Ecosystem Services in Agricultural and Urban Landscapes

Ecosystem Services in Agricultural and Urban Landscapes PDF Author: Stephen Wratten
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118506243
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Ecosystem services are the resources and processes supplied by natural ecosystems which benefit humankind (for example, pollination of crops by insects, or water filtration by wetlands). They underpin life on earth, provide major inputs to many economic sectors and support our lifestyles. Agricultural and urban areas are by far the largest users of ecosystems and their services and (for the first time) this book explores the role that ecosystem services play in these managed environments. The book also explores methods of evaluating ecosystem services, and discusses how these services can be maintained and enhanced in our farmlands and cities. This book will be useful to students and researchers from a variety of fields, including applied ecology, environmental economics, agriculture and forestry, and also to local and regional planners and policy makers.

Ecosystem Services in Agricultural and Urban Landscapes

Ecosystem Services in Agricultural and Urban Landscapes PDF Author: Stephen Wratten
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118506243
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Get Book

Book Description
Ecosystem services are the resources and processes supplied by natural ecosystems which benefit humankind (for example, pollination of crops by insects, or water filtration by wetlands). They underpin life on earth, provide major inputs to many economic sectors and support our lifestyles. Agricultural and urban areas are by far the largest users of ecosystems and their services and (for the first time) this book explores the role that ecosystem services play in these managed environments. The book also explores methods of evaluating ecosystem services, and discusses how these services can be maintained and enhanced in our farmlands and cities. This book will be useful to students and researchers from a variety of fields, including applied ecology, environmental economics, agriculture and forestry, and also to local and regional planners and policy makers.

Urban Horticulture

Urban Horticulture PDF Author: J. Blum
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1315341875
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
This title includes a number of Open Access chapters. Urban horticulture, referring to the study and cultivation of the relationship between plants and the urban environment, is gaining more attention as the world rapidly urbanizes and cities expand. While plants have been grown in urban areas for millennia, it is now recognized that they not only provide food, ornament, and recreation, but also supply invaluable ecological services that help mitigate potentially negative impacts of urban ecosystems, and thus increase the livability of cities. This book provides background on key issues in this growing field.

Ecosystem Service Supply in an Urban Landscape

Ecosystem Service Supply in an Urban Landscape PDF Author: Carly Ziter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Unprecedented urban growth has markedly changed ecosystem structure, function, and biodiversity, and consequently the ecosystem services our health and wellbeing depend on. To improve urban sustainability, it is important to identify opportunities to manage cities for increased ecosystem service provision. This requires understanding urban areas as spatially heterogeneous and temporally dynamic ecosystems. This dissertation combines synthesis, observational, and experimental approaches to ask how landscape structure, historical land-use, and biodiversity impact multiple ecosystem services in urban landscapes. In chapter 1, I conducted a global meta-analysis focused explicitly on the underlying ecology of urban ecosystem services, centered on the role of biodiversity in service provision. The remaining chapters focus on Madison, WI, and consider how landscape context (Chapter 2, 4) and biological invasion (Chapter 3) may influence ecosystem services in a temperate, mid-size city. Through meta-analysis, I showed that urban biodiversity-ecosystem service research would benefit from increasing the number and types of services assessed, broadening its geographical scope, and expanding types of biodiversity measured - including consideration of non-native species. Using empirical data, I assessed the effect of spatial and temporal context on ecosystem services in Madison, a historically agricultural urban landscape. By measuring biophysical indicators of three services (carbon storage, water quality regulation, runoff regulation), I showed that considering the full mosaic of urban greenspace and its history is needed to estimate the kinds and magnitude of ecosystem services in cities, and to augment regional assessments that may underestimate urban ecosystem service supply. Using a bicycle- mounted temperature sensor, I showed that impervious surfaces and canopy cover interact to affect summer air temperature, and that urban forest management provides a powerful lever to increase temperature regulation services. Understanding invasion-ecosystem service linkages is also important in urban ecosystems - where non-native species are common. I conducted reciprocal field experiments to test whether an incipient urban invader, the Asian jumping worm, might interact with an established invasive, common buckthorn, with consequences for ecosystem services. Contrary to the "invasional meltdown" hypothesis, I found no evidence of co-facilitation, with positive conservation implications. Overall, this research has implications for using urban landscape management to enhance ecosystem service provision

Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities

Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities PDF Author: Thomas Elmqvist
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 940077088X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 755

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Book Description
Urbanization is a global phenomenon and the book emphasizes that this is not just a social-technological process. It is also a social-ecological process where cities are places for nature, and where cities also are dependent on, and have impacts on, the biosphere at different scales from local to global. The book is a global assessment and delivers four main conclusions: Urban areas are expanding faster than urban populations. Half the increase in urban land across the world over the next 20 years will occur in Asia, with the most extensive change expected to take place in India and China Urban areas modify their local and regional climate through the urban heat island effect and by altering precipitation patterns, which together will have significant impacts on net primary production, ecosystem health, and biodiversity Urban expansion will heavily draw on natural resources, including water, on a global scale, and will often consume prime agricultural land, with knock-on effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services elsewhere Future urban expansion will often occur in areas where the capacity for formal governance is restricted, which will constrain the protection of biodiversity and management of ecosystem services

Sustainable Land Management in a European Context

Sustainable Land Management in a European Context PDF Author: Thomas Weith
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030508412
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
This open access book presents and discusses current issues and innovative solution approaches for land management in a European context. Manifold sustainability issues are closely interconnected with land use practices. Throughout the world, we face increasing conflict over the use of land as well as competition for land. Drawing on experience in sustainable land management gained from seven years of the FONA programme (Research for Sustainable Development, conducted under the auspices of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research), the book stresses and highlights co-design processes within the “co-creation of knowledge”, involving collaboration in transdisciplinary research processes between academia and other stakeholders. The book begins with an overview of the current state of land use practices and the subsequent need to manage land resources more sustainably. New system solutions and governance approaches in sustainable land management are presented from a European perspective on land use. The volume also addresses how to use new modes of knowledge transfer between science and practice. New perspectives in sustainable land management and methods of combining knowledge and action are presented to a broad readership in land system sciences and environmental sciences, social sciences and geosciences. This book received the Gerd Albers Award. The prize is awarded by the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP).

Exploring and Optimizing Agricultural Landscapes

Exploring and Optimizing Agricultural Landscapes PDF Author: Lothar Mueller
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030674487
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 735

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Book Description
The book informs about agricultural landscapes, their features, functions and regulatory mechanisms. It characterizes agricultural production systems, trends of their development, and their impacts on the landscape. Agricultural landscapes are multifunctional systems, coupled with all nexus problems of the 21th century. This has led to serious discrepancies between agriculture and environment, and between urban and rural population. The mission, key topics and methods of research in order to understanding, monitoring and controlling processes in rural landscapes is being explained. Studies of international expert teams, many of them from Russia, demonstrate approaches towards both improving agricultural productivity and sustainability, and enhancing ecosystem services of agricultural landscapes. Scientists of different disciplines, decision makers, farmers and further informed people dealing with the evolvement of thriving rural landscapes are the primary audience of this book.

Urban Landscape Ecology

Urban Landscape Ecology PDF Author: Robert A. Francis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317497813
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
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.

Urban Ecosystem Services

Urban Ecosystem Services PDF Author: Alessio Russo
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3036505822
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
The school of thought surrounding the urban ecosystem has increasingly become in vogue among researchers worldwide. Since half of the world’s population lives in cities, urban ecosystem services have become essential to human health and wellbeing. Rapid urban growth has forced sustainable urban developers to rethink important steps by updating and, to some degree, recreating the human–ecosystem service linkage. Assessing, as well as estimating the losses of ecosystem services can denote the essential effects of urbanization and increasingly indicate where cities fall short. This book contains 13 thoroughly refereed contributions published within the Special Issue “Urban Ecosystem Services”. The book addresses topics such as nature-based solutions, green space planning, green infrastructure, rain gardens, climate change, and more. The contributions highlight new findings for landscape architects, urban planners, and policymakers. Important future cities research is considered by looking at the system connectivity between the social and ecological sphere—via varying forms of urban planning, management, and governance. The book is supported by methods and models that utilize an urban sustainability and ecosystem service-centric focus by adding knowledge-base and real-world solutions into the urbanization phenomenon.

Climate Change and Cities

Climate Change and Cities PDF Author: Cynthia Rosenzweig
Publisher:
ISBN: 1316603334
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 855

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Book Description
Climate Change and Cities bridges science-to-action for climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts in cities around the world.

Ecosystem Services from Forest Landscapes

Ecosystem Services from Forest Landscapes PDF Author: Ajith H. Perera
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319745158
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Over the last two decades, the topic of forest ecosystem services has attracted the attention of researchers, land managers, and policy makers around the globe. The services rendered by forest ecosystems range from intrinsic to anthropocentric benefits that are typically grouped as provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural. The research efforts, assessments, and attempts to manage forest ecosystems for their sustained services are now widely published in scientific literature. This volume focuses on broad-scale aspects of forest ecosystem services, beyond individual stands to large landscapes. In doing so, it illustrates the conceptual and practical opportunities as well as challenges involved with planning for forest ecosystem services across landscapes, regions, and nations. The goal here is to broaden the scope of land use planning through the adoption of a landscape-scale approach. Even though this approach is complex and involves multiple ecological, social, cultural, economic, and political dimensions, the landscape perspective appears to offer the best opportunity for a sustained provision of forest ecosystem services.