While efforts to integrate social and biophysical sciences are growing more popular (notably through growing interest in coupled human and natural systems and sustainability science), critical social science frameworks such as urban political ecology remain strangers to environmental science and urban ecology research. In this presentation, we draw on research conducted in Oakland, California, to argue for a more integrated and interdisciplinary approach to understanding urban ecosystems, be it a more biophysical-oriented political ecology or a more social-oriented urban ecology. For this this NSF-funded research, soil was sampled at 110 potential urban agriculture sites in Oakland (stratified by gardens, vacant lots, parks, and open space) and analyzed for lead (Pb) and other soil chemical characteristics. Soil Pb data was mapped and analyzed quantitatively using ArcGIS and JMP, but also qualitatively interpreted using urban historical records, zoning and insurance maps, and aerial imagery in order to relate soil data to the spatial and social processes that have shaped urban development in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Results/Conclusions
Soil Pb concentrations in Oakland soils correlated both with biophysical factors (eg, phosphorus, calcium, soil series) and anthropogenic factors (eg, density of old housing stock, land use). Results were also qualitatively related to the social processes mediating these anthropogenic factors, notably historical flows of residential and industrial capital and the public and private decision-making that spatially demarcated them (eg, redlining, housing covenants, industrial relocation, and freeway siting). Findings are not only useful to the local urban agriculture groups that participated in sampling, but also lend insights into questions of environmental justice, the long-term impact of land use planning on pedogenesis and urban ecosystems, and the development of integrated geographic methods of analysis and prediction.