JIMMA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE

ARCH 3351: URBAN ECOLOGY

 URBAN PATTERNS AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION

• Urbanization significantly influences the functioning of local and global

earth ecosystems and the services they provide to humans and other life
on earth. Urban development fragments, isolates, and degrades natural
habitats; simplifies and homogenizes species composition; disrupts
hydrological systems; and modifies energy flow and nutrient cycling.

• Several dimensions of urbanization can directly be linked to patch

structure and processes through urban form, land use intensity, land use
heterogeneity, and land use connectivity.
 URBAN PATTERNS AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION

• Urban form refers to

the degree of centralization
of the urban structure.
 URBAN PATTERNS AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION

• Land use intensity is the ratio of population or jobs to area.

• Land use heterogeneity indicates the diversity of functional land uses
such as residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional. Land use
connectivity measures the interrelation and mode of circulation of people
and goods across the location of fixed activities.
Each addresses some aspect of landscape structure, function, or change and
can be useful in understanding ecosystem processes in urbanizing
landscapes
 URBAN PATTERNS AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION

• the impacts of urban patterns on ecosystem function. Changes in land

cover affect biotic diversity, primary productivity, soil quality, runoff,
and sedimentation rates. By altering the availability of nutrients and
water, urban activities also affect population, communities, and
ecosystem dynamics. Urbanized areas also modify the microclimate and
air quality by altering the nature of the surface and generating large
amount of heat.
URBAN PATTERNS AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION
 URBAN PATTERNS AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION

• We build on urban economics, landscape ecology, population dynamics, and

complex system science to propose a conceptual model that explicitly links the
urban pattern to the human and ecosystem functions, and resilience, in urban
ecosystems
• human and ecological patterns emerge from the interactions between socio-
economic and biophysical processes.
• Urban ecosystems evolve over time and space as the outcome of dynamic
interactions between socio-economic and biophysical processes operating over
multiple scales (Alberti, 1999a).
 URBAN PATTERNS AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION

• Patterns of traffic congestion, pollution, and sprawl are the outcome of multiple
local interactions and feedback mechanisms between human decisions and
ecological processes in urbanizing regions.
• Individual choices and actions taken by many agents households, businesses,
developers, and governments affect ecosystem processes and ecological conditions,
which in turn control human decisions.
• urban sprawl leads to the shift from a natural steady state of abundant and well-
connected natural land cover to a second steady state of greatly reduced and highly
fragmented natural land cover.
 URBAN PATTERNS AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION

• The sprawl state is a forced equilibrium that relies on incomplete information

regarding the full ecological costs of providing human services to low-density
development.
• Natural disturbance regimes maintain relatively stable arrangements of amount and
connectivity of natural land cover when human presence is minimal.

• Planning and consideration of benefits of natural land cover to human services can
force a different equilibrium that simultaneously supports humans and other species
in urban ecosystems
 URBAN PATTERNS AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION

• Urban sprawl also increases the per capita costs of human services and
infrastructure provision
• As urbanization increases, natural vegetation decreases

• As urbanization reduces ecosystem function the system flips into a sprawl state (the
lower solid line, Sprawl attractor) where human services replace ecosystem services

• The sprawl attractor is characterized by a highly fragmented landscape, increasing

substitution of ecological functions with human functions and highly reduced
capacity of ecological function to support human function
 URBAN PATTERNS AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION

• To balance these effects and allow urban ecosystems to provide both human and
ecosystem services, urban planners, Architects, and Urban designers must devise
patterns of human settlement
 Linking human and ecosystem functions

• Human services in urban areas such as housing, water supply,

transportation, waste disposal, and recreation depend on ecosystems for
natural resources and their productivity over the long term. They also
depend on the ecosystem’s ability to act as a sink to absorb emissions and
waste.
• Human services depend on both local and global ecosystem services
because cities import resources from distant areas

• On the other hand, the ability to maintain such services both locally and
globally increasingly depends on human activities and the development
patterns of human settlements
 Linking human and ecosystem functions

• Urban ecosystems consist of several interlinked subsystems social, economic,

institutional, and ecological each representing a complex system of its own and
affecting all the others at various structural and functional levels

• To assess the resilience of urban ecosystems by integrating multiple-scale social

and ecological processes into a common framework
 Linking human and ecosystem functions

• link urban patterns and ecosystem dynamics at multiple scales and their influence
on the resilience in urban ecosystems.

• Designing resilient development patterns requires an understanding of the

mechanisms that link urban patterns to human and ecosystem functions at multiple
spatial and temporal scales.
Urbanization v ecosystem and human services
 Urbanization v ecosystem and human services

• Ecosystem services directly provide human services in non-urbanized areas and

indirectly support human services in urbanized ones. Eventually human services in
urbanized areas decline as ecosystem services are reduced by urbanization

• Assessing the resilience of urban ecosystems requires understanding how

interactions between humans and ecological processes affect the resilience of
inherently unstable equilibrium points between the natural vegetation attractor and
the sprawl attractor
 URBANIZATION AND LAND USE CHANGE

• Urbanization is the spatial expansion of the built environment (human-

constructed elements, such as buildings, roads, runways) that is densely packed
by people and their socio-economic activities.

• Land is an essential input for housing and food production. Land use is
determined by the interaction in space and time of biophysical factors, such as
soils, climate, topography and human factors like population, technology, or
economic conditions.
 URBANIZATION AND LAND USE CHANGE

• During urbanization changes in land use to build cities and to support the
demands of urban populations also drives environmental changes such as local
and global alterations of biogeochemical cycles, climate, hydro-systems, and
biodiversity
 URBANIZATION AND LAND USE CHANGE

• Urbanization drastically affects the water resources due to increased per capita
use of fresh water and contamination of water sources by sewage and wastes in
cities.
• Change in land use associated with urbanization affects drastically the
biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and environmental quality, as well as human
behavior, community structure, and social organization.
 URBANIZATION AND LAND USE CHANGE

The diagram of contemporary urban ecology: key components and their relationship.
 URBAN ECOLOGY PERSPECTIVES

• A major goal of urban ecology is to understand the relationship between the

spatial and temporal patterns of urbanization and ecological processes.
• In order to know and improve these relationships, many concepts and
perspectives in urban ecology have been developed.
• These ecological perspectives have been categorized as either "ecology in cities",
which focuses primarily on the non-human organisms in the urban environment,
or "ecology of cities", which considers the whole city as an ecosystem or as a
socio-economic system.
 URBAN ECOLOGY PERSPECTIVES
• The five urban ecological approaches:
• 1. Social ecology approach or human ecology approach: has followed the ecology
of cities category that views cities as socio-economic systems and investigates
human behavior and social organization in cities based on borrowed ecological
theory and concepts.
• 2. Bio-ecology approach: has followed the ecology in cities category that views
cities as trashed or damaged habitat and has evolved with a focus on how
urbanization affects the distribution and dynamics of plants and animals in cities.
• 3. Urban systems approach or human ecosystem approach, both of which treat the
city as a whole ecosystem consisting of both socio-economic and biological
components.
 URBAN ECOLOGY PERSPECTIVES

4. Urban landscape approach: treats urban areas as spatially heterogeneous

landscapes that are composed of multiple interacting patches. This approach
focuses on the relationship between urbanization patterns and ecological processes.
5. Emerging urban sustainability approach: that treats cities as coupled human
environment systems or socio-ecological systems. This approach integrates the
various urban ecology perspectives, and its scientific core develops around the
structure, function, and services of the urban landscape, with an increasing
emphasis on the relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being in
urban areas.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
 SUSTAINABILITY

• one of the greatest challenges facing the world community in the 21st century
will be the attainment of sustainable development, calling for balanced policies
aimed at economic growth, poverty reduction, human well-being, social equity,
and the protection of the Earth's resources and life-support systems.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
 SUSTAINABLE PLANNING

• Sustainable planning at the Municipal level is an opportunity for cities to

address in a more innovative and effective way the challenges they are facing as
well as to create a vision for the future they want to see in their city considering
all aspects of economy, environment, and society.
SUSTAINABLE PLANNING
 URBAN GREEN SPACES

The urban green spaces promote the interaction between citizens and the
environment within an urban context, promote human health, and provide
environmental and recreational benefits to urban citizens

The world is facing unprecedented socio-demographic, technological, and

environmental challenges which will have substantial consequences for cities
and their development, and hence for the ecological functioning of urban areas.

• Urban citizens expect a high quality of life, a good public health, an unpolluted

environment, and possibilities for recreation in green spaces.

 URBAN GREEN SPACES

• Satisfying these aspects, along with economic and social well-being are the
important components in the development of sustainable urban environment

- Urban green spaces and city sustainability

 URBAN GREEN SPACES

• The provision, design, management and protection of urban green spaces are
at the main purposes of the plan of sustainability and liveability of modern
cities.
• Urban green spaces supply to cities with ecosystem services ranging from
maintenance of biodiversity to the regulation of urban climate.
• Biodiversity is essential for the functioning and sustainability of an ecosystem.
Different species play specific functions and changes in species composition,
species richness, and functional type affect the efficiency with which
resources are processed within an ecosystem
 URBAN GREEN SPACES

• This requires large economic efforts and future commitment to their

conservation by the government or similar entities.
• This should be followed with sensitivity actions and citizen awareness in their
individual responsibility so that the urban environment can be protected and
preserved.
•
THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION !!