Landscape Ecol (2013) 28:1203–1212
DOI 10.1007/s10980-012-9799-z
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Urban landscape sustainability and resilience: the promise
and challenges of integrating ecology with urban planning
and design
Jack Ahern
Received: 7 April 2012 / Accepted: 10 September 2012 / Published online: 21 September 2012
 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
Abstract The twenty-first century global population
will be increasingly urban-focusing the sustainability
challenge on cities and raising new challenges to
address urban resilience capacity. Landscape ecolo-
gists are poised to contribute to this challenge in a
transdisciplinary mode in which science and research
are integrated with planning policies and design
applications. Five strategies to build resilience capac-
ity and transdisciplinary collaboration are proposed:
biodiversity; urban ecological networks and connec-
tivity; multifunctionality; redundancy and modular-
ization, adaptive design. Key research questions for
landscape ecologists, planners and designers are posed
to advance the development of knowledge in an
adaptive mode.
Keywords Urban sustainability
Urban resilience

Strategic planning
Urban biodiversity
Introduction
The new millennium has produced a convergence of
interdisciplinary interest in the sustainability and
J. Ahern (&)
University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst,
MA, USA
e-mail: jfa@ipo.umass.edu
resilience of cities. Landscape ecologists are promi-
nent among these disciplines because of the inherent
interdisciplinarity their field of knowledge; their
attention to spatial configuration, dynamics and asso-
ciated ecological processes across scales; and their
commitment to the application of scientific knowledge
to landscape planning and management policies and
actions. Interest in urban sustainability has grown in
landscape ecology in response to recent trends and
proclamations by UN Habitat, and others, that more
than 50 % of the world’s population now lives in
cities, and that this percentage is predicted to increase
to 70 % by 2050 (UN Habitat 2006). The challenges to
plan and manage this new urban world clearly will
benefit from the perspectives, methods and knowledge
of landscape ecologists (Beatley 2000).
The new millennium has also produced a greater
understanding of the concept of resilience and its
implications for urban sustainability. When cities are
understood and accepted as dynamic, self-organizing
systems, the concept of sustainability changes. Rather
than aspiring to develop an idealized spatial form with
associated ecosystem services—sustainability is chal-
lenged to build the resilience capacity of cities. This
applies even when the magnitude, frequency or spatial
extent of these disturbances cannot be predicted.
Landscape ecologists bring empirical methods and
knowledge to the challenge of resilience that expands
the knowledge and thinking of urban planners and
designers, specifically related to: dynamics and sto-
chasticity, heterogeneity, pattern:process relationships
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(Dramstad et al. 1996). Landscape ecology provides
the concepts and tools to understand, model and
manage the frequency, magnitude and extent of urban
ecosystem dynamics, yet has not been widely inte-
grated with urban planning and design (Potschin and
Haines-Young 2006; Nassauer and Opdam 2008).
In this essay, I argue that landscape ecologists have
an important contribution for urban planning and
design that requires new modes of collaboration to be
realized. For example, collaboration between urban
planners and designers and landscape ecologists to
conceive, build and monitor their built projects as
empirical research, also known as ‘‘designed experi-
ments’’ (Felson and Pickett 2005; Rottle and Yocom
2010). Perhaps a new understanding of design as an
integrative activity across disciplines is needed?
(Lister 2007; Nassauer and Opdam 2008).
While landscape ecology has contributed signifi-
cantly to the science of urban ecosystem function and
dynamics (Grimm et al. 2000; Pickett et al. 2001), it
has yet to realize its potential to work in a proscriptive
transdisciplinary mode with urban planners, designers,
stakeholders and decision makers (Potschin and
Haines-Young 2006; see Glossary in Table 1). Here
the concept of adaptive design is explored as a means
of engaging landscape ecologists with planners,
designers, stakeholders and decision makers in a
transdisciplinary process where urban plans and
designs are conceived and understood as ‘‘safe-to-
fail’’ experiments (Ahern 2011). Under this concept,
selected plans and projects of city building and
rebuilding can explore innovative practices and
methods, informed by landscape ecology research
design, open to creative innovations by designers and
planners. When these plans and projects are monitored
and analyzed by scientists and professionals the
disciplines and local decision makers may learn if
and how the intended results were realized (Kato and
Ahern 2008). The concept of safe-to-fail design
experiments builds on the well established practice
of adaptive management, also known as adaptive
environmental assessment and management, for long
widely accepted and practiced in natural resource and
wildlife management (Holling 1978; Gunderson
1999). The political and economic risks inherent in
deliberately ‘‘experimenting’’ with urban design pro-
jects, appear to have suppressed interest in the
adaptive approach—the consequence of which has
been to stifle innovation (Kato and Ahern 2008).
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Landscape Ecol (2013) 28:1203–1212
In the realms of urban planning and urban design,
architects and planners have embraced the sustain-
ability challenge through visioning competitions,
demonstration and pilot projects, sustainability certi-
fication programs and emerging professional ethics
and practice policies (LEED, LID, Sustainable Sites).
These activities share a focus on the spatial configu-
ration of urban form, energy efficiency and materials.
They approach the challenge of urban sustainability
principally through the (re)organization of urban form
and spatial pattern. By virtue of their professional
focus on urban form, planners and designers intrinsi-
cally and historically understand the pattern:process
dynamic and have readily applied this thinking to
address sustainability challenges (Musacchio 2009). A
major shortcoming of urban greening plans or green
infrastructure projects has been a lack of post-imple-
mentation monitoring or empirical measurements of
outcomes of the ecosystem services and functions they
claim to provide (Felson and Pickett 2005; Kato and
Ahern 2008; Nassauer and Opdam 2008). Therefore,
an important future focus for transdisciplinary
research collaborations between landscape ecologists
and urban planners and designers is to advance an
accepted working method for adaptive design or
‘‘learn-by-doing’’. Designers are attempting to
‘‘apply’’ landscape ecology to their urban projects,
but lack the culture, the research skills, and the
resources to ‘‘close the learning loop’’ on these
projects to learn in specific terms how they worked,
how alternative solutions compare, and how transfer-
able are the results.
If and when this interdisciplinary integration is
achieved, cities can become laboratories for urban
sustainability, in which selected routine and special
projects are conceived as experiments—to test new
planning and design hypotheses, at multiple scales, in
the ‘‘real world’’ of contemporary cities.
When viewed from the professional domain of
urban planning and design, the sustainability concept
presents a paradox. Designers’ understanding of
‘‘ecology’’ are based on the concept or goal of ‘‘an
ideal sustainable form’’. This is an equilibrium-based
view rooted in professional training and has influenced
professional culture and ethics. It builds logically on
the pattern:process tenet of landscape ecology. This
‘‘equilibrium’’ view, however, denies the inherent
spatial and functional dynamics of complex, self-
organizing socio-economic systems, like cities—that
Landscape Ecol (2013) 28:1203–1212 1205

Table 1 Glossary of sustainable landscape terms and concepts

Term Definition References

Adaptive design A process/approach where selected urban plans and projects explore innovative Rottle and Yocom
practices and methods, informed by landscape ecology knowledge and research (2010)
design, open to design innovations and creativity, and monitored and analyzed to Lister (2007)
learn from the experiment—with the goal of gaining knowledge to apply to future
Ahern (2010)
projects
Design …any intentional change of landscape pattern for the purpose of sustainably providing Nassauer and Opdam
ecosystem services while recognizably meeting societal needs and respecting (2008)
societal values
Designed Interdisciplinary partnerships of scientists, planners and designers collaborating to Felson and Pickett
experiments insert experiments into the urban mosaic, balancing ecological goals with context, (2005)
aesthetics, amenity and safety
Learning-by- …facilitated by conceiving uncertainties not as obstacles to overcome but Kato and Ahern (2008,
doing opportunities to learn from, and by including feedback loops to ensure that decision pp. 548–549)
makers receive the monitoring results in time to develop appropriate policies, or to
alter plans or management practices accordingly
Resilience ‘‘…the ability of a system to absorb disturbance and still retain its basic function and Walker and Salt (2006,
structure’’ p. 1)
Walker (1995)
Transdisciplinary In contrast with interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity involves stakeholders and Tress et al. (2005)
decision makers with scientists and professionals, throughout a project, with all Naveh (2001)
parties contributing to, and benefiting from, a mutual knowledge and experience
base

are subject to frequent, regular disturbances as well as
stochastic disturbances occurring at highly irregular
intervals and durations of time and affecting multiple
spatial scales (Botkin 1990; Walker and Salt 2006).
Think of global economic crisis, earthquake, political
revolution, tsunami, disease outbreak, flooding, and
long term climate change. Each of these disturbances
affect cities in particular ways and across variable
scales of space and time. Importantly, many such
disturbances are not well understood, or are impossi-
ble to predict in terms of spatial extent or magnitude of
disturbance. When understood in this context, sus-
tainability of cities involves more than a well-
conceived and designed urban form—cities needs to
have resilience—the capacity to recover from distur-
bance without changing fundamental state to be
sustainable over a longer term (Walker and Salt
2006). A city with resilience capacity can deliver
ecosystem services over time, in a context of charac-
teristic urban dynamics and disturbances. The resil-
ience concept is more familiar to ecologists who have
discussed equilibrium and non-equilibrium dynamics
for some time (Holling 1978). Designers have more
recently engaged the discussion of non-equilibrium
dynamics and of more complex and nuanced
understandings of ecological dynamics—and how
they apply to built environments. The ongoing
discourse on landscape urbanism embraces uncer-
tainty and ecological dynamics (Corner 2006; Wald-
heim 2006). Bengtsson et al. (2003) articulate the
concept of ecological memory including disturbed and
successional ecosystems that can support spatial
resilience in urban ecosystems.
Recent thinking on resilience embraces the inherent
non-equilibrium dynamics of systems (cities) and
reframes the fundamental sustainable urban form
question from ‘‘what is the spatial form of a sustain-
able city?’’ to ‘‘how can city form be organized to
build its resilience capacity?’’ Sustainability is widely
understood as an integration of three dimensions (3
E’s): economic, social equity and environmental
(Adams 2006). When viewed in a non-equilibrium
context, resilience theory can be understood as the
fourth dimension of sustainability—and perhaps holds
the potential to reconcile the paradox of sustainable
urban form (Ahern 2010).
When cities are understood as complex socio-
ecological systems, sustainability and resilience
involve more than urban form. It engages a broad
suite of social and economic issues and strategies. For

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urban planners and designers to address this challenge
requires a transdisciplinary approach in which a highly
interdisciplinary scientific expertise is integrated with
stakeholders and decision makers in a continuous and
interactive mode (Tress et al. 2005; Potschin and
Haines-Young 2006). Transdisciplinarity is evolving
as the modus operandi for sustainable and resilient
urban planning and design.
Strategic, systems-level thinking is needed for
planning and design for urban sustainability and
resilience in a non-equilibrium context. Strategic
urban planning and design builds on an understanding
of the causes and drivers of urban dynamics, then acts
in an anticipatory, proactive mode. It is guided by
spatial concepts, metaphors or precedents (Pickett
et al. 2004). Strategic thinking contrasts fundamen-
tally with tactical actions or ‘‘fixed rules’’ which are,
inherently inappropriate to address stochastic, non-
equilibrium socio-economic systems and processes.
Strategies for an interdisciplinary discourse
on urban sustainability and resilience
Following are five strategies proposed to structure or
motivate an interdisciplinary discourse on urban
sustainability and resilience from Ahern (2010). Here
they are discussed in the context of interdisciplinary
collaborations with landscape ecologists. These strat-
egies are intended to associate design experiments
with broader strategies, to test effectiveness through
empirical monitoring and analysis and to advance
knowledge through an adaptive ‘‘learn-by-doing’’
approach. A set of key research questions for
landscape ecologists and planners/designers is pro-
posed to advance and test each strategy.
Strategy 1: Biodiversity
Biodiversity protection in cities is generally recog-
nized as significant and important by a broad range of
stakeholders and decision makers in urban planning.
In the priority-setting process of planning, however
biodiversity often comes behind other more anthro-
centric goals including; economic development, trans-
portation, land use and recreation. Biodiversity is
commonly misunderstood as a concept with little
relevance to cities, and few direct essential benefits to
humans. However cities also exhibit a unique
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Landscape Ecol (2013) 28:1203–1212
biodiversity including evolutionary processes, and
contribute to the quality of life in an increasingly
global world (Müller and Werner 2010). Disturbed
urban ecosystems may contribute to ecological mem-
ory and support resilience (Bengtsson et al. 2003).
Dearborn and Kark (2009) describe the conservation
dilemma of urbanization where planners and decision
makers weigh the value of urban versus non-urban
lands for biodiversity. When the functions and
services of biodiversity are more fully understood
and assessed in spatially explicit economic terms, then
biodiversity protection will be more widely accepted
and prioritized in urban planning and design. Urban
biodiversity has been described metaphorically as a
‘‘library of knowledge’’ some of which is familiar and
known while some remains ‘‘undiscovered’’ remain-
ing on the shelves of the library—awaiting discovery
(Lister 2007).
Urban biodiversity can be understood in the context
of response diversity—a diversity of species and
ecosystems that collectively support specific functions
but respond differently to change and disturbance. For
example, because urban trees intercept large quantities
of precipitation that buffers cities from flooding
impacts, a high diversity of urban tree species directly
contributes to the response diversity function of
precipitation interception (Walker and Salt 2006).
Therefore the risk that the local extinction of one
species puts the entire function at risk is lower in a
system with high biodiversity. If cities continue to
experience the effects of climate change response
diversity will become a key resilience capacity-
building factor.
Many cities are actively engaged with ‘‘urban
greening’’ intended to address urban impacts and to
make cities more healthy, attractive and biodiverse.
New York City’s initiative ‘‘Designing the Edge’’ is an
innovative program that is intended for restoring
biodiversity to urban waterfronts (Metropolitan
Waterfront Alliance, online). In this project, NYC
Parks designers created a new waterfront that is highly
interactive, sustainable and porous. In place of an
existing simple steel bulkhead, or concrete edge, the
Harlem River waterfront edge now includes new
materials and construction methods to improve public
access, clean the water through mechanical and bio-
filtration; and create new marine habitats. Stainless
steel, marine-grade gabions filled with stone and shells
are used to create a porous, stable and living edge
Landscape Ecol (2013) 28:1203–1212
designed as habitat for oysters—known as excellent
biofilters to remove contamination and pathogens
from the water. Small coves or pools are designed to
allow visitors to see and learn from the complex and
biodiverse urban waterfront edge. Goddard et al.
(2010) propose a method for managing urban gardens
in the UK to support biodiversity at multiple scales in
cities (Fig. 1).
Biodiversity directly supports ecosystem services
and processes, many with direct benefit and value to
humans. For example, the Houtan Park in Shanghai
China was designed to specifically improve urban
water quality by creating a series of treatment wetlands
to detain, sequester, and bio-remediate highly polluted
river water before discharging the improved water to
the same river. The Houtan Park also provides flood
storage, urban habitat, food production and public
recreation (Rottle and Yocom 2010). When biodiver-
sity is understood for its role in these multiple essential
ecosystem services and functions, it is more likely to be
included among urban planning policies and projects
(Ahern et al. 2006). Research on urban biodiversity is a
focus of the new generation of U.S. National Science
Foundation and U.S. Forest Service Urban Long Term
Research Area program (ULTRA 2009). Research
linking biodiversity with human health in cities has
also raised awareness of the relationship(s) between
the physical urban environment and its biodiversity
(Chivian and Bernstein 2008).
Key research questions for planners, designers and
landscape ecologists regarding urban biodiversity
Fig. 1 This tidepool at the Harlem River Esplanade, New York
City, USA was designed to allow visitors to see, touch and learn
from a complex and biodiverse urban waterfront edge (credit:
NYC Parks and Recreation)
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include: how to articulate and measure, in a spa-
tially-explicit manner, biodiversity functions in cities?
At what scale(s) should biodiversity assessments of
cities be conducted? How is urban biodiversity
affected by climate change (Sukkop and Wurzel
2003). What are the potentials and limits for integrat-
ing biodiversity into urban plans and projects as design
experiments? How to communicate to stakeholders
and decision makers how biodiversity-related ecosys-
tem services contribute to urban sustainability and
resilience?
Developing an urban ecosystem-based rapid
assessment method or index of biodiversity could
provide an experimental basis for comparative
projects/studies in similar urban ecosystems (Tzou-
las and James 2009). Designers working with
landscape ecologists could use the index to measure
base conditions, set goals, and assess progress
towards the goals. Design experiments implemented
under this approach, could test hypotheses, and
advance ‘‘best practices’’ to integrate biodiversity
with urban planning and design.
Strategy 2: Build urban ecological networks
and manage connectivity
Urban connectivity is highly developed for connec-
tivity-dependent functions including transportation,
communication and energy distribution. The need for
and maintenance of connectivity to provide these
functions and services is an unquestioned priority in
urban planning and management. Urban Connectivity
for other ecosystem services and functions, however is
far less understood and valued.
Landscape ecology has advanced much research on
the roles of connectivity in multiple landscape func-
tions in agricultural and rural landscapes (Soulé 1991;
Noss 1993; Opdam et al. 1993, 2003; Dramstad et al.
1996). This earlier research primarily addressed
fragmentation, species movement and metapopulation
dynamics. In an urban context, connectivity as a
principle of spatial organization assures a greater
possibility for providing ecosystem services includ-
ing; buffering and stabilizing urban hydrology, and
supporting pedestrian transportation, trail-based rec-
reation, and linkage of cultural resources (Table 2).
Connectivity in urban ecosystems is often achieved
through multifunctional networks known as green-
ways, ecological networks, blue-green networks,
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Table 2 Selected, illustrative abiotic, biotic and cultural questions in routine urban planning, urban biodiver-
ecosystem functions and services related to, or derived from, sity planning or transportation network planning,
urban biodiversity
bicycle routes, greenways and urban drainage systems
Abiotic Biotic Cultural (Aminzadeh and Khansefid 2010).
Stormwater Bioremediation Support of urban
infiltration of waste/ environmental Strategy 3: Plan and design for multifunctionality
toxics education
Precipitation Evapo- Human stress Efficient use of space is fundamental in urban planning
interception transpirative reduction since space is inherently limited and competed for in
cooling all urban environments. Multifunctionality in the
Mitigation of urban Pest or disease Support cultural context of urban planning and design involves the
heat island effect mitigation heritage/identity
deliberate provision of multiple ecosystem services—
Carbon Pollination Stimulus for artistic
sequestration expression in a discrete area of urban land. The most common
Nutrient cycling Habitat for Increased property
means of combining functions to achieve multifunc-
urban wildlife values tionality is by ‘‘spatial stacking’’—efficiently orga-
Air quality Food Reduced crime rates nizing functions to operate independently, or in a
mitigation provisioning complementary manner within a limited space. Mul-
tifunctionality can also be achieved by ‘‘time shifting’’
by which uses of the same spatial location are
riverways, and parkways, among others. The concep- separated in time, for example diurnal usage alterna-
tion, planning and design of these networks increas- tions, or seasonal shifting, for example to accommo-
ingly applies landscape ecological theory and date field nesting birds in a recreational area (Kato and
principles (Bryant 2006; Hellmund and Smith 2006; Ahern 2009). In addition to achieving spatial effi-
Ignatieva et al. 2011). A major reason for the ciency, multifunctionality also holds the potential to
popularity and endurance of these networks over time build a diverse system of public support because
has been the connectivity-dependent functions they multiple stakeholders associated with particular func-
provide, generally relating with hydrology and trans- tions may share support for a specific multifunctional
portation and urban mobility. Support for urban urban landscape (Naveh 2001).
biodiversity is increasingly recognized as a benefit of Green infrastructure is a relatively new concept for
urban greenways (Bryant 2006). systems that provide multiple ecosystem services in
The Emscher Park in the Rhur and Rhine Valleys in urban areas (Ahern 2010). Green infrastructure is
western Germany provides a successful example of a often a hybrid of built infrastructure and human-made
multifunctional blue-green network. Here one of the ecosystems—as with stormwater wetlands to process
most polluted rivers of Europe is being transformed highway drainage, or bicycle corridors that provide
into a successful natural and cultural corridor cele- wildlife habitat and connectivity. In the western USA,
brating the region’s industrial heritage while provid- Portland Oregon’s Green Street program demonstrates
ing opportunities for habitat restoration, river a multifunctional approach to urban street design.
restoration and bicycle transportation (MetropoleRuhr Here streets are understood and designed for their
2010; Rottle and Yocom 2010). potential to provide multiple functions—in addition to
Key research questions for landscape ecologists, their core automobile transportation role. Portland’s
planners and designers relating to urban ecological green streets also promote stormwater infiltration,
networks and connectivity include: How to develop climatic modification, non-motorized transportation
metrics for assessing connectivity in urban ecosys- and wildlife habitat.
tems? How to predict which ecosystem functions and Key research questions for landscape ecology
services are influenced by alternative network config- related to multifunctionality include: how to plan
urations? How urban connectivity-dependent pro- and design for biodiversity at multiple urban
cesses function across spatial scales? How do urban scales? (Colding 2007; Otte et al. 2007; Taleai et al.
ecological networks contribute to resilience capacity? 2007). How can landscape ecology more specifically
Planners and designers could engage these research inform urban planning and design for multifunctional

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landscapes? (Lovell and Johnston 2009), and how to
raise awareness of the broad suite of ecosystem
services provided by urban ecosystems and urban
biodiversity? Planners and designers can use these
questions as an opportunity to systematically integrate
multiple functions into plans and projects that are
typically mono-functional, for example adding biodi-
versity to a bicycle path, or adding wetlands to urban
highway drainage systems.
Strategy 4: Build redundancy and practice
modularization
In landscape ecology diversity and redundancy are
understood as ecological strategies for risk spreading
(Forman 1995). In contrast, much of the infrastructure
of the developed urban world has been developed
under a paradigm of centralization and eliminating
redundancy. These systems are, by definition, not safe-
to-fail, with catastrophic consequences when they do.
Resilience theory applied to urban planning and
design suggests a modular approach comprised of
redundant, decentralized elements. Under this model,
failures can be contained and prevented from propa-
gating or spreading through a system. Modular
systems can be integrated at higher levels of organi-
zation or scale. Redundancy and modularization are
strategies to avoid putting ‘‘all your eggs in one
basket,’’ and for preparing and preplanning for when
(not if) the system fails (Ahern 2010).
Urban landscape-based stormwater infiltration sys-
tems are typically modular, designed for discrete
micro drainage basins known as sewersheds. By
capturing, storing and infiltrating stormwater locally,
close to its impervious source, multiple hydrological
and water quality benefits can be realized. Infiltration
systems rely on a minimum of hard engineering,
operate by gravity, and therefore are defined in a
modular model defined by local, and microtopogra-
phy. This simple approach is a common solutions to
the combined sewer problem, one of the great
challenges of urban water management.
Key research questions for landscape ecologists
planners and designers relating to redundancy and
modularization include: how to model the perfor-
mance and behavior of modular subsystems with
available and accepted indicators and metrics? and
how to develop tools for multiscale, and interscale
modeling of specific urban ecosystem processes and
1209
functions? Planners and designers in collaboration
with engineers in could conceive alternative modular
systems for providing basic urban functions including
transportation, drainage and waste processing. Econ-
omists are likely to be integral to broad cost:benefit
assessments of redundancy.
Strategy 5: Practice adaptive design implement
‘‘safe-to-fail’’ design experiments
Urban planning and design is inherently location-
specific. Planning and design projects focus on, and
respond to their specific geophysical, social, economic
and political contexts. In this respect literally every
place on earth is unique. Indeed, a common inspiration
for design creativity is the genus loci, or genius of the
place. While talented designers consult the genus loci,
the uniqueness of every place also inherently limits the
transferability of innovations developed elsewhere
under different circumstances. This presents a
dilemma to planners and designers—how can suc-
cessful innovations developed elsewhere be applied
without site-specific research in a different environ-
ment? There is rarely sufficient time or funds to
conduct location-specific research, due to the ‘‘imper-
ative to act’’ to keep cities functioning, renewing
infrastructure and supporting the urban development
process. In response, designers often become profes-
sionally conservative—relying on status quo solu-
tions, established, proven and defensible, but not
innovative! Such conservative behavior in a creative
discipline may be explained by a resistance to monitor
results, aversion to failure and a fear of liability. The
net result of this status quo is a stifling of creativity and
innovation, at a time when challenges for sustainabil-
ity and resilience demand innovation and experimen-
tation (Kato and Ahern 2008).
Adaptive design provides an alternative scientific
and professional strategy approach in which plans and
policies are developed in a context of uncertainty and
incomplete knowledge. If policies are understood as
hypotheses, rather than answers, then the resulting
designs logically are understood as experiments,
holding the important potential for adaptive learning
(Gunderson 1999). Adaptive designs are based on the
best available knowledge, with uncertainty specifi-
cally acknowledged. Design proposals can then be
structured as experiments to probe uncertainty, and
test specific hypotheses. For example testing the
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effective permeability of alternative paving materials
for stormwater infiltration, or the bioremediation
effectiveness of particular plant species to metabolize
known toxins. Key to the success of such experiments
is the process of monitoring performance and results.
Unfortunately this has proven to be a challenge for
financial and business cultural reasons. Professionals
are uncomfortable with the risk of failure of such
experiments—unfortunately reinforcing status quo
solutions. An emerging conceptual solution to this
dilemma are ‘‘safe-to-fail’’ design experiments (Lister
2007). Under this approach, experiments are made
explicit, scaled down to minimize the risk of failure.
Importantly these design experiments also hold the
potential to succeed. The ‘‘safe-to-fail’’ model holds
the potential to rapidly advance professional knowl-
edge and skills in direct association with the develop-
ment and construction process itself.
Design experiments can be conceived and struc-
tured to explore virtually any particular, or bundle of
ecosystem services across the abiotic–biotic–cultural
categories (Table 2). In collaboration with landscape
ecologists key research questions can be explored by
planners and designers including: how to develop
‘‘research design’’ guidelines to yield robust empirical
data; how to conduct monitoring in a cost, and time-
efficient manner? And how to separate and integrate
monitoring of multiple ecosystem functions and
services? Planners and designers working with stake-
holders and decision makers have the opportunity and
challenge to explain design experiments as a profes-
sionally responsible working method, including the
potential that the experiment can fail.
Conclusion
With the majority of the world’s population now
urban, the sustainability of cities has become a central
theme in applied landscape and urban ecology. Given
projections for urban demographics this theme is
likely to remain central. This challenge is well suited
to landscape ecology because of its: commitment to
interdisciplinary, understanding of spatial heteroge-
neity, attention to stochastic processes, and intentional
linkage of research with application. The ecosystem
services concept provides useful benchmarks and
performance indicators to link science with planning,
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Landscape Ecol (2013) 28:1203–1212
design and management—in a spatially-explicit man-
ner (Potschin and Haines-Young 2006).
Resilience theory advances the discourse on urban
sustainability in a non-equilibrium context by focus-
ing on how cities build the capacity to respond to
change and disturbance. Five strategies are proposed
here to build urban resilience capacity; biodiversity,
multifunctionality, multiscale networks, modularity,
and adaptive design. Individually and collectively,
these strategies suggest a transdisciplinary working
method in which scientists and professional experts
collaborate with stakeholders and decision makers
continuously throughout an ongoing, iterative and
adaptive planning, design, and management process
(Tress et al. 2005). The strategies raise important
questions and deliberately reach beyond established
knowledge and practice.
Ironically, ad importantly, the unprecedented
urbanization expected in the coming decades offers
an unprecedented opportunity to ‘‘learn-by-doing’’.
The knowledge required for approaching urban sus-
tainability and resilience can evolve rapidly in an
adaptive planning and design context—as a comple-
ment to urbanization processes and projects. Under an
adaptive approach, design experiments are monitored
post-construction to learn the specifics of which
expected ecosystem services were realized. In the
process, adaptive learning is achieved from small
failures or successes. As a result, new, spatially-
explicit and locationally-relevant knowledge and best
practices are advanced. Through such an interdisci-
plinary discourse, research needs and foci are emerg-
ing, and offer cause for optimism for those who are
prepared to practice transdisciplinary research on the
cities of the future. There may be no greater research
need in this urban world.
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