From fail-safe to safe-to-fail: Sustainability and resilience in the new urban world

Ahern, Jack

doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2011.02.021

Cited by 991 publications

(616 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…In most contemporary cities, what is in place today was largely deployed over the past century during the era of the "Sanitary City" [34], when less was known about the environmental, social, and climate change impacts of the physical design of systems. Gray infrastructure was built to protect against environmental hazards by, in general, overdesigning or designing to control the environmental factors [35]. This reduced the likelihood that infrastructure would fail-a "fail safe" goal.…”

Section: Design Infrastructure and Sustainable Urban Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Ecology for Cities: A Transformational Nexus of Design and Ecology to Advance Climate Change Resilience and Urban Sustainability

et al. 2015

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Cities around the world are facing an ever-increasing variety of challenges that seem to make more sustainable urban futures elusive. Many of these challenges are being driven by, and exacerbated by, increases in urban populations and climate change. Novel solutions are needed today if our cities are to have any hope of more sustainable and resilient futures. Because most of the environmental impacts of any project are manifest at the point of design, we posit that this is where a real difference in urban development can be made. To this end, we present a transformative model that merges urban design and ecology into an inclusive, creative, knowledge-to-action process. This design-ecology nexus-an ecology for cities-will redefine both the process and its products. In this paper we: (1) summarize the relationships among design, infrastructure, and urban development, emphasizing the importance of joining the three to achieve urban climate resilience and enhance sustainability; (2) discuss how urban ecology can move from an ecology of cities OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2015, 7 3775 to an ecology for cities based on a knowledge-to-action agenda; (3) detail our model for a transformational urban design-ecology nexus, and; (4) demonstrate the efficacy of our model with several case studies.

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Section: Design Infrastructure and Sustainable Urban Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Ecology for Cities: A Transformational Nexus of Design and Ecology to Advance Climate Change Resilience and Urban Sustainability

et al. 2015

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“…Ahern (2011Ahern ( , 2013 describes the concept of planning a landscape as a green infrastructure where landscape ecology has a central role in providing tools to understand, model and manage the frequency, magnitude and extent of urban ecosystem dynamics. The main principles of the landscape ecology approach that are relevant to the implementation of a green infrastructure in urban landscape planning are: (a) a landscape-scale approach with an explicit recognition of the relationships between pattern and process and an emphasis on structural and functional connectivity (Botequilha Leitao & Ahern 2002, Ndubisi 2002; (b) a multifunctional approach which aims to combine and link different ecosystem services with a connectivity dependent function (i.e., in relation to human health (recreation) and secure intact ecological systems and biodiversity) and, in that way, use the limited urban space more effectively (Ahern 2011, Lafortezza et al 2013a). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The concept of green infrastructure and urban landscape planning: a challenge for urban forestry planning in Belgrade, Serbia

Vasiljevic¹,

Radić²,

Gavrilović³

et al. 2018

iForest

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The beginning of the 21 st century has witnessed a growth in our understanding of the importance of planning urban landscapes in the context of urban population growth and unpredictable climatic conditions. In the search for responses to the challenges set by the development of contemporary urban landscapes, researchers have offered solutions based on the concept of sustainable and resilient cities, whose spatial development would be based on an interdisciplinary approach to strategy development: biodiversity, urban ecological networks and connectivity, multifunctionality and modularity. Although the concepts of a green infrastructure, in their spatial and functional dimensions, allow the application of such strategies, there are still problems when it comes to implementation and measuring the results achieved. At the same time, there is a growing discussion of the important role played by urban forestry in the context of the collaborative planning of urban landscapes and the application of the ideas of a green infrastructure. The key question is: what are the modalities of application of the concept of green infrastructure in the process of planning the development of the modern city and how can the resulting benefits be evaluated? With the modalities of application of the concept of green infrastructure in mind, we discuss its multi-scale and multifunctional dimensions as applied in the case of Serbia. The realisation of the green infrastructure concept is presented through the example of the Urban Forest Management Plan for the City of Belgrade -Mladenovac Municipality. The results of using the spatial-ecological approach in creating the plan and establishing connectivity as a new aim in forest management planning show that the implementation of the green infrastructure concept, and the achieved multifunctional ecosystem values, can be presented on the basis of the parameters of landscape metrics. In light of the new urban world, future research should focus on the application of the landscape ecological approach of the green infrastructure concept in collaborative planning at the urban landscape scale, which allows the creation of ecosystem services and benefits to human wellbeing.

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“…Numerous barriers to the development of such frameworks are preventing implementation and up-scaling ( Figure 1). Adoption of a 'learning-by-doing' approach based on science-practice collaboration and cross-disciplinary cooperation has been identified as a key component of unlocking these barriers (Ahern, 2011;Hansen and Pauleit, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Renaturing cities using a regionally-focused biodiversity-led multifunctional benefits approach to urban green infrastructure

Connop

Vandergert

Eisenberg

et al. 2016

Environmental Science & Policy

242

105

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Renaturing cities using a regionally-focused biodiversity-led multifunctional benefits approach to urban green infrastructure AbstractIf a 'Renaturing of Cities' strategy is to maximise the ecosystem service provision of urban green infrastructure (UGI), then detailed consideration of a habitat services, biodiversity-led approach and multifunctionality are necessary rather than relying on the assumed benefits of UGI per se. The paper presents preliminary data from three case studies, two in England and one in Germany, that explore how multifunctionality can be achieved, the stakeholders required, the usefulness of an experimental approach for demonstrating transformation, and how this can be fed back into policy. We argue that incorporating locally contextualised biodiversity-led UGI design into the planning and policy spheres contributes to the functioning and resilience of the city and provides the adaptability to respond to locally contextualised challenges, such as overheating, flooding, air pollution, health and wellbeing as well as biodiversity loss. Framing our research to encompass both the science of biodiversity-led UGI and co-developing methods for incorporating a strategic approach to implementation of biodiversity-led UGI by planners and developers addresses a gap in current knowledge and begins to address barriers to UGI implementation. By combining scientific with policy learning and defined urban environmental targets with community needs, our research to date has begun to demonstrate how nature-based solutions to building resilience and adaptive governance can be strategically incorporated within cities through UGI. Highlights• Three case studies of novel urban green infrastructure implementation are presented• Effective multifunctional approaches to green infrastructure design demonstrated• That biodiversity should be an intrinsic consideration in design is illustrated• Local context and multi-stakeholder approach to design and management are integral

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From fail-safe to safe-to-fail: Sustainability and resilience in the new urban world

Cited by 991 publications

References 6 publications

An Ecology for Cities: A Transformational Nexus of Design and Ecology to Advance Climate Change Resilience and Urban Sustainability

An Ecology for Cities: A Transformational Nexus of Design and Ecology to Advance Climate Change Resilience and Urban Sustainability

The concept of green infrastructure and urban landscape planning: a challenge for urban forestry planning in Belgrade, Serbia

Renaturing cities using a regionally-focused biodiversity-led multifunctional benefits approach to urban green infrastructure

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