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Although the integration of sustainability, ecology, and design has been recognized as necessary by scientists and practitioners, most transdisciplinary frameworks are not inclusive of the worldviews, paradigms, aims, processes, and components necessary for sustainability. Landscape sustainability science helps to focus scientist, scholar, practitioner, and stakeholder efforts toward sustainability at a pivotal level; however, collaboration and progress have been slow. Significant potential exists for design to be an integrative and transformational methodology toward landscape sustainability, yet it has not fulfilled this ambitious role. In this paper, we first build a case for regenerative development, a development and design methodology based on an ecological worldview, as an integrative platform for a new paradigm. This new paradigm, which we call regenerative landscape development, has the potential to thoroughly catalyze a shift toward regenerative sustainability. We then detail this new paradigm as a process that could continually enhance the capacities of living systems to increase health, well-being, and happiness. Next, to illustrate regenerative development in practice, we provide brief case studies of projects in Viña del Mar, Chile and Juluchuca, Guerrero, Mexico. Finally, we propose future recommendations and precautions in the construction of regenerative landscape development as a new paradigm. If fully understood, embraced, and realized, regenerative development holds incredible potential for a sustainable future.

Cities increasingly recognize the importance of shade to reduce heat stress and adopt urban forestry plans with ambitious canopy goals. Yet, the implementation of tree and shade plans often faces maintenance, water use, and infrastructure challenges. Understanding the performance of natural and non-natural shade is critical to support active shade management in the built environment. We conducted hourly transects in Tempe, Arizona with the mobile human-biometeorological station MaRTy on hot summer days to quantify the efficacy of various shade types. We sampled sun-exposed reference locations and shade types grouped by urban form, lightweight/engineered shade, and tree species over multiple ground surfaces. We investigated shade performance during the day, at peak incoming solar, peak air temperature, and after sunset using three thermal metrics: the difference between a shaded and sun-exposed location in air temperature (ΔTa), surface temperature (ΔTs), and mean radiant temperature (ΔTMRT). ΔTa did not vary significantly between shade groups, but ΔTMRT spanned a 50°C range across observations. At daytime, shade from urban form most effectively reduced Ts and TMRT, followed by trees and lightweight structures. Shade from urban form performed differently with changing orientation. Tree shade performance varied widely; native and palm trees were least effective, while non-native trees were most effective. All shade types exhibited heat retention (positive ΔTMRT) after sunset. Based on the observations, we developed characteristic shade performance curves that will inform the City of Tempe’s design guidelines towards using “the right shade in the right place” and form the basis for the development of microclimate zones (MCSz).

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Research on ecosystem services (ES) has largely focused on the ecological functions that produce services or the economic valuation of the benefits provided by ecosystems. Far less research has examined public perceptions of ES, and more so ecosystem disservices (EDS), despite evidence that ecosystem properties and functions can produce beneficial or detrimental outcomes for human well-being. To address this gap, we present a robust approach to measuring beliefs about ecosystem services and disservices. With various means to confirm the validity and reliability of ES and EDS measures, we demonstrate this approach with survey data that captures residents' perceptions about whether their local neighborhood environment (as the ecosystem of focus) provides certain positive or negative impacts in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona. The results highlight patterns in people's views of: desirable and undesirable biota; benefits and risks pertaining to heat and stormwater; recreational and aesthetic values; and societal nuisances and problems. Composite survey scales for overall perceptions of services and disservices are presented, in addition to more distinctive dimensions of ES and EDS. To better understand and manage ecosystems for diverse benefits, the specific survey measures and the general methodological approach can be adapted to various ecosystems and contexts.

Quantifying ecosystem services in urban areas is complex. However, existing ecosystem service typologies and ecosystem modeling can provide a means towards understanding some key biophysical links between urban forests and ecosystem services. This project addresses broader concepts of sustainability by assessing the urban park system in Phoenix, Arizona’s hot urban climate. This project aims to quantify and demonstrate the multiple ecosystem services provided by Phoenix’s green infrastructure (i.e., urban park system), including its air pollution removal values, carbon sequestration and storage, avoided runoff, structural value, and the energy savings it provides for city residents. Modeling of ecosystem services of the urban park system revealed around 517,000 trees within the system, representing a 7.20% tree cover. These trees remove about 3630 tons (t) of carbon (at an associated value of $285,000) and about 272 t of air pollutants (at an associated value of $1.16 million) every year. Trees within Phoenix’s urban park system are estimated to reduce annual residential energy costs by $106,000 and their structural value is estimated at $692 million. The findings of this research will increase our knowledge of the value of green infrastructure services provided by different types of urban vegetation and assist in the future design, planning and management of green infrastructure in cities. Thus, this study has implications for both policy and practice, contributing to a better understanding of the multiple benefits of green infrastructure and improving the design of green spaces in hot arid urban climates around the globe.

Extreme temperatures claim more lives than any other weather-related event, posing escalating socio-technical and governance challenges that few urban communities have addressed in a systematic, coordinated and comprehensive way. Scholars have only recently begun to investigate the granular scales at which distributions of thermal risk are produced, people's individual subjective thermal experiences and environmental justice dimensions of the hazard. Advances in research pave the way for concomitant improvements in management and policies, but bridges are needed to connect the thermal vulnerability knowledge base with place-based protective practices that are climatically, politically and culturally appropriate. The research presented in this paper uses actor-network theory (ANT) to describe the planning phase framework of a socio-technical collaborative for managing thermal extremes. The Thermally Resilient Communities Collaborative (TRCC) is a framework for planning and test-bed design phases of a thermal management system. Drawing lessons from two case studies, the framework examines how socio-cognitive spaces for collaboration change with technical and policy disruptions, and provides a way to design experiments that test how technical and governance interventions can enable collective action around urban thermal management. Practice relevanceThermal extremes claim more lives than all other weather events and pose an escalating socio-technical challenge. Often the problem is exacerbated by lack of clarity about organizational responsibilities and coordination between local governmental departments or agencies. The TRCC framework can be used to understand current practices, identify data gaps and create opportunities to engage in cross-sectoral management. This approach engages actors in identifying built environments and societal practices that create hazardous indoor and outdoor thermal conditions, develops effective ways to convey microclimate information and peoples' subjective thermal experiences to responders and prevention planners, and elevates experiences of marginalized communities. The TRCC describes how governance networks are harnessed to solve collective action problems by integrating new data, technology, and governance capacities. Two case studies indicate how this process was used to create capacities to protect vulnerable people from the impacts of extreme temperatures in two US cities: Tempe, Arizona, and Buffalo, New York.Thermally resilient communities 219 1. Background Thermal extremes pose an escalating socio-technical and governance challenge in cities across the globe. In the United States, prolonged periods of heat and cold claim more lives than all other weather-related events (Berko et al. 2014) and have significant impacts on urban ecosystems and infrastructure. Approximately 30% of the world's population is exposed to deadly heat and humidity for at least 20 days per year, and that percentage is expected to increase to 48-74% by 2100, depending on what emissions scenario occurs (M...

Sustainability is the new lens that many planning educators and practitioners employ in their efforts. We taught an undergraduate service-learning studio focused on neighborhood sustainability in Detroit, Michigan. To evaluate the course, we identified four desirable learning outcomes based on a modified environmental education framework. Students gained a sense of personal investment in the sustainability challenges faced by the community and developed a more nuanced understanding of the power relationships inherent in these issues. This educational framework can help instructors design and evaluate service-learning studios that highlight the embedded social justice issues in impoverished neighborhoods.