Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities: A Global Assessment

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 service

Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities: A Global Assessment

Urban Ecology; Urbanism; Sustainable Development; Complex Systems; Science, general; International Environmental La

Challenges and opportunities for governing ecosystem services in an urban world : A systematic review and synthesis

Governance of ecosystem services for an urban population is an issue that is of global concern as people all over the world are moving into cities, and cities are also drawing on ecosystem services from all over the world. Efforts in science and policy have however been lagging behind in understanding and responding to the complex relationship between urbanisation and ecosystem services. To assess the state of the art in the scientific literature regarding governance of urban ecosystem services, a methodology for systematic review and qualitative synthesis was designed and applied drawing on the experiences from health science and grounded theory. The approach was found to be useful in handling a large and diverse body of information and categorizing the main challenges and opportunities in governance of urban ecosystem services found in the literature. The results suggest that challenges can broadly be related to lack of knowledge, equity, lack of institutional capacity, conflicting views among stakeholders, and finally, decision makers often prioritizing economic growth over ecosystem services (ES) provision. Two over-arching challenges found are related to scale mismatch and trade-offs, suggesting that governance of ES should be considered in terms of its effects on different temporal and spatial scales, associated trade-offs, also in terms of beneficiaries. The main opportunities identified relate to planning and management – principles, approaches and tools, civil society as a source of knowledge and management capacity, participatory learning processes, leadership and ecological citizenship. Research and governance need to recognize how urban societies influence and depend upon ecosystem processes and to strengthen the evidence base for urban ES governance. This is the first time a systematic review and synthesis has been performed addressing this topic. It aims to support the emerging discipline of urban ecology, and policy by informing the Cities and Biodiversity Outlook

Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities: A Global Assessment

Urban Ecology; Urbanism; Sustainable Development; Complex Systems; Science, general; International Environmental La

Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities: A Global Assessment

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 ChinaUrban 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 biodiversityUrban 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 elsewhereFuture 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 service

Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and OpportunitiesA Global Assessment /

XXVIII, 755 p. 150 illus., 23 illus. in color.onl

Stewardship of the biosphere in the urban era

We are entering a new urban era in which the ecology of the planet as a whole is increasingly infl uenced by human activities (Turner et al. 1990 Ellis 2011; Steffen et al. 2011a, b; Folke et al. 2011). Cities have become a central nexus of the relationship between people and nature, both as crucial centres of demand of ecosystem services, and as sources of environmental impacts. Approximately 60 % of the urban land present in 2030 is forecast to be built in the period 2000–2030 (Chap. 21). Urbanization therefore presents challenges but also opportunities. In the next two to three decades, we have unprecedented chances to vastly improve global sustainability through designing systems for increased resource effi ciency, as well as through exploring how cities can be responsible stewards of biodiversity and ecosystem services, both within and beyond city boundaries