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?
Urban Ecology:
An interdisciplinary study of the urban ecosystem
My Interests in Urban Ecology
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”

What is Urban ???
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%

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
Human Numbers Through Time
Ten Largest Cities of 1900
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Name
London, United Kingdom
New York, United States
Paris, France
Berlin, Germany
Chicago, United States
Vienna, Austria
Tokyo, Japan
St. Petersburg, Russia
Manchester, United Kingdom
Philadelphia, United States
Population
6,480,000
4,242,000
3,330,000
2,707,000
1,717,000
1,698,000
1,497,000
1,439,000
1,435,000
1,418,000
http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201f.htm
http://www.xist.org/charts/cy_agg2005.aspx
Rank
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
City1
Shanghai, China
Mumbai (Bombay), India
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Moscow, Russia
Karachi, Pakistan
Delhi, India
Manila, Philippines
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Seoul, South Korea
Istanbul, Turkey
Jakarta, Indonesia
Mexico City, Mexico
Lagos, Nigeria
Lima, Peru
Tokyo, Japan
New York City, U.S.
Cairo, Egypt
London, United Kingdom
Teheran, Iran
Beijing, China
Population
13,278,500
12,622,500
11,928,400
11,273,400
10,889,100
10,400,900
10,330,100
10,260,100
10,165,400
9,631,700
8,987,800
8,705,100
8,682,200
8,380,600
8,294,200
8,091,700
7,609,700
7,593,300
7,317,200
7,209,900
Global Urbanization Trends (cont’d)
Size of Urban Population in the World
(Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects, The 1999 Revision)
Earth at Night
2000 November 27
Credit: C. Mayhew & R. Simmon (NASA/GSFC), NOAA/ NGDC,
DMSP Digital Archive
Global Urbanization Trends (cont’d)
Comparison of Urban Population in Developed
Countries and Developing Countries
(Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects, The 1999 Revision)
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.
The Nobel Peace Center, Oslo,
Norway
The Places We Live by Jonas Bendiksen
Nairobi (Kibera), Kenya; Mumbai (Dharavi), India;
Jakarta, Indonesia; and Caracas, Venezuela
What does it mean to be an urban citizen
on planet earth in the 21st century?
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 the metabolism of nature.”
Emerging Precepts of Biological Design
from Todd and Todd (1993)
1.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.”
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.
Do these designs meet the test?
Or these common practices?
Urban Ecology – how should we approach it ???
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!
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).
Source:
http://www.esf.edu/erfeg/end
reny/papers/EndrenyIJWRD-2004.pdf
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

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%
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.”
Structure ???
1) The composition of the biological community
including species, numbers, biomass, life history
and distribution in space of populations.
2) The quantity and distribution of the abiotic
(non-living) materials such as nutrients,
water, etc.
3) The range, or gradient, of conditions of
existence such as temperature, light, etc.
Function ???
1. 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.
2. The rate of material or nutrient cycling, that is,
the biogeochemical cycles.
3. The biological or ecological regulation including both
regulation of organisms by environment and
regulation of environment by organisms.
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