Understanding how urban ecosystems function.

Understanding urban ecosystems

Urban areas have not traditionally been the focus for ecological research, but unless we understand how urban ecosystems function, we will not be able to manage them effectively.

• 1 November 2007 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Ecology of the urban environment
• Project: measuring and monitoring urban ecology
• Canberra field test and evaluation

Ecology of the urban environment

Urban areas have not traditionally been a focus for ecological research.

Most urban research in the past has studied particular plants, animals or remnants in an urban environment, rather than studying urban environments as ecosystems in their own right and investigating the ecological processes within them.

Unless we understand how urban ecosystems function, we will not be able to manage them to:

• improve planning outcomes in new developments or
• effectively retrofit or adequately plan for sustainable renewal in older suburbs.

Project: measuring and monitoring urban ecology

Underpinning our research is an ecosystem-based approach and the concept of hierarchical organisation, where we will measure and interpret function and process at different scales and across patches within the landscape.

We are interested in quantifying dynamic ecological processes, such as the movement of water and nutrients through urban ecosystems, at as fine a scale as necessary.

The focus is on how these processes affect and are affected by structure in vegetation, both natural and synthetic, and the complex interplay of vegetation with other biodiversity values.

The project links process to pattern through remote sensing and the investigation of urban functional types.

The theory and use of surrogate measurements of biodiversity for State of Environment (SoE) reporting will form a component in this analysis.

A set of inter-related questions are being investigated:

• are urban ecosystems distinctly different from forest ecosystems or agro-ecosystems in relation to ecological function such that measuring and quantifying function requires specific approaches, or is the difference in degree rather than type of function?
  
  
• what aspects of ecological function should be measured in urban ecosystems from a scientific, natural resource management and community perspective?
  
  
• are there robust surrogate measures of urban ecological function?

The scientific interpretation used will be based on an understanding of patch dynamics, the existence of potential multiple stable states for any given function and a number of concepts and hypotheses dealing with the resilience of urban ecosystems.

Canberra field test and evaluation

Our approach is being developed and field tested in Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory, with the aim of contributing to the scientific understanding and practical implementation of targets in the priority areas of:

• biodiversity (urban ecological function)
• water quality and flow (water sensitive urban design)
• community building (monitoring, evaluation and reporting training). 

It will also be valuable for thinking more broadly about urban areas as ecological-social systems as more and more of Australia’s population resides in urban areas.

The project, due for completion by June 2008, is expected to deliver information that can be used in urban planning and management by evaluating such measures as:

• landscape function (water flows, erosion potential, perenniality of vegetation)
• habitat complexity (suitability of vegetation structure for wildlife)
• carbon sequestration and nutrient/pollutant sinks (urban forest models)
• green space patterns in relation to biodiversity and human population density.

The project has received funding support through the:

• Natural Heritage Trust
• National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality via the ACT Natural Resource Management Action Plan.

Read about Creating urban sustainability.