CSIRO's Dr Xuemei Bai in Canberra, Australia

Ecologists must join humanity’s rush to the cities

Reference: 08/20

Cities are responsible for so many of the sustainability challenges faced by our urbanising world, but urban ecologists can help unlock the benefits of city living, say researchers in today’s issue of Science.

• 8 February 2008

Urban environments act as microcosms of the challenges faced globally, which makes them real world laboratories for understanding and responding to change, concludes a team of ecologists from CSIRO, Arizona State University and the New Zealand Centre for Ecological Economics.

“As ecologists, the natural environment has traditionally been our main concern, but cities affect and are affected by changes in climate, land use, water and biodiversity,” says CSIRO’s Xuemei Bai, co-author of the paper.

“Cities are more than just planned spaces. Planners, engineers and architects should be working with urban ecologists to design, develop and redevelop projects suited to these complex, adapting and evolving environments.

“Because cities are largely designed ecosystems, we have an opportunity to use ecological principles in creating urban living and working spaces, housing developments, open spaces, and aquatic environments that can sustain biodiversity and ecosystem function, while also providing important ecosystem services on which the city's population depends.”

More than 60 per cent of Australia’s population now lives in our five largest cities. Although urban population growth over the past century occurred on less than three per cent of the Earth’s surface, the impact has been global, with 78 per cent of carbon emissions, 60 per cent of residential water use, and 76 per cent of wood used for industrial purposes attributed to cities.

Original, effective responses to our urban environments – humanity’s primary home – are urgently needed, and urban ecologists are uniquely placed to take us forward.

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(interviews available in English, Chinese and Japanese)