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Concept
Urban ecosystem
Summary
In ecology, urban ecosystems are considered a ecosystem functional group within the intensive land-use biome. They are structurally complex ecosystems with highly heterogeneous and dynamic spatial structure that is created and maintained by humans. They include cities, smaller settlements and industrial areas, that are made up of diverse patch types (e.g. buildings, paved surfaces, transport infrastructure, parks and gardens, refuse areas). Urban ecosystems rely on large subsidies of imported water, nutrients, food and other resources. Compared to other natural and artificial ecosystems human population density is high, and their interaction with the different patch types produces emergent properties and complex feedbacks among ecosystem components.
In socioecology, urban areas are considered part of a broader social-ecological system in which urban landscapes and urban human communities interact with other landscape elements. Urbanization has large impacts on human and environmental health, and the study of urban ecosystems has led to proposals for sustainable urban designs and approaches to development of city fringe areas that can help reduce negative impact on surrounding environments and promote human well-being.
Urban ecology is a relatively new field. Because of this, the research that has been done in this field has yet to become extensive. While there is still plenty of time for growth in the research of this field, there are some key issues and biases within the current research that still need to be addressed.
The article “A Review of Urban Ecosystem Services: Six Key Challenges for Future Research'' addresses the issue of geographical bias. According to this article, there is a significant geographical bias, “towards the northern hemisphere”. The article states that case study research is done primarily in the United States and China. It goes on to explain how future research would benefit from a more geographically diverse array of case studies.
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