Cities can be viewed from many perspectives – geographical extent, regional identity, demography, economics – when we approach cities as ecosystems, they might be best viewed as a set of interactions in space and time. Urban ecosystems thus result from the interaction of anthropogenic and ecological patterns process, and drivers. The central role of people in the generation of urban landscapes results from decision making about how to create and design novel ecosystems. How these elements and processes come together in interactions has important implications for resilience and sustainability. Here, I present background and findings from an interdisciplinary collaborative project that investigates the natural science, policy, and decision-making dimensions of green infrastructure GI in Arizona, USA. The project integrates several frameworks and uses ecosystem services as a nexus to understand what is possible and what is practical with respect to GI/LID implementation. Importantly, this project centers around a co-production approach that links research scientists, environmental managers, designers, and residents in a semi-arid city. We bring together approaches that include integrating plot and catchment scale ecohydrology and biogeochemistry, ecosystem service characterization, assessing learning and networks in the policy environment, and exploring the role of ecological information in informing decision-making and design.
Results/Conclusions
As rates of urbanization rise and a greater proportion of the world’s population lives in urban areas, the provision of ecosystem services become increasingly important for urban residents and urban sustainability. Our preliminary findings indicate that GI can be designed to promote hydrologic, biogeochemical, and sense of place ecosystem services in semi-arid environments. The design of novel urban ecosystems can thought of as a form of what urban designer and architect Nan Ellin calls, ‘integral urbanism’. Integral urbanism for novel urban ecosystems emphasizes function, form, scale, planning, diversity, connections between built and non-built, and the variety of practices it takes to create urban spaces. Collaboration towards effective GI requires bringing people and nature together, simultaneously recognizing and breaking down boundaries, drawing inspiration from ethic of care, respect , and honesty, and recognizing the need to relinquish control, listen deeply, value process. Green infrastructure serves as a nexus, a social-ecological hotspot, to enhance connectivities in urban ecosystems. It serves to foster ecological processes and to bring together multiple practices in order to improve environmental quality in cities, contribute to the provision of ecosystem services, and the resilience of cities