Understanding Urban Ecology

Download or read book Understanding Urban Ecology written by Myrna H. P. Hall and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-10 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over half of the world’s population now lives in urban areas. Few who live in cities understand that cities, too, are ecosystems, as beholden to the laws and principles of ecology as are natural ecosystems. Understanding Urban Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Systems Approach introduces students at the college undergraduate level, or those in advanced-standing college credit high school courses, to cities as ecosystems. For graduate students it provides an overview and rich literature base. Urban planners, educators, and decision makers can use this book to help in designing a more sustainable or “green” future. The authors use a systems approach to explore the complexity and interactions of different components of a city’s ecology with an emphasis on the energy and materials required to maintain such concentrated centers of human activity and consumption. The book is written by seventeen specialized contributors and includes ten accompanying detailed field exercises to promote hands-on experience, observation, and quantification of urban ecosystem structure and function.The chapters describe one by one the different subsystems of the urban environment, their individual components and functions, and the interactions among them that create the social-ecological environments in which we live. The book’s emphasis on social-ecological metabolism provides students with the knowledge and methods needed to evaluate proposed policies for urban sustainability in terms of ecosystem capacity, potential positive and negative feedbacks, the laws of thermo-dynamics, and socio-cultural perception and adaptability.

Download or read book Understanding Urban Ecosystems written by Alan R. Berkowitz and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-05-29 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nowhere on Earth is the challenge for ecological understanding greater, and yet more urgent, than in those parts of the globe where human activity is most intense - cities. People need to understand how cities work as ecological systems so they can take control of the vital links between human actions and environmental quality, and work for an ecologically and economically sustainable future. An ecosystem approach integrates biological, physical and social factors and embraces historical and geographical dimensions, providing our best hope for coping with the complexity of cities. This book is a first of its kind effort to bring together leaders in the biological, physical and social dimensions of urban ecosystem research with leading education researchers, administrators and practitioners, to show how an understanding of urban ecosystems is vital for urban dwellers to grasp the fundamentals of ecological and environmental science, and to understand their own environment.

Download or read book Urban Ecosystems written by Robert A. Francis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03-12 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With over half of the global human population living in urban regions, urban ecosystems may now represent the contemporary and future human environment. Consisting of green space and the built environment, they harbour a wide range of species, yet are not well understood. This book aims to review what is currently known about urban ecosystems in a short and approachable text that will serve as a key resource for teaching and learning related to the urban environment. It covers both physical and biotic components of urban ecosystems, key ecological processes, and the management of ecological resources, including biodiversity conservation. All chapters incorporate case studies, boxes and questions for stimulating discussions in the learning environment.

Download or read book Urban Ecology written by Ken Leinbach and published by Morgan James Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With climate change in the news, an urban core that has reached boiling point, and many children growing up without role models and with limited dreams, where is hope? There is a quiet experiment in Milwaukee that is turning heads. It starts with the simplicity of getting a city kid exploring their neighborhood park. How is it that so much life, community, and opportunity can grow from this unlikely soil? It's been called a miracle. It's contagious. It's spreading. It's exciting. And it works! This is the story of a group of ordinary people in a neighborhood who created something extraordinary. Readers will discover... the power of getting a city kid outside in nature; that kindness does work; how to say no while following the yes; the value of clarity and focus; how to find abundance within their own diverse community by simply and humbly asking for help; ten tried and tested rules for raising money (a lot of it!) while having a ton of fun doing it; a positive, believable, and very real vision for the future of the environment (we've got this!); and... how to join the Urban Ecology movement.

Download or read book Urban Ecology written by John Marzluff and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-01-03 with total page 802 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urban Ecology is a rapidly growing field of academic and practical significance. Urban ecologists have published several conference proceedings and regularly contribute to the ecological, architectural, planning, and geography literature. However, important papers in the field that set the foundation for the discipline and illustrate modern approaches from a variety of perspectives and regions of the world have not been collected in a single, accessible book. Foundations of Urban Ecology does this by reprinting important European and American publications, filling gaps in the published literature with a few, targeted original works, and translating key works originally published in German. This edited volume will provide students and professionals with a rich background in all facets of urban ecology. The editors emphasize the drivers, patterns, processes and effects of human settlement. The papers they synthesize provide readers with a broad understanding of the local and global aspects of settlement through traditional natural and social science lenses. This interdisciplinary vision gives the reader a comprehensive view of the urban ecosystem by introducing drivers, patterns, processes and effects of human settlements and the relationships between humans and other animals, plants, ecosystem processes, and abiotic conditions. The reader learns how human institutions, health, and preferences influence, and are influenced by, the others members of their shared urban ecosystem.

Download or read book Urban Ecology written by Pramit Verma and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urban Ecology covers the latest theoretical and applied concepts in urban ecological research. This book covers the key environmental issues of urban ecosystems as well as the human-centric issues, particularly those of governance, economics, sociology and human health. The goal of Urban Ecology is to challenge readers' thinking around urban ecology from a resource-based approach to a holistic and applied field for sustainable development. There are seven major themes of the book: emerging urban concepts and urbanization, land use/land cover change, urban social-ecological systems, urban environment, urban material balance, smart, healthy and sustainable cities and sustainable urban design. Within each section, key concepts such as monitoring the urbanization phenomena, land use cover, urban soil fluxes, urban metabolism, pollution and human health and sustainable cities are covered. Urban Ecology serves as a comprehensive and advanced book for students, researchers, practitioners and policymakers in urban ecology and urban environmental research, planning and practice. - Includes global case studies from over 14 countries, providing a first-hand account of recent applications - Covers the phenomena of sustainable transport, nutrient recovery and human health, among many others - Examines environmental issues as well as social-ecological systems and governance

Download or read book Urban Ecology written by Richard T. T. Forman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-13 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first richly illustrated worldwide portrayal of urban ecology, tying together organisms, built structures, and the physical environment around cities.