Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities
A Global Assessment
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Beschreibung
To understand how the world’s ecosystems are changing we need to understand cities, and to create better cities we need to understand the ecosystems they depend on. The failure of most markets, government policies and even urban studies to take these relations into account has put cities, and increasingly the whole world, in a difficult position. Studies like Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services can help us to extricate ourselves, provided we act on the knowledge they provide.
Gordon McGranahan
International Institute for Environment and Development
The challenges of urbanization are profound, but so too are the opportunities. Cities can reconcile human society and biodiversity by creating environments that are ecologically sustainable, economically productive, socially just, politically participatory and culturally vibrant. I commend this study to all who have a stake in creating ecologically sustainable urbanization for the benefit ofhumanity and the planet.
Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General, United Nations
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 services
The world’s first global assessment of the effects of urbanization on biodiversity and ecosystem services Presents the latest state-of-the-art of urbanization, and identifies crucial knowledge gaps that need to be bridged Develops a new theoretical framework for urban sustainability and resilience The book’s thirty-two chapters include global, regional and local perspectives and can be read together or as stand-alone texts This book is an open access book, which is freely available online to anyone, anywhere! The printed hardbound edition (755 pages) is available for just EUR 49,99 Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Autor*in
Thomas Elmqvist
Themen in »Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities«
Biodiversity Challenges Ecosystem services Opportunities Urbanization urban geography and urbanism
Stimmen zu »Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities«
From the reviews:
“This book explores how urbanization across global, regional, and local scales has multiple impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. … a thorough, well-researched, and important compilation that delivers a valuable contribution to integrating knowledge about biodiversity and ecosystem services into urban design and urban planning. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers/faculty, and professionals.” (R. A. Delgado, Jr., Choice, Vol. 51 (10), June, 2014)()