| Abstract: In two decades, what has landscape ecology provided for society? Two big things. First, it has developed, with inputs from diverse fields, a set of useful working principles that primarily integrate spatial pattern and ecology at the human scale of landscapes (occasionally regions). Second, landscape ecologists have collaborated with leaders in other fields dealing with land (especially forestry, conservation biology, landscape architecture, transportation, and urban planning) to actively integrate the above principles into solutions, which have created obvious synergies with landscape ecology. Urban regions are a current passion of mine. They keep popping up, with mushrooming populations and urban borders racing outward. Ecologists talk about urban deserts, while urbanists see hinterland out beyond. Effectively providing for natural systems and their human uses at a whole urban-region scale is tractable, and can become a primary rather than a minor goal in planning. I estimated that roughly 50% of the principles needed are from landscape ecology, the others from hydrology, transportation, community development, and more. Spreading cities is one of the four horsemen...along with water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and climate change...and it may catch us first. So, quo vadis, landscape ecology? Quite simply, landscape ecology (not water, economics, transportation, social patterns, bioconservation, or urban planning) is the most promising centerpiece or paradigm I can find for society's future, or a sustainable land. What centerpiece, and what balance of fields, would you use for the future? |