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The twelve site-based research groups: Bangalore and New Delhi, Cape Town and Johannesburg, Canberra, Helsinki, Istanbul, Chicago, New Orleans, New York City, Phoenix and Stockholm.
Urban social-ecological systems and globalization
Urbanization and the transformation of rural, peri-urban and urban landscapes present great challenges to ensure human well-being and a livable environment.
The 'Urban Network' consists of twelve site-based research groups in Bangalore and New Delhi (India), Cape Town and Johannesburg (South Africa), Canberra (Australia), Helsinki (Finland), Istanbul (Turkey), Chicago, New Orleans, New York City and Phoenix (U.S.A.) and Stockholm (Sweden).
Urbanization and urban growth are global multidimensional processes manifested through in-migration, city boundaries being moved, and population densities increasing. They give rise to changes in the use of land and various other resources and to altered interaction between humans and other species. Cities function as 'heat islands', thereby contributing to global warming. The continuous increase in the number and size of urban regions and the ensuing transformation of landscapes pose challenges to ensure human welfare and a livable, sustainable environment. Urban regions are hubs of services, knowledge, capital and innovation that offer solutions for humans and the environment, but they also create great demands for resources such as fresh water and generate large volumes of waste. To plan and develop infrastructure, basic amenities and health care systems put governments and civil society to the test. Research
The Urban Network is an interdisciplinary group of researchers spread over twelve cities on five continents. The group has agreed on a set of common research questions including the following:
- What are the effects of urban development and land-use change on biodiversity and ecosystem service delivery? How are different socio-economic groups affected by environmental changes in urban regions? - How do existing institutions, jurisdictions and legal systems in the urban areas impact on the delivery of, and access to, ecosystem services such as drinking water, clean air, recreation, etc.? - What are the mechanisms linking science, policy and practice that could contribute to urban sustainability? Urban Social-Ecological Atlas
The first common deliverable of the urban network research will be an 'Urban Social-Ecological Atlas (pdf, 300 kB)' presenting the perspective, focus and work characteristic of each of the participating urban sites but also providing lessons learnt and methodologies useful for scaling up and replication. The scale employed takes into account the actual urban milieu (as delimited by the municipality border), the relevant ecological scale and also a larger, coarser scale which takes into account distant flows of services. The focus lies on three services across all sites:
- Freshwater services,
- Carbon sequestration, and
- Recreation and other cultural services.
The project will run through 2008 and 2009 and result in a book finished during 2010. More importantly, the Atlas will to a large extent utilize Geographical Information System (GIS) and remote sensing classification of the urban landscapes. Throughout the Project, the results will be available for the participating researchers via an internet-based interactive urban map portal. Successively, this portal will be made open also to the public.
The cross-site comparisons of services will be supplemented by narratives, descriptions of the cities which provide a richer context and point to the relevant complexities behind the hard data.
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