{"id":116,"date":"2016-08-03T10:01:52","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T08:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/lst\/?p=116"},"modified":"2016-08-03T10:41:12","modified_gmt":"2016-08-03T08:41:12","slug":"landscape-sustainability-science-why-what-and-how-in-a-nutshell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/lst\/landscape-sustainability-science-why-what-and-how-in-a-nutshell\/","title":{"rendered":"Landscape sustainability science: Why, what, and how in a nutshell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why landscape sustainability science?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Sustainability is the theme of our time.\u00a0 From academia to societal and political arenas sustainability has become a buzzword.\u00a0 Why is it so?\u00a0 Given the numerous environmental and socioeconomic challenges humanity is faced with, this is more of a necessity than a choice.<\/p>\n

Like other fundamental concepts such as freedom, democracy, and justice, sustainability is difficult to be defined specifically.\u00a0 However, its general idea is clear: meeting human needs while maintaining ecosystems, balancing development with conservation, or achieving both intra- and inter-generational equity.<\/p>\n

As a concept, sustainability is more useful as a process (a journey) than an endpoint (a destination).\u00a0 A journey without destination is wandering blindly, and a destination without journey means no action. \u00a0How do we succeed on the journey of sustainability?\u00a0 We need beacons, step-stones, or handles.\u00a0 We need a new kind of science that produces \u201cactionable\u201d knowledge.\u00a0 Sustainability science fits the bill.<\/p>\n

Sustainability needs to be achieved globally, but global sustainability has to depend on sustainability at national, regional, and local scales.<\/strong>\u00a0 While all these scales are important, regional landscapes (e.g., metropolitan regions or large geographic areas with multiple local landscapes of different primary functions) provide a pivotal scale domain for studying and practicing sustainability.<\/p>\n

Landscapes are land mosaics in which we live, work, and play and through which the local and global processes are bio physically linked.\u00a0 Landscapes provide a common platform for scientists, land designers\/planners, policy makers, and stakeholders to collaborate on sustainability issues that matter to all.<\/p>\n

What is landscape sustainability science?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If the previous arguments make sense, then a science for landscape sustainability is needed.\u00a0 How should we define such a science so that it can bridge gaps in, and provide handles on, sustainability research on the ground?\u00a0 This was the key question addressed in Wu (2013<\/a>).\u00a0 Based on a number of key concepts in the recent literature on landscape ecology and sustainability, I defined \u201clandscape sustainability\u201d as the dynamic capacity of a landscape to consistently provide long-term ecosystem services essential for maintaining human well-being in a regional context and in the face of environmental and sociocultural changes.\u00a0 Then landscape sustainability science (LSS) is a place-based, use-inspired science of understanding and improving the relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being in changing landscapes (Wu, 2013<\/a>).<\/p>\n

A key premise of LSS is that the composition and spatial arrangement of the \u201cland mosaic\u201d, which consists of both visible biophysical and invisible socioeconomic patches and networks, affect, and are affected by, flows of organisms, material, energy, and information (i.e., landscape functions).\u00a0 Both landscape structure and functions in turn determine ecosystem services (benefits that people derive from ecosystems).\u00a0 For this, abundant evidence exists in landscape ecology and related fields.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
An old Dutch windmill<\/div>
<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another premise of LSS is that ecosystem services from a regional landscape are important to human well-being therein.\u00a0 Historically, people have derived most resources for survival from local landscapes.\u00a0 Even for modern urban regions, a diversity of local regulating (e.g., cleaning air, purifying water, and modulating climate) and cultural services (e.g., recreation and aesthetics) are essential to the human well-being of local residents.<\/p>\n

Still another premise of LSS is that landscape sustainability can be enhanced by improving landscape patterns through land system design.\u00a0 Much research is needed in this area, requiring collaborations among natural, social, engineering\/design\/planning sciences, as well as participation from stakeholders.\u00a0 For sustainable land system design to succeed, both bottom-up processes and top-down regulations are essential, and both global and local scales need to be considered.<\/p>\n

Moving forward<\/strong><\/h2>\n

One may dismiss LSS because most urban landscapes\/regions cannot sustain themselves alone.\u00a0 In subsistence economies, people obtain most if not all of their resources for survival locally.\u00a0 The ecological footprint of a modern city, however, greatly exceeds its physical size.\u00a0 So what\u2019s the point to even talk about landscape sustainability (or urban sustainability for that matter)?<\/p>\n

In fact, the observation of unsustainable cities and regions is arguably the most compelling reason why we need to study and practice landscape sustainability to minimize regional unsustainability<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If a city relies on distant places for basic human needs, it is unsustainable.\u00a0 To make it more sustainable, its ecological footprint must be reduced.\u00a0 An obvious way to do that is to increase ecosystem services from its region in which the city resides.<\/p>\n

Urbanization and globalization have transformed humans as a species and the earth as a planet.\u00a0 The ecological footprint of humanity, from the individual to the global society, has been expanding at an accelerating rate.\u00a0 The trend still continues.\u00a0 In the same time, the identity or distinctiveness of our places and cultures diminishes in many ways.\u00a0 None of these helps our goal of achieving a sustainable future.<\/p>\n

Landscape sustainability science does not promote \u201clocalization\u201d socially or politically, but it does emphasize both reducing ecological footprints and enhancing ecosystem services from the regional landscape.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

LSS aims to provide knowledge for making our landscapes more sustainable in the face of urbanization, globalization, and climate change.\u00a0 As Richard Forman (2014) put it, \u201cHaving a city live in balance with resources of its urban region.\u00a0 Or in balance with its present ecological footprint, or even shrinking the footprint.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is it possible to have a sustainable world in which nations depend heavily on each other for basic resources for good life?\u00a0 Is it possible to have a sustainable nation in which cities have footprints overlapping or even going beyond its border?\u00a0 Is it possible to have a sustainable city whose life depends on sucking resources from afar?\u00a0 None of these is possible on a time scale that sustainability requires.\u00a0 Then we need to \u201cthink like a landscape\u201d!<\/p>\n

Read full journal\u00a0article:\u00a0Landscape sustainability science: ecosystem services and human well-being in changing landscapes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sustainability needs to be achieved globally, but global sustainability has to depend on sustainability at national, regional, and local scales, writes Jingle who notes the importance of regional landscapes for studying sustainability. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":323,"featured_media":117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,30,29,25,24,32,22,27,28,26],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-arizona","tag-arizona-state-university","tag-jingle","tag-land-sustainability","tag-landscape","tag-life-science","tag-life-science-blog","tag-sdgs","tag-sustainability-science","tag-sustainable-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/lst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/lst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/lst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/lst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/323"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/lst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/lst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/lst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/lst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/lst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/lst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}