Urban Ecology

1. Urban Ecology How will I get the most I can from this course? Where will it take me? What will we be doing each week?

2. Urban Ecology: An interdisciplinary study of the urban ecosystem

3. My Interests in Urban Ecology

4. Important Influences • Philip Slater – “In Pursuit of Loneliness” • James Howard Kunstler– “The Geography of Nowhere” • Howard T. Odum “Environment, Power, and Society” • Jay Forrester “Urban Dynamics”

5. What is Urban ???

8. What is “Urbanization?” • Often related to industrialization • Up until very recently -- about 200 years ago -- the proportion of the world’s urban population was limited to about 5%

9. Speed of Urbanization • In 18003% • By 190014 % • In 1950 30% • In 2000 47 % (about 2.8 billion) • In 2008 > 50% (3.7 billion) See: http://www.xist.org/default1.aspx

10. Human Numbers Through Time

11. Name Population 1 London, United Kingdom 6,480,000 2 New York, United States 4,242,000 3 Paris, France 3,330,000 4 Berlin, Germany 2,707,000 5 Chicago, United States 1,717,000 6 Vienna, Austria 1,698,000 7 Tokyo, Japan 1,497,000 8 St. Petersburg, Russia 1,439,000 9 Manchester, United Kingdom 1,435,000 10 Philadelphia, United States 1,418,000 Ten Largest Cities of 1900 http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201f.htm http://www.xist.org/charts/cy_agg2005.aspx

12. Rank City1 Population 1. Shanghai, China 13,278,500 2. Mumbai (Bombay), India 12,622,500 3. Buenos Aires, Argentina 11,928,400 4. Moscow, Russia 11,273,400 5. Karachi, Pakistan 10,889,100 6. Delhi, India 10,400,900 7. Manila, Philippines 10,330,100 8. Sao Paulo, Brazil 10,260,100 9. Seoul, South Korea 10,165,400 10. Istanbul, Turkey 9,631,700 11. Jakarta, Indonesia 8,987,800 12. Mexico City, Mexico 8,705,100 13. Lagos, Nigeria 8,682,200 14. Lima, Peru 8,380,600 15. Tokyo, Japan 8,294,200 16. New York City, U.S. 8,091,700 17. Cairo, Egypt 7,609,700 18. London, United Kingdom 7,593,300 19. Teheran, Iran 7,317,200 20. Beijing, China 7,209,900

13. Global Urbanization Trends (cont’d) Size of Urban Population in the World (Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects, The 1999 Revision)

14. Earth at Night 2000 November 27 Credit: C. Mayhew & R. Simmon (NASA/GSFC), NOAA/ NGDC, DMSP Digital Archive

15. Global Urbanization Trends (cont’d) Comparison of Urban Population in Developed Countries and Developing Countries (Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects, The 1999 Revision)

16. Impacts of Urbanization By concentrating humans and the resources they consume, metropolitan areas alter • soil drainage, • water flow, and • light availability Think of how architecture, such as sidewalks and rooftops, impacts the way rainwater is received and transported. Or the way garbage dumps and sewage plants centralize waste products.

17. The Nobel Peace Center, Oslo, Norway The Places We Live by Jonas Bendiksen

18. Nairobi (Kibera), Kenya; Mumbai (Dharavi), India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Caracas, Venezuela

19. What does it mean to be an urban citizen on planet earth in the 21st century?

20. Reinventing Cities for People and the Planet Molly O’Meara, of the The Worldwatch Institute states that “changes in six areas are needed to meet the challenge to make cities and the vast areas they affect more viable • Water • Waste • Food • Energy • Transportation • Land Use …. One of the guiding principles will be to reform urban systems so that they mimic themetabolism of nature.”

22. Emerging Precepts of Biological Design from Todd and Todd (1993) • The Living World is the matrix for all design. • The Todds refer to the concept of Gaia, the whole system which is a positive metaphor for the interconnectedness of life, and the self-regulating protection of e.g. the earth’s atmosphere. The hypothesis, defined by researcher James Lovelock, states that Gaia is “a complex entity involving the Earth’s biosphere, atmosphere, oceans , and soil: the totality constituting a feedback of cybernetic systems which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet.”

23. 2. Design should follow, not oppose, the laws of life. 3. Biological equity must determine design. 4. Design must reflect bioregionality 5. Projects should be based on renewable energy resources. 6. Design should be sustainable through the integration of living systems. 7. Design should be coevolutionary with the natural world. 8. Building and Design should help to heal the planet. 9. Design should follow a sacred ecology.

24. Do these designs meet the test?

25. Or these common practices?

26. Urban Ecology – how should we approach it ???

27. Systems Dynamic Approach To analyze a system’s inflows and outflows you must first draw the boundary. With the urban ecosystem you can look at the block, the neighborhood, the city line, the watershed, the state, the region, the country, the globe, or even the Sewershed!

29. What we think we know about IS and Water Quality • Impervious surfaces increase the delivery of runoff of accumulated sediments and nutrients to waterways. • A 10 percent impervious cover is considered as a threshold for impairment of watersheds and at 25 % imperviousness, the watershed is severely impaired (U.S.EPA, 2007). • Contrary to the assumption that low-density development is a better strategy for water quality protection, a recent EPA study showed that this type of development may in fact contribute to higher runoff (U.S. EPA, 2007).

30. Source: http://www.esf.edu/erfeg/endreny/papers/Endreny-IJWRD-2004.pdf

31. Lab 1 Goals • Count and record location of storm drains • Observe surrounding area and look for opportunities to let runoff naturally infiltrate • Observe proposed Regional Treatment Facility (RTF) in Armory Square • Observe already constructed RTF at Midland Ave • Think about impacts on surrounding neighborhoods

32. What to bring • Bicycle and helmet • Water bottle • Notepad and pen • GPS units Weather Forecast for Wed Aug 27 Partly Cloudy High 78° Low 59° Chance of Precipitation 10%

33. What is Ecology ??? Eugene P. Odum “I prefer to define ecology as: The study of the structure and function of ecosystems or ….. The study of the structure and function of nature.”

34. Structure ??? • The composition of the biological community including species, numbers, biomass, life history and distribution in space of populations. • The quantity and distribution of the abiotic (non-living) materials such as nutrients, water, etc. • The range, or gradient, of conditions of existence such as temperature, light, etc.

35. Function ??? • The rate of biological energy flow through the ecosystem, that is, the rates of production and the rates of respiration of the populations and the community. • The rate of material or nutrient cycling, that is, the biogeochemical cycles. • The biological or ecological regulation including both regulation of organisms by environment and regulation of environment by organisms.

36. Ecosystem ??? "Living organisms ( biotic) and their nonliving ( abiotic) environment are inseparably interrelated and interact upon each other. Any unit that includes all of the organisms (i.e., the "community") in a given area interacting with the physical environment so that a flow of energy leads to clearly defined trophic structure, biotic diversity, and material cycles (i.e., exchange of materials between living and nonliving parts) within the system is an ecological system or ecosystem." Odum, E. P. 1971. Fundamentals of Ecology. Third Edition. Saunders. http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~franz/top_ecosystem/documents/page3.2.html