Advancing understanding of the complex nature of urban systems

McPhearson, Timon; Haase, Dagmar; Kabisch, Nadja; Gren, Åsa

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.03.054

Cited by 229 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Stokols () also emphasizes the importance of interconnections, as in this paper, though the bounding of those elements may differ. Other existing literature on SETS primarily focus on definitions and conceptual framing (Grabowski et al, ; Grimm et al, ; Hale et al, ; Krumme, ; McPhearson et al, ; Ramaswami et al, ) or discuss the three components independently. Similar to analysis by Tellman et al (), we expand on existing SETS literature by directly applying the SETS lens to infrastructure development and management, particularly in relation to identifying maladaptive lock‐in processes and establishing approaches to help infrastructure adapt to the effects of extreme events.…”

Section: Sets Characteristics and Challenges For Infrastructure Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interdependent Infrastructure as Linked Social, Ecological, and Technological Systems (SETSs) to Address Lock‐in and Enhance Resilience

et al. 2018

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Traditional infrastructure adaptation to extreme weather events (and now climate change) has typically been techno‐centric and heavily grounded in robustness—the capacity to prevent or minimize disruptions via a risk‐based approach that emphasizes control, armoring, and strengthening (e.g., raising the height of levees). However, climate and nonclimate challenges facing infrastructure are not purely technological. Ecological and social systems also warrant consideration to manage issues of overconfidence, inflexibility, interdependence, and resource utilization—among others. As a result, techno‐centric adaptation strategies can result in unwanted tradeoffs, unintended consequences, and underaddressed vulnerabilities. Techno‐centric strategies that lock‐in today's infrastructure systems to vulnerable future design, management, and regulatory practices may be particularly problematic by exacerbating these ecological and social issues rather than ameliorating them. Given these challenges, we develop a conceptual model and infrastructure adaptation case studies to argue the following: (1) infrastructure systems are not simply technological and should be understood as complex and interconnected social, ecological, and technological systems (SETSs); (2) infrastructure challenges, like lock‐in, stem from SETS interactions that are often overlooked and underappreciated; (3) framing infrastructure with a SETS lens can help identify and prevent maladaptive issues like lock‐in; and (4) a SETS lens can also highlight effective infrastructure adaptation strategies that may not traditionally be considered. Ultimately, we find that treating infrastructure as SETS shows promise for increasing the adaptive capacity of infrastructure systems by highlighting how lock‐in and vulnerabilities evolve and how multidisciplinary strategies can be deployed to address these challenges by broadening the options for adaptation.

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Section: Sets Characteristics and Challenges For Infrastructure Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interdependent Infrastructure as Linked Social, Ecological, and Technological Systems (SETSs) to Address Lock‐in and Enhance Resilience

et al. 2018

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“…The capacity of interacting social, ecological, and technical infrastructure components of complex systems to buffer and adapt to various climate‐driven changes is a significant issue facing decision‐makers. Therefore, we use a recently developed SETS framework (Grabowski et al, ; Grimm et al, ; McPhearson et al, , ) for considering definitions of extreme events in multiple types of systems. There is a need to understand these interdependencies and how various extreme events will intersect to create risk and vulnerability in complex and dynamic human‐dominated systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining Extreme Events: A Cross‐Disciplinary Review

et al. 2018

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Extreme events are of interest worldwide given their potential for substantial impacts on social, ecological, and technical systems. Many climate‐related extreme events are increasing in frequency and/or magnitude due to anthropogenic climate change, and there is increased potential for impacts due to the location of urbanization and the expansion of urban centers and infrastructures. Many disciplines are engaged in research and management of these events. However, a lack of coherence exists in what constitutes and defines an extreme event across these fields, which impedes our ability to holistically understand and manage these events. Here, we review 10 years of academic literature and use text analysis to elucidate how six major disciplines—climatology, earth sciences, ecology, engineering, hydrology, and social sciences—define and communicate extreme events. Our results highlight critical disciplinary differences in the language used to communicate extreme events. Additionally, we found a wide range in definitions and thresholds, with more than half of examined papers not providing an explicit definition, and disagreement over whether impacts are included in the definition. We urge distinction between extreme events and their impacts, so that we can better assess when responses to extreme events have actually enhanced resilience. Additionally, we suggest that all researchers and managers of extreme events be more explicit in their definition of such events as well as be more cognizant of how they are communicating extreme events. We believe clearer and more consistent definitions and communication can support transdisciplinary understanding and management of extreme events.

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“…Today's urban environment is increasingly recognized as a complex ecosystem of socio-ecological-technological relationships -one in which the natural, built, and cultural environments cannot be understood, much less designed, in isolation. 1 This reconception of the contemporary city has created an opportunity for inclusiveness and collaboration between the disciplines of architecture and landscape. But despite two decades of landscape urbanism theory suggesting the emergence of a new hybrid discipline, landscape and architecture retain distinct pedagogies and practices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Ecology as Model and Method: Collaboration and Multidisciplinary Work

Carlisle¹,

Pevzner²

2018

106th ACSA Annual Meeting Proceedings, the Ethical Imperative

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Despite two decades of landscape urbanism theory suggesting the possibility of a shared project and a new hybrid discipline, the fields of landscape and architecture retain distinct pedagogies and practices. Many architects and landscape architects aspire to design within an expanded field of practice, but there is still quite a lot that architects and landscape architects misunderstand about each other's methods, techniques, and intellectual projects. Among these divisions, an over-reliance on objects has resulted in an underemphasis on systems, interactions, and context. Outdated conceptions of "nature" have limited both disciplines' agency to operate on socio-ecological designed landscapes. A shift in emphasis from objects to systems, and from pattern to function, may enable these disciplines to pursue a more functional design collaboration. Complex challenges facing tomorrow's cities will require the expertise of both architecture and landscape. Rather than merging into a hybrid discipline, architecture and landscape each have unique skills, modes and methods to offer. The real challenge is finding synthetic and radical forms of collaboration. The emerging field of urban ecology offers insights into how disparate disciplines may productively collaborate on a shared project of exploration and intervention without losing their disciplinary core, culture, methods, or perspective. With the urban environment increasingly recognized as a complex ecosystem of socio-ecological-technological relationships, urban ecology also offers new vocabulary and methodology for collaborative and interdisciplinary work on urban sites, with goals like ecological function, high performance, and ongoing long-term design engagement.

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Advancing understanding of the complex nature of urban systems

Cited by 229 publications

References 48 publications

Interdependent Infrastructure as Linked Social, Ecological, and Technological Systems (SETSs) to Address Lock‐in and Enhance Resilience

Interdependent Infrastructure as Linked Social, Ecological, and Technological Systems (SETSs) to Address Lock‐in and Enhance Resilience

Defining Extreme Events: A Cross‐Disciplinary Review

Urban Ecology as Model and Method: Collaboration and Multidisciplinary Work

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