Ecological perspective
Contents
Ecological perspective
The “ecological” perspective refers to the question of what happens socially as a consequence of the exposure of people to built environments[1]. Ecosystems including humans living in cities and urban environments are characterized by specific interactions. ”Urban ecology” describes the relationships between human and ecological processes and how they can co-exist[2]. Societies and urban planners are increasingly challenged to put additional efforts in developing sustainable, resource-friendly and less resource-dependent systems to ensure long-term functioning of the urban ecosystems.
- Environmental consequences from new buildings/installations etc. influence citizens’ perception, which in turn influences social behaviour and reaction to both risk and security measures.
- This is especially challenging when planning ‘secure’ urban area and infrastructure. Secure urban design must be socially and ecologically sound.
- Urban planning is particularly forced to consider sustainable concepts to safeguard public health by reducing health risks or technical risks, but also intentional risks such as crime and terrorism emerging from the built environment.
- Further security related ecological factors resulting from built environments are climate change and weather related natural hazards, demographic changes, population growth, urbanization, increasing mobility and rising propagation speed of threats. Tey are considered to pose major threats to society, its functioning and the built environment itself, or cause shifts in geographic scale of threats and disasters[3].
Approaches how to address it
- Consider and use sustainable material;
- Prefer environmentally and ecologically sound material and construction concepts;
- Consider secure urban area and new planning concepts to be socially (and ecologically) sound;
- Consider ecological concepts in technical projects/solutions;
- Consider future social and environmental needs.
Related subjects
Footnotes and references
- ↑ W. Michelson: Influence of sociology on urban design. In: T. Banerjee/A. Loukaitou-Sideris(eds.): Companion to Urban Design. London/New York: Routledge, 2011, pp. 125-136.
- ↑ Marzluff, J., Shulenberger, E., Endlicher, W., Alberti, M., Bradley, G., Ryan, C., ZumBrunnen, C., Simon, U. (2008): Urban Ecology. An International Perspective on the Interaction Between Humans and Nature. New York: Springer.; Alberti M. (2008): Advances in Urban Ecology. Integrating Humans and Ecological Processes in Urban Ecosystems. Berlin: Springer.
- ↑ OECD 2003: Emerging Risks in the 21st Century. An Agenda for Action. OECD Publication Service Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development: Paris. Retrieved from http://www.unisdr.org/eng/library/Literature/7754.pdf [2011-01-28].; IFRC (2010): World Disasters Report 2010. Focus on urban risks. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies: Geneva. Retrieved from: http://www.ifrc.org/Global/Publications/disasters/WDR/WDR2010-full.pdf [2011-07-18].
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