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Chiara Catalano

Kühn I

Lister NM

McHarg IL

Odum EP

Williams DE

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Conservation Biology

Ecological Design to Shape New Urbanities

Catalano, Chiara

ZHAW digitalcollection

752 Book ReviewsHarvard. At present, CTFS (rebranded as ForestGEO toreflect its broadened research scope) is probably themostsuccessful ecological research collaboration in theworld.It monitors 6 million trees from 10,000 species and isexpanding to temperate forests and in new research di-rections, such asmonitoring insect communities on trees.In a rare case of having an inspirational idea at anairport, A. P. Smith realized that a standard construc-tion tower crane erected in a rainforest could bring re-searchers to the forest canopy, “the last biological fron-tier.” The world’s first canopy crane was erected by STRIin the Panama City’s Metropolitan Park in 1990 as anotherpioneering act that started a global ecological network. In1997 another crane was installed, also in Panama, in theSan Lorenzo rainforest on the Caribbean coast. However,it took years for even basic accommodation to be builtnext to the crane, and to this day the crane operatorsdrive daily back and forth between the crane and PanamaCity, limiting the time available to scientists for work onthe crane. Employees’ comfort, regrettably, wins overresearch efficiency, in sharp contrast to the 1920s, whenthe crucial decisionwasmade to build a basic field stationon BCI, where the biological action was, rather than amuch more comfortable facility in Panama City.The fate of the International Canopy Crane Networkwas unfortunately very different from that of CTFS. Therehas never been any significant collaboration among thecrane projects in different countries. The dynamics ofthe crane network expansion slowed down after the firstenthusiastic decade, and no cranes were built from 2002to 2013. The recent revival of crane construction, par-ticularly in China, may offer the global crane network asecond chance (Nakamura et al. 2017).Although the forest plots, cranes, and other field meth-ods continued to generate large data sets on rainfor-est vegetation and its consumers, the debate on thedeterminants of tropical biodiversity has been progress-ing slowly. The Janzen-Connell hypothesis, which con-tends that high plant diversity in rainforests is due to theeffects of specialized natural enemies on plant populationdynamics, has been examined since its inception in 1970.Interestingly, there were initially no attempts to testthe hypothesis experimentally, in contrast to testing ofthe theory of island biogeography (Wilson & Simberloff1969). We had to wait 40 years and to the penultimatechapter of Coexistence to learn the results of such exper-iments. They will probably feature much more promi-nently in the next volume, hopefully describing the tra-vails of tropical ecology and the BCI research station inthe 21st century.Tropical ecology has been driven mostly by scientistsfrom temperate latitudes, whichmade their field researchstations often socially and intellectually awkward foreignelements in tropical locations. The life span of such sta-tions tends to be rather short, but there is little doubtthat STRI will live to see its 100th birthday. Its historyillustrates the crucial role of longevity, made possible byreliable and predictable financial support of field researchstations in the tropics.Vojtech Novotny and Katerina SamBiology Center of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic &University of South Bohemia, Branisovska 31, 370 05 Ceske Budejovice,Czech Republic, email novotny@entu.cas.czLiterature CitedNakamura A, et al. 2017. Forests and their canopies: achievements andhorizons in canopy science. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 32:438–451.Wilson EO, Simberloff DS. 1969. Experimental zoogeography of islands:defaunation and monitoring techniques. Ecology 50:267–278.Ecological Design to Shape New UrbanitiesWild by Design: Strategies for Creating Life-Enhancing Landscapes. Ruddick, M. 2016. IslandPress, Washington, D.C. 243 pp. US$45.00 (paperback).ISBN 978-1-61091-5984.Restoring Neighborhood Streams: Planning, De-sign, and Construction. Riley, A. L. 2016. Island Press,Washington, D.C. 288 pp. US$35.00 (paperback). ISBN978-1-61091-740-7.By 2020, 66% of the world population, 6.3 billion peo-ple, will live in urban areas (UN DESA 2014). In migrat-ing toward cities Homo sapiens “urbanum” (Williams2007) occupied natural and seminatural lands, convert-ing them into new settlements, strategic infrastructure,and productive areas. This often happened at the ex-pense of vulnerable habitats such as rivers, deltas, andcoasts, that is, biodiversity hotspots, where human pop-ulation growth is higher than in other landscape types(Cincotta et al. 2000; Ku¨hn et al. 2004). As this humanmigration toward cities increases so does the need toconserve biodiversity in anthropogenic areas (Mu¨ller &Werner 2010; Kowarik 2011). The reasons are multiple:to preserve local biodiversity, to create stepping stonesand corridors to improve habitat connectivity, to pro-vide ecosystem services that improve human well-being,and to increase awareness and promote environmentaleducation (Dearborn & Kark 2010). Cities are importantarenas for experimenting and finding solutions to globalchallenges (Grimm et al. 2008) such as implementing thetargets set in the Convention on Biology Diversity (deOliveira et al. 2011).Sustainable design that leads to sustainable biodiver-sity in towns, cities, and megacities is crucial. Restor-ing Neighborhood Streams: Planning, Design, and Con-struction and Wild by Design: Strategies for CreatingLife-Enhancing Landscapes can be seen as an imaginarydialogue between a landscape architect and a hydrolo-gist settled in a world where a code common to bothConservation BiologyVolume 32, No. 3, 2018Book Reviews 753disciplines exists. Luckily, such a dialogue can exist with-out discipline territorialism and is supported by the riseof the biophilic movement (Ignatieva & Ahrne´ 2013).The question, what are we doing here anyway kepthumming in my head as I read Wild by Design. MargieRuddick presents her story in 5 chapters focusing ondifferent scales. Her garden, the laboratory for Wild byDesign, is the microscale. In small-scale reinvention, theappearance and the functionality of a place could changecompletely (the Queen Plaza in New York). In medium-scale restoration, one should decide whether to restorea prior natural state or certain ecological functions thathave been lost (the LivingWater Park in Chengdu, China).In big-scale conservation, the necessity to act has to ac-count for delicate ecosystems, where the “less [action]is more [conservation]” (Shillim Retreat and Institute inIndia). In large-scale regeneration, actions create self-sustaining systems that eventually activate a cascade ofother events in equilibrium between nature and people.Finally, the scale of expression is the one of the designer(or of a group of) who will fix one thing at a time.The author brings readers, be they students of land-scape architecture, ecologists, or skeptical, conservativelandscape architects, behind the scenes of ecologicaldesign, with all its emotions, controversies, fights, suc-cesses, fears, relationships, dialogue, multidisciplinarythinking, and experimentation. The book shows it isfeasible to “design with nature” (McHarg 1969), thatcollaborative work between ecologists and designers ispossible, and scientific knowledge and creative intuitioncan be combined to good effect. However, it seemslandscape architects may focus too much on individualartistic expression and use it to justify, for instance, theplanting of exotic species. Guidelines and checklists mayshackle creativity and the mystification of beauty, but dis-daining them may prevent the design of well-functioningecosystems. From a conservation viewpoint, while read-ing Margie Ruddick, some doubts remain: Are peopleready to enjoy and live in a less-domesticated nature? Arelandscape architects ready to embrace landscape ecol-ogy, partially waiving their need for personal expression?Should not landscape architects in this second wave ofecological design also be ecologists in order to combinethe ways of nature and the ways of humans?Although there is no explicit mantra in Ann Riley’sbook, it could be yes, we can; restoring neighborhoodstreams is not only possible but worth it. The first thing todo when going against the grain (e.g., encasing channelsin concrete and creating culverts) is to believe that theproposed ideas are actually feasible (e.g., river daylighting[i.e., bringing a river that was previously culverted backabove ground]). The second is to put them into practice.The third is to monitor and learn lessons from their im-plementation. The final steps are to draw conclusions,spread the knowledge, and develop new ideas (or givethe tools to someone else to do so). This is what AnnRiley has done with her work over 30 years and withthis publication, in which she presents 10 study cases ofriver restoration at different extents (reaches from 0.1 to1.5 km) and periods (from 1980s to 2010s) in northernCalifornia.The book has 4 chapters. The first 2 define restora-tion and provide historical background on urban streamrestoration and different schools of restoration (e.g., fo-cused on hydrology, geomorphology, native plants, andfish biology). The third is the most practical becauseit meticulously describes the study cases (project his-tory, project design and construction, landscaping andmaintenance, related projects, project lessons and sig-nificance) to defend the main thesis (i.e., yes, we can).The fourth chapter draws conclusions and summarizeslessons learned from past and recent projects that followdifferent schools of restoration and have contributed tothe evolution of the applied approaches andmethods. Be-sides the latest definition of restoration, what is importantis to consider humans part of the ecosystem dynamic andthus of recovery. This means framing the recovery of hu-man communities as reconciliation with nature that pro-vides a sense of the place (genus loci) and reestablishessocial and historical identity. This means, for instance,that daylighting should not solely aim to bring back ur-ban rivers literally into the light but also to restore theirecological function and processes. For this reason, it ispossible to work at restoration levels from the highest tothe lowest: historical, ecological, functional restoration,and enhancement of controlled channels. However, con-sidering the land-use changes and high disturbance levelsthat characterize metropolitan areas, it is impossible torestore historic environments, but it is very importantthat restoration not be confused with beautification. Irecommend Riley’s book to landscape architects whohave not widened their horizons beyond functionalityso they can familiarize themselves with alternative ap-proaches to urban greening project. Teachers, ecologicalengineering, and design students and practitioners willbenefit from it. However, I pose here some questions:Is the rigorous scientific method constraining too muchthe creative process? Is it really possible to make these 2worlds, that of science and of design, speak to each otherand understand each other’s reasoning?Despite the 2 authors coming from different disci-plines, they agree that restoration projects have to beresilient both ecologically and economically: after com-pletion, maintenance should be minimal and the systemshould be able to adjust itself to environmental changes.With that, it is implicit that they both consider it more im-portant to restore certain environmental processes thanto go back to a specific historical moment.On the one hand, I consider Ann Riley’s work science-based design that still pays close attention to socialaspects, as in the case of the large trees saved inthe daylighting project of Blackberry Creek in BerkeleyConservation BiologyVolume 32, No. 3, 2018754 Book Reviewsbecause of Tai Chi students training under their foliage.Citizen involvement is for her the keystone to water-shed restoration. On the other hand, Margie Ruddick’swork offers life-supporting design able to conjugatecreatively cultural and natural elements (Lister 2007).Also for her, the social aspect is important because de-signing wild landscape will help shape needed futurestewardship.A nice symbolic parallel between the stories in these2 books is the creative reuse of concrete structuresand paving necessitated by budget limitations. In theQueen Plaza project in New York (2003 Long Island),the old concrete roadbeds and sidewalks where trans-formed from a meaningless slabs of concrete to func-tional pieces with a simple but masterful action: theywere rotated from a horizontal to a vertical position, oneclose to the other, in between plants. In this way, peoplewere discouraged from walking through that part of thesquare. The brutal concrete kept its hostile connotationbut helped people orient themselves through the gar-den infrastructure. In the Strawberry Creek daylightingproject (1983 Berkeley), one of the first of the genre,the demolished culvert parts were piled horizontally tostabilize the riversides and placed between plants. At thattime, this approach was innovative and thrifty. Today,one would look at this differently; the concrete rigidity(the same would happen with stones) will prevent thenatural development of the river (erosion and deposi-tion) from reducing ecosystem services (water qualityand habitat provision).Even if the 2 books refer only to U.S. study cases anddesign schools of thought, both are globally applicablebecause overall there is skepticism for new ideas basedon previous knowledge. This skepticism is valid for themainstream actions of channelizing rivers and installingculverts to constrain their natural and unpredictable flow(flood control projects) and for the picturesque andromantic-gardening approach still in vogue in the smallflowerbed and in big urban parks.For the architect, the landscape architect, and the plan-ner, ecology has to become a model for creating projectsthat are part of a greater spatial network. Ecologists, incontrast, have to operate in a relatively new arena, thebuilt environment, and have to work from their side toreveal the ecological patterns and processes existing inurban environments. Finally, all of them have to worktogetherwith the aimof incorporating ecology into urbandevelopment and planning (Niemela¨ 1999) because thiswill be crucial to protecting “endangered life-supportingsystem[s]” (Odum 1993).Chiara CatalanoInstitute of Natural Resource Sciences, Zurich University of AppliedScience, Gru¨entalstrasse 14, Postfach 8820 Wa¨denswil, Switzerland,email chiara.catalano@zhaw.chLiterature CitedCincotta RP, Wisnewski J, Engelman R. 2000. Human population in thebiodiversity hotspots. Nature 404:990–992.de Oliveira JP, Balaban O, Doll CN, Moreno-Pen˜aranda R, GasparatosA, Iossifova D, Suwa A. 2011. Cities and biodiversity: perspectivesand governance challenges for implementing the convention onbiological diversity (CBD) at the city level. Biological Conservation144:1302–1313.Dearborn DC, Kark S. 2010. Motivations for conserving urban biodiver-sity. Conservation Biology 24:432–440.Grimm NB, Faeth SH, Golubiewski NE, Redman CL, Wu J, Bai X, BriggsJM. 2008. Global change and the ecology of cities. Science 319:756–760.Ignatieva M, Ahrne´ K. 2013. Biodiverse green infrastructure for the 21stcentury: from “green desert” of lawns to biophilic cities. Journal ofArchitecture and Urbanism 37:1–9.Kowarik I. 2011. Novel urban ecosystems, biodiversity, and conserva-tion. Environmental Pollution 159:1974–1983.Ku¨hn I, Brandl R, Klotz S. 2004. The flora of German cities is naturallyspecies rich. Evolutionary Ecology Research 6:749–764.Lister NM. 2007. Sustainable large parks: ecological design or designerecology. Pages 31–51 in Czerniak J, Hargreaves G, editors. Largeparks. Princeton Architectural Press, Princeton, New Jersey.McHarg IL. 1969. Design with nature. Natural History Press, New York.Mu¨ller N, Werner P. 2010. Urban biodiversity and the case for im-plementing the convention on biological diversity in towns andcities. Pages 1–33 in Mu¨ller N, Werner P, Kelcey G, editors. Urbanbiodiversity and design. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, United Kingdom.Niemela¨ J. 1999. Ecology and urban planning. Biodiversity and Conser-vation 8:119–131.Odum EP. 1993. Ecology and our endangered life-support systems. Sin-auer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts.UN DESA (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs).2014. World urbanization prospects: the 2014 revision, highlights(ST/ESA/SER.A/352). UNDESA, New York.Williams DE. 2007. Sustainable design: ecology, architecture, and plan-ning. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.Noted with InterestLong-Term Ecological Research. Changing theNature of Scientists.Willig, M. R., and L. R. Walker, editors. 2015. Oxford Uni-versity Press, Oxford, U.K. 442 pp. £45.99 (hardcover).ISBN 978-0-19-938021-3.The way of making science changes quickly: network-ing, multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary studies, big-dataprocessing, building science–policy interface, organiz-ing citizen science, social networking, outreach, etc. Inthe field of ecology, the long-term ecological researchnetwork (LTER) of the United States has been a majorworldwide promoter of those changes for decades. Thescientists of LTER have been both actors and subjectsof those changes. In this book, LTER scientists sharetheir stories, experiences, challenges, and achievementsin 44 chapters organized into 21 parts. Parts 1 and 21provide a general scope and the other 19 are dedicatedto particular LTER sites. All the chapters have the samebasic structure: short summary, extended summary orpersonal overview, and conclusions. In part 1, the ed-itors briefly describe the network. From this part, theConservation BiologyVolume 32, No. 3, 2018

Ecological design to shape new urbanities

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Ecological design to shape new urbanities

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