TY - JOUR
T1 - Urban transitions
T2 - On urban resilience and human-dominated ecosystems
AU - Ernstson, Henrik
AU - Van Der Leeuw, Sander
AU - Redman, Charles
AU - Meffert, Douglas J.
AU - Davis, George
AU - Alfsen, Christine
AU - Elmqvist, Thomas
N1 - Funding Information:
In an effort to develop decision-support tools under these conditions of climate uncertainty and to form a bridging organization between university researchers and the many entities that manage water allocations and establish policy, the Decision Center for a Desert City (DCDC ) was established with funding from the US National Science Foundation. A central scientific activity of DCDC has been to develop at systems dynamics modeling representation (WaterSim) of the interactions of climate variability, climate change scenarios, population growth, land use patterns, agricultural retirement, and conservation measures to project water availability. WaterSim has been presented to numerous groups of citizens, public officials, and managers including a front page article in the largest newspaper and a scaled down version available on the web (DCDC ). Two efforts seem to directly engage in generating novel “long-distance ties” and forge novel social networks across sectors and scales. The first being a group of 60 water managers and policy makers that have participated in multiple small group meetings to evaluate and help refine WaterSim given each of their own perspectives (White et al. ). DCDC has, moreover, convened a second set of meetings, Water Dialogues, with a more loosely defined membership of university faculty and students, and various water managers and interested citizens who attend a monthly meeting to share information and ideas in response to an invited speaker on local issues.
Funding Information:
This article has been developed from the collaboration at the Stockholm Resilience Centre ( www.stockholmresilience.org ) and its research theme Urban Social-Ecological Systems and Globalization, which gathers 12 urban research groups across the globe. A special session organized by T. Elmqvist and H. Ernstson at the conference “Resilience 2008” in Stockholm, 14–17 April, 2008, triggered the co-authors to write this article. Especially Erik Andersson, Sverker Sörlin, Sara Borgström, and Cathy Wilkinson should be acknowledged for their valuable discussions on this topic. We also acknowledge Keith Tidball for his useful comments on an earlier draft. The first author acknowledges funding through Formas (Urban-NET) and Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Links) to finalize the article. An earlier version was presented at The 2010 AESOP Complexity and Planning Workshop “Resilient Cities” in Stockholm, 26–27 February, 2010.
PY - 2010/12
Y1 - 2010/12
N2 - Urbanization is a global multidimensional process paired with increasing uncertainty due to climate change, migration of people, and changes in the capacity to sustain ecosystem services. This article lays a foundation for discussing transitions in urban governance, which enable cities to navigate change, build capacity to withstand shocks, and use experimentation and innovation in face of uncertainty. Using the three concrete case cities New Orleans, Cape Town, and Phoenixthe article analyzes thresholds and cross-scale interactions, and expands the scale at which urban resilience has been discussed by integrating the idea from geography that cities form part of "system of cities" (i.e., they cannot be seen as single entities). Based on this, the article argues that urban governance need to harness social networks of urban innovation to sustain ecosystem services, while nurturing discourses that situate the city as part of regional ecosystems. The article broadens the discussion on urban resilience while challenging resilience theory when addressing human-dominated ecosystems. Practical examples of harnessing urban innovation are presented, paired with an agenda for research and policy.
AB - Urbanization is a global multidimensional process paired with increasing uncertainty due to climate change, migration of people, and changes in the capacity to sustain ecosystem services. This article lays a foundation for discussing transitions in urban governance, which enable cities to navigate change, build capacity to withstand shocks, and use experimentation and innovation in face of uncertainty. Using the three concrete case cities New Orleans, Cape Town, and Phoenixthe article analyzes thresholds and cross-scale interactions, and expands the scale at which urban resilience has been discussed by integrating the idea from geography that cities form part of "system of cities" (i.e., they cannot be seen as single entities). Based on this, the article argues that urban governance need to harness social networks of urban innovation to sustain ecosystem services, while nurturing discourses that situate the city as part of regional ecosystems. The article broadens the discussion on urban resilience while challenging resilience theory when addressing human-dominated ecosystems. Practical examples of harnessing urban innovation are presented, paired with an agenda for research and policy.
KW - Cape Town
KW - Cross-scale interactions
KW - Ecosystem services
KW - New Orleans
KW - Phoenix
KW - Social-ecological processes
KW - Urban innovation
KW - Urban resilience
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=78149360951&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1007/s13280-010-0081-9
DO - 10.1007/s13280-010-0081-9
M3 - Article
C2 - 21141773
AN - SCOPUS:78149360951
SN - 0044-7447
VL - 39
SP - 531
EP - 545
JO - Ambio
JF - Ambio
IS - 8
ER -