Urban Landscape Ecology: Past, Present, and Future - Landscape Ecology for Sustainable Environment and Culture - page 47

previous studies focused on urban sustainability indicators in terms of both key
research questions and methodologies. For example, the urban landscape ecology
approach to urban sustainability increasingly emphasizes ecosystem services and
their relationship with human well-being, with spatially explicit methods that
consider both ecosystem properties and landscape structural attributes (Ahern
2013 ;Wu 2013b ). From a broader perspective, this serge of interest in urban
sustainability by landscape ecology is part of the recent movement towards a
''landscape sustainability science'' (Wu 2006 , 2012 , 2013a ; Musacchio 2009 ,
2011 ).
Complementary to the three-component framework is a more detailed 5-step
strategy that outlines the major steps for urban landscape ecological studies
(Fig. 3.6 ). To follow this strategy, the first step is to conceptualize an urban area as
a spatially heterogeneous human-environment system (i.e., a landscape). This can
be done based on, for example, the patch-corridor-matrix model (Forman 1995 )or
the hierarchical patch dynamics paradigm (Wu and Loucks 1995 ; Wu and David
2002 ). Then, in the second step the spatiotemporal patterns, including the kinds,
amounts, diversity, connectivity, and spatial configuration of the urban landscape
and their temporal changes, can be quantified, and key biophysical and socio-
economic drivers identified. These patterns-and-drivers studies can be, and have
frequently been, done with a combination of methods—remote sensing, GIS,
landscape metrics, spatial statistics, simulation modeling, and, to a much lesser
extent, experiments (mainly longitudinal). The third step is to link the spatio-
temporal patterns of urbanization to ecological and environmental variables of
interest so that the impacts of urbanization can be assessed. The impacts studies
need to go beyond environmental quality, biodiversity, and ecosystem functions
and services to include variables that are directly related to human well-being (e.g.,
those of human survival, security, and psychological needs). These impacts studies
can be done using a number of statistical and modeling methods, including those in
step one. The fourth step is assess the sustainability and resilience of both eco-
system services and human well-being in the urban landscape. The tradeoffs and
synergies among ecosystem services and between ecosystem services and human
well-being in the urban landscape need to be understood, and scenarios for sus-
taining natural capital and flows as well as human well-being need to be sought.
These scenarios have to be investigated in concert with landscape planning and
design because they involve intentional alterations of landscape composition and
configuration. In addition to the methods mentioned above, sustainability indica-
tors may play an important role in accomplishing these goals.
3.5 Concluding Remarks
The world has become increasingly urban, and the ecology of landscapes needs to
reflect this reality in its science. Indeed, this has been happening in the past few
decades, and studies of urban areas now are prominent in landscape ecology.