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Urban Sustainability: an Inevitable Goal of Landscape Research

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Urban Sustainability: an Inevitable Goal of Landscape Research Landscape Ecol (2010) 25:1–4 DOI 10.1007/s10980-009-9444-7 EDITORIAL Urban sustainability: an inevitable goal of landscape research Jianguo Wu Received: 10 December 2009 / Accepted: 12 December 2009 / Published online: 25 December 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 ‘‘Sustainability’’ has become the word of the day and The dualistic nature of urbanization the theme of our time. The word—which in essence means meeting the needs of the present generation Year 2007 was a historic moment in human civili- without compromising the ability of future genera- zation: we have transformed ourselves from an tions to meet their own (WCED 1987)—tends to agrarian species to a mostly urban species. Only 2% conjure bucolic images of landscapes with green hills of the world population lived in urban areas in 1800, and empty spaces, but that may be a mistake. Our but this number jumped to 14% in 1900 and 30% in world certainly is replete with environmental prob- 1950. In 2007, we crossed the 50% mark—with no lems: biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, land- signs of slowing down. Clearly, urban areas have scape fragmentation, climate change, just to name a become the primary habitat for humans—cities, few. Urbanization—the spatial expansion of the built increasingly, are where people live and thus where environment that is densely packed by people and we will have to make sustainability a reality. their socioeconomic activities—has often been held The increasing urban nature of humanity has responsible for all these problems. In the recent serge profound environmental, economic, and social impli- of interest in sustainability, some think that urbani- cations for the world’s future. Urbanized areas zation is key to regional and global sustainability, account for about 80% of carbon emissions, 60% of whereas others regard urban sustainability as an residential water use, and close to 80% of the wood oxymoron. Is urbanization a problem or part of the used for industrial purposes (Grimm et al. 2008; solution for sustainability? Why is it relevant to Wu 2008a, b). Cities suck resources from ecosys- landscape ecology? tems near and far. The ‘‘ecological footprint’’ of a city—the land (and water) area that would be required to provide the urban population indefinitely with all the energy and material resources consumed J. Wu (&) as well as to absorb all the wastes discharged—can be School of Life Sciences and Global Institute of tens to hundreds of times as large as its physical size Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA (Rees and Wackernagel 1996; Luck et al. 2001). e-mail: [email protected] Urbanization influences local climate by creating urban heat islands on multiple scales (Buyantuyev J. Wu and Wu 2010); it leads to excessive consumption and Sino-US Center for Conservation, Energy, and Sustainability Science (SUCCESS), Inner Mongolia frequent contamination of water; it creates major University, Hohhot, China producers of greenhouse gases and air pollutants; and 123 2 Landscape Ecol (2010) 25:1–4 it is the most drastic form of land transformation, the urban landscape that always extends beyond the devastating biodiversity and ecosystem services. In city limit. From the widely quoted notion of the many parts of the world, urbanization is also linked to ‘‘triple bottom line sustainability,’’ a sustainable city increased social inequity and poverty—the problem must achieve a balance among environmental pro- of ‘‘urbanization of poverty’’. tection, economic development, and social wellbeing. Yet, cities epitomize the creativity, imagination, Urban sustainability requires minimizing the con- and mighty power of humanity. Cities are the centers sumption of space and resources, optimizing urban of socio-cultural transformations, engines of eco- form to facilitate urban flows, protecting both nomic growth, and cradles of innovation and knowl- ecosystem and human health, ensuring equal access edge production. Cities are magnificent for the to resources and services, and maintaining cultural splendid architectures that symbolize them, inspira- and social diversity and integrity (Alberti and Suss- tional for the fascinating stories of human civilization kind 1996; Spiekermann and Wegener 2003;Wu that enrich them, and attractive for the opportunities 2008b). This interpretation of urban sustainability is and comforts that they offer. And, perhaps most generally consistent with the six E’s of landscape importantly, urbanization offers a number of things sustainability—environment, economy, equity, aes- that are critical to achieving sustainability. thetics, experience, and ethics, as discussed by The most remarkable thing about cities is that, Musacchio (2009a). even with urban sprawl, they take up merely 3% of If the creation of cities is one of the most the earth’s land surface, but accommodate more than remarkable human achievements to date, developing half the world’s population. Cities have lower per sustainable cities may well be the grandest challenge capita costs of providing clean water, sanitation, to humans ahead. No recipe is available, but it seems electricity, waste collection, and telecommunications, certain that science needs to play an instrumental role and offer better access to education, jobs, health care, in this endeavor. To do so, natural sciences (the and social services. Try to imagine a world with sciences of the natural concerned chiefly with how nearly 7 billion but no cities. How much intact habitat things are) and design sciences (the sciences of the would there be left for other biological species? What artificial dealing with how things ought to be) must would happen to the economy and society, locally be fully integrated (Simon 1996). We must under- and globally? Could that be a more sustainable stand not only the natural landscapes but also the world? landscapes we create; we must understand not only how landscapes work but also how they can work better, if we are to develop a sustainable suture. Urban sustainability and landscape ecology Landscape ecology provides both a pluralistic theater and a diversity of players for such interdisciplinary All the urban problems mentioned earlier do exist, and transdisciplinary enterprise. As Richard Forman indicating that most, if not all, our cities are (2008) has argued: unsustainable. These problems will get worse if we What would you use as the central foundation continue to allow urbanization to unfold haphazardly or perspective to change the land, shape the without consideration of long-term environmental future, for nature and us? Economics? Water and socioeconomic consequences. To achieve sus- resources? Transportation? Housing and tainability, therefore, we need to design and build employment? Bioconservation? Engineering? better cities, and explicitly consider urbanization as Social structure? Agriculture? Architecture? part of the solution to regional and global sustain- Each has obvious strengths and major lacks ability. The former Secretary-General of the United for the challenge. No panacea exists. I keep Nations, Kofi Annan, said it well: ‘‘The future of searching and still can discover no better humanity lies in cities.’’ foundation than landscape ecology. Cities are the most heterogeneous landscapes. Urban sustainability is fundamentally the sustainabil- Urban sustainability, although its precise definition ity of the urban landscape as a whole. As such, it has may forever be debatable, has become an inescapable much to do with the composition and configuration of goal of landscape ecology. Individual landscape 123 Landscape Ecol (2010) 25:1–4 3 ecologists may choose certain aspects of the land- • How can landscape ecology help design sustain- scape to study, but the field as a whole has to answer able urban landscapes? the call of our time. Indeed, perspectives that One may quickly point out that some of these emphasize the relevance and importance of landscape questions have been studied by landscape ecologists. ecology to sustainability in general and urban devel- However, much more concerted efforts are needed to opment in particular have increasingly been advo- address these questions systematically and rigorously cated by landscape ecologists (e.g., Potschin and if landscape ecology is to accomplish its anticipated Haines-Young 2006;Wu2006, 2008b; Iverson 2007; interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary goals. ‘‘Urban Naveh 2007; Opdam 2007; Nassauer and Opdam regions are ripe for the attention of landscape 2008; Pickett and Cadenasso 2008; Barrett et al. ecologists and allied experts’’ (Forman 2008). I 2009; Musacchio 2009a; Termorshuizen and Opdam believe that this increasing urban emphasis will 2009; Pijanowski et al. 2010). Several recent special provide more opportunities for developing and testing issues of this journal, Landscape Ecology, have landscape ecological theories and principles, enhance focused on the ecology and sustainability of urban the field’s interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity, areas, including: and make landscape ecology more relevant to society • ‘‘Landscape Ecology: An Integrated Science for and the world that changes rapidly with dynamic Sustainability in a Changing World,’’ edited by landscapes. Pearson and McAlpine (in review) • ‘‘The Ecology and Culture of Landscape Sustain- ability,’’ edited by Musacchio (2009b) • ‘‘Integrated Modelling of Natural and Social References Systems in Land Change Science,’’ edited by Alberti M, Susskind L (1996) Managing urban sustainability. Milne et al. (2009)
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