Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Importance of Urban Ecology
Urban ecology is important because it brings the insights and knowledge from
contemporary biological ecology to bear on urban areas [ 1 ]. It replaces the earlier
and superseded versions of ecological science that had been used by social
scientists, geographers, and urban planners in justifying and predicting urban
dynamics in the second half of the twentieth century. Urban ecology as a branch
of contemporary ecological science now emphasizes spatial heterogeneity,
feedbacks between natural and human system components, probabilistic system
change, and the integration between human perceptions and environmental
processes.
Urban ecology is also important because urban habitats are increasing world-
wide. The United Nations estimates that more than 50% of the global population
now resides in urban areas, as defined by the various member nations. In addition,
the next three billion people to be added to the world population are expected to live
in urban areas. Hence, urban systems are becoming the predominant habitat
of humanity, and are an increasingly widespread land cover type worldwide. In
the USA, constructed surfaces now cover an area equivalent to that of the state of
Ohio [ 2 ].
If the disciplines and practices of urban planning and design, ecological restora-
tion, and ecosystem management are to draw more effectively upon ecological
knowledge and data, then the science of urban ecology will become an increasingly
key resource for these pursuits.
Brief History
Urban ecology has emerged as a subdiscipline of biological ecology only in the last
30 years [ 3 ]. It began as an ecological science in the study of the species and biotic
communities of conspicuously green patches in cities and metropolises. Parks,
vacant lots, disturbed, and derelict lands were the first focal areas of the discipline
[ 4 ]. More recently, ecologists began to examine areas actively inhabited and
managed by people, including lawns and streetscapes [ 5 ]. Another contrasting
tradition in urban ecology focuses on the coarser scale, to quantify energy and
material budgets of cities. This focus, sometimes called urban metabolism, deals
with the energy, matter, and information that flow through and are transformed by
cities. In all cases, how the biological components and fluxes affect the well-being
of people in the city is a concern. However, the contemporary approach to urban
ecology differs from the past traditions. First, all areas in the city are now subject to
ecological analysis, not just the conspicuous green areas. Second, even in the
budgetary approach, the internal spatial configuration of different components of
the urban area is recognized as potentially influencing the fluxes and
transformations within the larger metropolis. Finally, the fully hybrid nature of
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