Advancing understanding of the complex nature of urban systems

verfasst von

Timon McPhearson, Dagmar Haase, Nadja Kabisch, Åsa Gren

Abstract

Cities and urbanized regions are complex, dynamic, and highly integrated systems linking social, ecological, and technical infrastructure domains in ways that create deep challenges for good governance, policymaking, and planning. The combination of impacts from climate change in cities, air pollution, rapid population growth, multiple sources of development pressure and overall urban system complexity make it difficult for decision-makers to develop and guide development trajectories along more livable, equitable, and at the same time, more resilient pathways. Advancing urban sustainability and resilience agendas requires expanding the scope of inter- and trans-disciplinarity approaches, moving beyond the historically separate social–ecological and socio-technical approaches to jointly study social–ecological–technical infrastructure systems in cities. We take urban complexity as a given and suggest that in both research and practice we need to better capture and understand feedbacks, interdependencies, and non-linearities which create uncertainties and challenge the efficacy of governance practices to achieve normative goals for society. Here, we explore new methods, tools, and approaches to advance our understanding of urban system complexity through a series of journal special issue articles that examine urban structure–function relationships, urban sustainability transitions, green space availability, social–ecological memory, functional traits, and urban land use scenarios.

Externe Organisation(en)

New School University
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Helmholtz Zentrum München - Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt
Deutsches Zentrum für integrative Biodiversitätsforschung (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Typ

Editorial in Fachzeitschrift

Journal

Ecological indicators

Band

70

Seiten

566-573

Anzahl der Seiten

8

ISSN

1470-160X

Publikationsdatum

01.11.2016

Publikationsstatus

Veröffentlicht

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Entscheidungswissenschaften (insg.), Ökologie, Evolution, Verhaltenswissenschaften und Systematik, Ökologie

Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung

SDG 11 – Nachhaltige Städte und Gemeinschaften, SDG 13 – Klimaschutzmaßnahmen, SDG 15 – Lebensraum Land, SDG 16 – Frieden, Gerechtigkeit und starke Institutionen

Elektronische Version(en)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.03.054 (Zugang: Geschlossen)