Effects of Increasing Urbanization on the Ecological Integrity of Open Space Preserves

Esbah, Hayriye; Cook, Edward A.; Ewan, Joseph

doi:10.1007/s00267-009-9274-z

Cited by 50 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 52 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The increase in open space and greenspace in a residential neighborhood can also provide a variety of social and ecological benefits to its residents [38][39][40][41]. In addition, the living environment of residential neighborhoods can benefit from building high-rise apartments in some aspects [42].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sixty-Year Changes in Residential Landscapes in Beijing: A Perspective from Both the Horizontal (2D) and Vertical (3D) Dimensions

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Landscape changes associated with urbanization can lead to many serious ecological and environmental problems. Quantifying the vertical structure of the urban landscape and its change is important to understand its social and ecological impacts, but previous studies mainly focus on urban horizontal expansion and its impacts on land cover/land use change. This papers focuses on the residential landscape to investigate how the vertical dimension of the urban landscape (i.e., building height) change through time, and how such change is related to changes in the horizontal dimension of the landscape, using Beijing, the capital of China, as a case study. We quantified the expansion of the residential neighborhoods from 1949 to 2009, and changes in vegetation coverage, building density, and building height within these neighborhoods, using 1 m spatial resolution imagery. One-way ANOVA and correlation analysis were used to examine the relationships of building height to vegetation coverage and building density. We found: (1) The residential areas expanded rapidly and were dominated by outward growth, with much less within-city infilling. The growth rate varied greatly through time, first increasing from 1949-2004 and then decreasing from [2005][2006][2007][2008][2009]. The expansion direction of newly built residential neighborhoods shifted from west to north in a clockwise direction. (2) The vertical structure of residential neighborhoods changed with time and varied in space, forming a "low-high" pattern from urban central areas to the urban edges within the 5th ring road of Beijing. (3) The residential neighborhoods built in different time periods had significant differences in vegetation coverage, building density, and building height. The residential neighborhoods built in more recent years tended to have taller buildings, lower building density and lower vegetation coverage.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sixty-Year Changes in Residential Landscapes in Beijing: A Perspective from Both the Horizontal (2D) and Vertical (3D) Dimensions

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Considering the effects of urbanization on ecological processes, planning recommendations have been widely proposed to support policy-making. Encouraging environmentally compatible land uses and improving the connectivity between land use types could be useful for Changchun City [61]. The study of urban expansion, along with the needs of ecological protection and food security, embodies the multi-directional complexity of urban organisms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ecological Security Pattern and Its Constraint on Urban Expansion of a Black Soil Farming Area in Northeast China

Liu

Wang

et al. 2017

IJGI

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Rapid urbanization in China has increased the demand of land resources for urban areas and caused a series of environmental problems. Ecological security under the pressure of urban sprawl has become one typical indicator for illustrating regional environmental conditions and thus inform urban development. As an important farming area and one of the core economic development regions in northeast China, Changchun City is now confronted with severe contradictions between economic growth, habitat conservation and food security. Therefore, with the aim of developing an approach to optimize a regional ecological security pattern and land use structure, this study built a comprehensive ecological security pattern taking into account regional ecological processes including water regulation, soil and water conservation, species protection and recreation. Three patterns of ecological security were identified responding to different levels of ecological conservation: the basic security pattern, the buffer security pattern and the optimal security pattern. Based on the constraint of the ecological security pattern, the preservation area of prime farmland was added to an urban expansion suitability pattern as an additional constraint to simulate scenarios of urban expansion. The results indicate that the basic security pattern covers an area of 374.23 km 2 , accounting for 19.27% of the total area of Changchun City. This pattern is considered as the ecological baseline that maintains the basic ecological functions, and it is the area where ecological land cannot be occupied for construction purposes. Furthermore, co-constrained by the preservation area of prime farmland, the ecological conservation area, the ecological restriction area and the suitable development area are 190.34 km 2 , 384.75 km 2 and 152.83 km 2 , respectively, accounting for 9.80%, 19.80% and 7.87% of the total area. It can be concluded that the suitable expansion area for the city is relatively limited when the conservation of farmland and regional ecological environment is considered. Therefore, positive actions such as industrial structure transformation and land use efficiency improvements should be perceived as a preferable pathway for urban development to balance economic growth, and regional ecological and food security.

show abstract

“…Urban green spaces can be important elements contributing to urban sustainability (Esbah et al 2009) and ecosystem services, because they can contribute to the reduction of various types of pollution, the improvement of microclimate conditions, the absorption of stormwaters, and the prevention of flooding (Georgi and Dimitriou 2010). In particular, in cases where urban green space includes not only grass but also trees, the contributions to the above functions of urban green spaces increase.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Conversely, it permits the sun to shine through the branches during the winter. Furthermore, the spaces are an effective way of protecting significant features and scenic views, as well as providing buffers for differing land uses and valuable spaces for urban wildlife (Esbah et al 2009). They shelter the native flora and fauna and help maintain native biodiversity (Esbah et al 2009), and offer important harbours for remnant urban wildlife (Kong et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, loss and isolation of habitats due to urbanisation threaten biodiversity and warrant limits on development (Kong et al 2010). If these areas become separated from one another by barriers such as large expanses of buildings and other human structures, species extinction may occur (Esbah et al 2009), because the majority of the remnant urban wildlife is located in small fragments of indigenous vegetation that have been set aside during development (Rudd et al 2002). These fragments are commonly subject to high levels of disturbance, due to the nature of human activities undertaken within or adjacent to these areas (FernandezJuricic 2000;Marzluff and Ewing 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Developing urban green spaces for biodiversity: a review

Ishimatsu¹,

Ito²,

Mitani³

2012

Landscape Ecology and Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Urban green spaces, which are important for human and wildlife in the urban area, have changed into man-made spaces. Increased urbanisation has had and continues to have a negative impact on urban green spaces, and affects the urban microclimate as represented by 'Urban Heat Island (UHI)' phenomena. Especially, habitat fragmentation can be extreme within urban ecosystems, and fragments of natural vegetation may be too small or even too isolated to support some species. Therefore, the networks, which offer habitats and corridors that help conserve biodiversity, are also important to maintain the ecological services of a sustainable urban landscape, as well as total green area. However, there are rarely enough open spaces due to urban densification. This is why rooftops of buildings, which had not previously been regarded as spaces for planting for vegetation, have been utilised as a type of open space, and so green roofing has become one of the gradually developing fields of urban ecological engineering. This present paper aims to explore the potential of rooftops as habitats of urban wildlife comparing cases in Japan and UK, and pave the way for a preservation of urban biodiversity under restricted urban environmental conditions. As a result, it was suggested that Japanese green roof industries consider the concept of brown/biodiverse roofs instead of extensive roofs with sedum or lawn. At the same time, intensive roofs should be efficiently installed to provide 'stepping stone' in urban areas not having enough open space. If possible, however, to create habitats on the ground is more preferable than on the rooftop due to accessibility. Finally, if impervious spaces (e.g., concrete and asphalt) are replaced with pervious spaces (e.g., green area or brownfield), it is significant for not only urban biodiversity but also UHI.

show abstract

Effects of Increasing Urbanization on the Ecological Integrity of Open Space Preserves

Cited by 50 publications

References 52 publications

Sixty-Year Changes in Residential Landscapes in Beijing: A Perspective from Both the Horizontal (2D) and Vertical (3D) Dimensions

Sixty-Year Changes in Residential Landscapes in Beijing: A Perspective from Both the Horizontal (2D) and Vertical (3D) Dimensions

The Ecological Security Pattern and Its Constraint on Urban Expansion of a Black Soil Farming Area in Northeast China

Developing urban green spaces for biodiversity: a review

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About