents a "how-to" method to transform the urban landscape that is thoroughly informed by theory and practice. The authors note that urban design is viewed as an interface between different disciplines. They describe the field as "peacefully overrun, invaded, and occupied" by city planners, architects, engineers, and landscape architects (with developers and politicians frequently joining in). They suggest that environmental concerns demand the consideration of ecology and sustainability issues in urban design. It is, after all, the urban designer who helps to orchestrate human relationships with other living organisms in the built environment. The overall objective of the book is to reinforce the role of the urban designer as an honest broker and promoter of design processes and as an active agent of social creativity in the production of the public realm.

This collection seeks to expand the limits of current debates about urban commoning practices that imply a radical will to establish collaborative and solidarity networks based on anti-capitalist principles of economics, ecology and ethics. The chapters in this volume draw on case studies in a diversity of urban contexts, ranging from Detroit, USA to Kyrenia, Cyprus – on urban gardening and land stewardship, collaborative housing experiments, alternative food networks, claims to urban leisure space, migrants’ appropriation of urban space and workers’ cooperatives/collectives. The analysis pursued by the eleven chapters opens new fields of research in front of us: the entanglements of racial capitalism with enclosures and of black geographies with the commons, the critical history of settler colonialism and indigenous commons, law as a force of enclosure and as a strategy of commoning, housing commons from the urban scale perspective, solidarity economies as labour commons, territoriality in the urban commons, the non-territoriality of mobile commons, the new materialist and post-humanist critique of the commons debate and feminist ethics of care.

Trees and vegetation in cities aren’t just there to make the place look pretty. They have an important ecological function. This book contains studies and perspectives on urban forests from a broad array of basic and applied scientific disciplines including ecosystem ecology, biogeochemistry, landscape ecology, plant community ecology, geography, and social science. The book includes contributions from experts around the world, allowing the reader to evaluate methods and management that are appropriate for particular geographic, environmental, and socio-political contexts.

Against the background of unprecedented rates of urbanisation in the Global South, leading to massive social, economic and environmental transformations, this book engages with the dire need to understand the ecology of such settings as the foundation for fostering sustainable and resilient human settlements in contexts that are very different to the Global North. It does so by bringing together scholars from around the world, drawing together research and case studies from across the Global South to illustrate, in an interdisciplinary and comprehensive fashion, the ecology of towns and cities in the Global South. Framed using a social-ecological systems lens, it provides the reader with an in-depth analysis and understanding of the ecological dynamics and ecosystem services and disservices within the complex and rapidly changing towns and cities of the Global South, a region with currently scarce representation in most of the urban ecology literature. As such the book makes a call for greater geographical balance in urban ecology research leading towards a more global understanding and frameworks. The book embraces the complexity of these rapid transformations for ecological and environmental management and how the ecosystems and the benefits they provide shape local ecologies, livelihood opportunities and human wellbeing, and how such knowledge can be mobilised towards improved urban design and management and thus urban sustainability.

Applied Urban Ecology: A Global Framework explores ways in which the environmental quality of urban areas can be improved starting with existing environmental conditions and their dynamics. Written by an internationally renowned selection of scientists and practitioners, the book covers a broad range of established and novel approaches to applied urban ecology. Approaches chosen for the book are placed in the context of issues such as climate change, green- and open-space development, flood-risk assessment, threats to urban biodiversity, and increasing environmental pollution (especially in the “megacities” of newly industrialized countries). All topics covered were chosen because they are socially and socio-politically relevant today. Further topics covered include sustainable energy and budget management, urban water resource management, urban land management, and urban landscape planning and design. Throughout the book, concepts and methods are illustrated using case studies from around the world. A closing synopsis draws conclusions on how the findings of urban ecological research can be used in strategic urban management in the future. Applied Urban Ecology: A Global Framework is an advanced textbook for students, researchers and experienced practitioners in urban ecology and urban environmental research, planning, and practice.

The growth of cities poses ever-increasing challenges for the natural environment on which they impact and depend, not only within their boundaries but also in surrounding peri-urban areas. Landscape ecology – the study of interactions across space and time between the structure and function of physical, biological and cultural components of landscapes – has a pivotal role to play in identifying sustainable solutions. This book brings together examples of research at the cutting edge of urban landscape ecology across multiple contexts that investigate the state, maintenance and restoration of healthy and functional natural environments across urban and peri-urban landscapes. An explicit focus is on urban landscapes in contrast to other books which have considered urban ecosystems and ecology without specific focus on spatial connections. It integrates research and perspectives from across academia, public and private practitioners of urban conservation, planning and design. It provides a much needed summary of current thinking on how urban landscapes can provide the foundation of sustained economic growth, prospering communities and personal well-being.