Applied Urban Ecology

A Global Framework

Matthias Richter, Ulrike Weiland, Matthias Richter, Ulrike Weiland, Matthias Richter, Ulrike Weiland

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781444333404, 9781444333398
• eBook ISBN: 9781444345001
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

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.

Part I

Introduction

Chapter 1

Urban ecology—brief history and present challenges

Ulrike Weiland1 and Matthias Richter2

1Institute for Geography, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

2Environmental Scientist, Publicist and University Lecturer, Germany*

1.1 Introduction

Urban ecology plays an important role in understanding urban systems. In order to analyze and apprehend, for instance, urban land use changes and their impact on the regional water balance, the role of urban green spaces for the local climate, conditions for the coexistence of species in an urban setting, or resource fluxes and opportunities to reduce and optimize them, it is necessary to know how urban systems function and how and to what extent they both impact and are affected by global or regional processes. Urban ecology is characterized by a variety of approaches. It is an interdisciplinary research field at the interface of natural sciences, social sciences and humanities as well as engineering. As an interdisciplinary research field urban ecology investigates the interrelations between environmental compartments and human activities such as construction, production, housing, and transport. As an applied scientifically based approach, urban ecology gives hints about where and how the urban environment may be protected from further harm, and how environmental quality and thus physical human living conditions may be improved.

Today's urban ecology differs widely from its beginnings. Its traditional lines have a close connection to the scientific and social context of their time as well as to the respective urban structures. Five traditional strands of urban ecology can be differentiated by analyzing their preferred research aims, their scientific approach, and their research motives; they occur partly in parallel but at the same time. Knowledge of the history of urban ecology is helpful in order to understand the recent approaches presented in this book; therefore general lines of tradition of urban ecology will be discussed first in the following prior to depicting present challenges (Richter and Weiland 2008, Weiland and Richter 2009).

1.2 Brief history

1.2.1 Initials in urban natural history

The beginning of urban ecological research is rooted in 16th century observations of nature in cities when spontaneously growing species in the cities drew the attention of botanists to stone walls, castles, and ruins, which were identified as the first “habitats” (Sukopp 1994, 2002). Since the notion of “urban ecology” did not yet exist at that time, this approach has been called the “line of tradition rooted in natural history” (Weiland and Richter 2009, p.50). At that time the European city was characterized by a very high building density within the city walls. Extensions of the built-up area set up the preconditions for further urban development (Mumford 1963, Lichtenberger 2002). Knowledge of the medical use of herbs was widespread. Thus, it is not surprising that interest in acquiring knowledge about nature was applied to cities at these early times. Today, this traditional line continues as a partial aspect of bioecological (e.g., Penev et al. 2005) and biogeographical research approaches (e.g., Wania et al. 2006).

1.2.2 Socioecological tradition

During the industrialization phase, the sociology branch of the Chicago School had a major influence on the development of urban ecology. In the 1920s Chicago was in the heyday of industrialization, and was a typical example of the rapidly growing, unsanitary industrial cities of the 19th and early 20th centuries in North America and Europe, with extremely high-density tenements, deficits in water supply, sewage and waste disposal, poor air quality, and poor lighting conditions. These conditions and their consequences provoked Robert E. Park to commence his socioecological studies, which were strongly influenced by Georg Simmel and Max Weber, amongst others (Park et al. 1925). The Chicago School investigated the interrelations between city and society, in particular the living conditions of the industrial workers. Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess tried to explain the urban development processes of Chicago and their impacts on social groups by means of a human–ecological or “quasi biological” research approach (Feagin 1998, p.2) using theoretical concepts of animal and plant ecology: e.g., succession, symbiosis, competition, and adaptation (Kurtz 1984, p.21). They explained phenomena such as migration and segregation phases of different population classes and social minorities with the help of “invasion-succession cycles” and city structure models. This approach has been profoundly criticized because of its biological basis. Later on, the socioecological tradition of urban ecology was superseded by a collateral human ecological perspective (e.g., Winter and Mack 1988, Fellenberg 1991).

1.2.3 Complex bioecological tradition

The perception of the finite nature and instability of the supply of fossil resources increased after the climax of the economic boom in the United States and Europe that followed the Second World War. As a consequence, urban ecology received much more attention than before. In the 1970s Herbert Sukopp and a group of colleagues developed a complex bioecological approach to urban ecology (e.g., Sukopp 1973, 2005). In its early years, the Berlin School of Urban Ecology carried out mainly ecological site analyses and field botany research on wasteland that existed in great quantities in Berlin in the years after the Second World War. Its approach, which maintains urban flora, fauna, and habitats as its core, can be considered a more versatile strand of the line of tradition rooted in natural history. In this approach humans influence and superimpose natural habitat conditions, especially in the form of land use and land use changes. Research is centered on organisms, species, and their habitats; additionally urban climate, soil, and water bodies are investigated, mainly as habitat conditions for urban flora and fauna. Humans play a role as a source of disturbance and as users of urban nature, above all for recreational purposes. A further central and application-oriented motive for research is to transfer nature conservation to cities and urban areas in order to protect urban nature for the human inhabitants. Further research approaches that can be considered to be examples of this line of thought are presented, for example, by Wittig (1991) and Gilbert (1989).

1.2.4 Ecosystem-related tradition

During the same time period as the Berlin School of Urban Ecology, an (eco-)system related tradition of urban ecology evolved on an international level. This approach is highly influenced by American and German landscape ecology (Tansley 1935, Troll 1939, 1968, Schmithüsen 1942, Neef 1967) and systems theory (von Bertalanffy 1953), the systemic approach linking both research directions; later influences can be characterized by the keywords “patterns and processes.” Major international research programs such as UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Program (MAB) (Spooner 1986) and the International Biological Program (IBP) initiated large research projects in this area. The ecosystem-related tradition is heterogeneous; two main directions can be distinguished.

The first direction: ecological analyses of urban landscapes

Landscape ecological studies were assigned to cities and city sectors with the aim of identifying ecological patterns and processes. Within this theoretical framework, a long history of approaches focuses on the analysis of urban–rural gradients (McDonnell and Pickett 1990, Kinzig and Grove 2001). Studies of metapopulation theory, which also have been carried out in cities since the 1990s, often show overlaps between organism approaches and landscape ecology approaches (Niemelä et al. 2002). Further research projects focus on the interrelations between urban structures and compartments of the urban natural environment (e.g., Breuste et al. 1998).

The second direction: analyses of urban material and energy flows

The Fundamentals of Ecology (Odum 1953), serving as the scientific basis of this research approach, explains physical and chemical processes of aquatic, terrestrial, and anthropogenic ecosystems using a systems approach. Research is not focused on organisms, but on substances and material flows. From the 1970s onward, energy flows were also included, induced by the oil crisis that promoted awareness of the impermanent character of natural resources. Independently from each other, the ecologist Howard T. Odum (1953) and the urbanist Lewis Mumford (1963) influenced architects as well as urban and regional planners in the subsequent ecological movements—triggered by the Club of Rome's publication Limits to Growth (Meadows et al. 1972)—to take into consideration both the cultural–historical and the ecosystems approach in their plans and concepts. Material and energy flow studies of, for example, Brussels (Duvigneaud 1974) and Hong Kong (Boyden et al. 1981) were conducted (see also Baccini 1996). Since then, cities have been considered “importers” and “intermediate stores” (Baccini and Bader 1996) of large masses and of a variety of resources (Chambers et al. 2001). Quantitatively the most important fluxes are those of energy, water, food, and building materials. Since recycling processes barely exist, warmth, waste water, garbage, and waste air are deposited, pass through the urban environmental systems and cause local, regional, and sometimes global environmental problems (Davíla and Atkinson 1999). The most important merits of this approach include its contribution to an increased understanding of how (and which) substances accumulate in different ecosystem compartments (e.g., urban soil, ground floor vegetation, trees) and how they can become dangerous for plants, animals, and humans via food webs. Furthermore, the identification and quantification of regional to global material and energy fluxes has increased the understanding of global interconnectedness of the single city, not only in economic aspects, but also with respect to resource flows and environmental pollution.

Long-term ecological research (LTER) sites

A considerable step forward in international recognition of urban ecology can be attributed to the interdisciplinary research teams at the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites in Baltimore and Phoenix in the United States and to cooperating research groups (Alberti 2008, Grimm et al. 2008, Marzluff et al. 2008). The research on urban LTER sites also can be traced back to the ecosystem-related tradition and at the same time it deepens the urban ecological knowledge and enriches it by using up-to-date techniques.

The urban ecology research program in Baltimore, Maryland, seeks to understand an urban region as an ecological system and investigates

1. the relations between spatial structures of socioeconomic, ecological, and physical features and their changes over time

2. the fluxes of energy and matter as well as human influences on these, and

3. options to improve the quality of the urban environment.

The urban ecological research program in Phoenix, Arizona investigates the structures and functions of an urban ecosystem in an arid environment—the Sonoran Desert—and aims at understanding the distribution and perception of ecosystem services in the metropolitan region of Phoenix (see Chapter 4). Urban ecology, according to this research approach, considers urban agglomerations as complex systems with integrated social, economic, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: Urban ecology: related disciplines and methods
• Part III: Selected fields of urban ecology
• Part IV: Synthesis
• Index