TERM PAPER, LAØ370 Landscape Ecology, April 2012

How to include landscape ecological approaches in

urban planning

Christian Grønn

Abstract

This is a student term paper in the subject of Landscape Ecology at Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB).

It is conducted as a literature review where the aim is to determine the relationship between landscape ecology and

urban planning and investigate some recent contributions in combining landscape ecology into urban planning. First

the paper assesses literature which discusses the need for bridging ecology and spatial planning in landscape

ecology. Then the meaning and role of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in urban planning and decision-

making is evaluated. Two ecology frameworks intended for integration into strategic urban planning are presented

and analyzed. One of them is Landscape Ecological Assessment (LEA) applied in Sweden and could be a useful tool

in strategic planning and impact assessment. The other approach is developed within the context of Chinese

conditions, and proposes the integration of urban planning; SEA and ecological planning as a response to persistent

failure of urban planning to deliver social and environmental justice. At the end of the review part, a summary of 8

specific landscape ecology approaches aimed at application in urban planning is presented, depicting state-of-the art

research. Capability of landscape ecology to influence urban planning is often constrained. The take-home message

of this literature review is that including landscape ecology approaches in urban planning, requires breaking of

institutional barriers, changing mind-sets, integration of ecological and urban plans and more coherence and

standardization in research. Future research should develop a more mechanistic basis for application of landscape

ecology knowledge and demonstrate ease of use for the end-users, most often the planners.

Introduction

Urban areas harbor diverse nature ranging from semi-natural habitats to wastelands, parks and other

highly human-influenced biotopes with their associated species assemblages. Maintenance of this urban

biodiversity for the residents and for its intrinsic value in the face of increasing population and expanding

cities requires that ecological knowledge should be better integrated into urban planning. (Niemala, 1998)

Landscape ecology provides approaches and methods for understanding the dynamics of urban green

spaces. Urban habitat patches are small and isolated from each other by a matrix of built environment

(Breuste et al., 2008) Urban planning can be described as a technical and political process concerned

with the welfare of people, control of the use of land, design of the urban environment including

transportation and communication networks, and protection and enhancement of the natural

environment.(McGill, 2012) Landscape ecology Landscape ecology examines how heterogeneous

combinations of ecosystems are structured, how they function and how they change. Urban ecology is a

diverse field of research that forms a continuum from “pure” ecology in the urban setting to a

combination of ecology and social sciences to examine urban systems. Thus urban ecological research

may emphasize societal or natural sciences, and often seeks to apply research results to urban planning

and management. (Niemelä, 1999) Practical experience have revealed the fact that ecological planning is

easier to be developed than effectively implemented due to obstacles such as lack of legislative support,

government attention and capacity building, etc. Recently, interests of scholars with regard to ecological

planning have shifted from plan making to plan implementation or mechanism for long-term management

of eco-cities.(Li et al., 2005)

The goals of this paper are to 1) Determine the relationship between landscape ecology and urban

planning and 2) Investigate some recent contributions in combining landscape ecology into urban

planning. The background is to write a student term paper in the subject Landscape Ecology at Norwegian

University of Life Sciences (UMB). The paper is carried out as a literature review and the sources used

are mainly published research articles, originating from the cross-sectional disciplines of urban planning,

landscape ecology and urban ecology. The articles in this paper are chosen because they either discuss the

relation between landscape ecology, environmental planning and urban spatial planning, and/or propose

an approach involving landscape ecology in an urban setting. This paper will first present and assess

findings in articles approaching the theme behind the research question. Secondly a summary table of

promising landscape ecology approaches is presented. Then with the research question in mind the results

of the review are discussed. Finally, this paper concludes that despite ongoing accumulation of

knowledge and quality tools and methods, urban landscape ecology capabilities to influence urban

planning and achieve urban sustainable development are often constrained. Including landscape ecology

in urban planning can be achieved by breaking institutional barriers, changing mind-sets of urban

planning authorities, reducing the separation between ecological plans and urban plans and increase

coherence and standardization in research.

Review

Throughout 1990s, both planners and environmentalists grappled with the problem of integrating the

issue of sustainability into planning agendas, and in many parts of the world this has yet not been

satisfactorily achieved. For one reason, planning and environmental management often operate in

different government departments with different interests and political or legal framework. For the other

reason, there are increasing conflicts between the green agenda (environmental concerns), the brown

agenda (urban development) and the red agenda (issues of environmental justice). (He et al., 2011)

Consequently it has also been apparent for some time that there are difficulties in bridging the gap

between ecology and spatial planning in landscape ecology. (Opdam et al., 2001) argues the reason for

the gap is because many empirical and theoretical ecological studies failed to transfer their results in the

context of landscape pattern. There is a lack of development of a more mechanistic understanding of the

relationships between pattern and process. Most authors of detailed studies do not attempt to bridge the

gap to generalization and application (Figure 1). In their view, the integration of ecological and

geographical research lines (in the context of socioeconomic conditions) is the core activity of landscape

ecology. It is absolutely necessary to obtain that integration when we want to design and develop

landscapes on a sound ecological basis, rather than just designing a landscape pattern which might seem

adequate for some years, but which bears no relationship to the natural processes in the landscape system.

Figure 1 Bridging the gap to generalization and application (Opdam et al., 2001)

(Opdam et al., 2001) presented the ecological part of this mechanistic knowledge basis as a knowledge

pyramid in four layers:

1. Empirical case studies on many different scales, organisms and processes.

2. Modeling studies to extrapolate empirical studies across space and time

3. Modeling studies to produce guidelines and general rules.

4. Tools for integration to the landscape level, so that application in multidisciplinary landscape

studies becomes possible.

They concluded that in the landscape ecological literature, steps 1 and 2 were well represented, whereas

steps 3 and 4 were mostly neglected. Some of the ecology landscape approaches summarized in Table 1

addresses this concern. (Miller and Hobbs, 2002) have a similar understanding stating there is a gap

between knowledge development and knowledge application in landscape ecology, and a lack of tools for

integration in strategic planning and impact assessment. In order to use the landscape ecological concepts

in urbanizing environments, more knowledge is needed on the wide-reaching effects of urbanization. So

landscape ecology around the turning of the millennium did not have a very strong profile in urban

planning, and were not proceeding towards landscape design based on ecological processes.

In the international context, political efforts have been made to further nature conservation and

biodiversity. At the European level, in 2001, the EU Directive concerning the assessment of the effects of

certain plans and programs on the environment requires the integration of strategic environmental

assessment (SEA) in planning and decision-making.1 In this way, nature conservation and biodiversity

issues should be integrated in the early stages of the planning process for urban development and

infrastructure investments. (The Baltic University Urban Forum, 2007) (Balfors et al., 2010) states to

achieve an adequate integration of biodiversity aspects in planning, landscape ecological expertise is

required to provide relevant knowledge on patterns and dynamics of ecosystems and their vulnerability

for interventions and change. Such expertise is important to analyze how ecosystem services can be

optimized in urbanized regions and how resilient social and ecological systems can be designed to deal

with disturbances while retaining their essential functions. This involves that urban development is

adjusted to the ecosystems’ limitations of adaptation. To incorporate landscape ecological expertise in

urban planning, tools and models are required, which add time scales and spatial dimensions to

knowledge on ecological processes. The outputs of these tools will support the search for design

alternatives that take into account biodiversity and other ecosystem services. In addition, the results of the

modeling activities have to be related to the realities of governance and planning. While the outcome of

the planning tools are primarily two‐dimensional, planning practice takes place in a multi‐scalar context

which implies that the proposed development only can be accomplished through directed actions on

1 All member states of the European Union should have ratified the Directive into their own country's law by 21 July 2004.

Today the implementation can be seen as completed. SEAINFO.NET 2012.

different levels of governance. In this process SEA could play a role as an interface between landscape

ecological expertise on one hand and urban planning and governance on the other.

In order to integrate biodiversity considerations in strategic environmental planning in an urbanizing

environment on landscape and regional levels, Landscape ecological assessment (LEA) was applied by

(Mortberg et al., 2007). They conducted a case study in the region of Stockholm, the capital of Sweden,

and the study area embraced the city centre, suburbs and peri-urban areas. Focal species were tested as

indicators of habitat quality, quantity and connectivity in the landscape. Predictive modeling of habitat

distribution in geographic information systems involved the modeling of focal species occurrences based

on empirical data, incorporated in a landscape ecological decision support system. When habitat models

were retrieved, they were applied on future planning scenarios in order to predict and assess the impacts

on focal species. The predictions of the impacts on habitats networks of focal species made it possible to

quantify, integrate and visualize the effects of urbanization scenarios on aspects of biodiversity on a

landscape level. (Mortberg et al., 2007) demonstrates that LEA could be a useful tool in strategic planning

and impact assessment, contributing to the quality of SEA and ultimately to sustainable planning and

decision-making. (Balfors et al., 2010) states in a lessons learned paper that LEA was developed to offer

a more proactive planning approach and that SEA could play a role as an interface between landscape

ecological expertise on one hand and urban planning and governance on the other. They also pointed out

that indicators are described, discussed and measured, but rarely linked to a “value judgment” that can be

directly employed by planners to guide their decision-making process. A frequent consequence of this

limitation is that ecological studies are set aside during land-use planning and land allocation procedures,

because they do not come to clearly understandable conclusions and suggestions. Regarding “value

judgment”, communication and clarity among cross-disciplinary experts in urban planning processes, one

of the major problems in integrating scientific information or common knowledge into the planning

process is poor communication between ecologists on the one side, and the public and decision-makers on

the other side. Creating common conceptual ground for different actors and disciplines, improving

communication in the process, matching contradictory values and perceptions, and improving stakeholder

participation would be in the best interest of nature and people of urban areas. (Yli-Pelkonen and

Niemela, 2005) Planning processes involving sector experts in cross-disciplinary teams improve the

quality of the analysis and resulting design. This was shown for instance in Utrecht’s green structure

planning, that over time developed from green sector to cross-sector planning and further on to

participative planning also involving citizens. (The Baltic University Urban Forum, 2007)

China seems to be taking environmental concerns seriously. SEA for urban planning is legislated by law

there and the ecological planning has drawn tremendous attention from governments and scholars even if

there is no legal support in place. (He et al., 2011) state that it is deemed necessary to modify the

existing urban and regional administrative system so as to cope with the challenges urban planning is

being confronted with and realize the purpose of urban sustainability. It is important for both

environmentalists and urban planners to collaborate and develop new approaches and systems for urban

planning as well as environmental assessment to address the conflicts underlying the planning. They

propose a mechanism which suggests the integration of the “political tools” urban planning, SEA and

ecological planning (Figure 2). It will be a multi-win strategy to offset deficiency of each mentioned

political tool being individually applied. In China landscape ecology falls under the integrative and

comprehensive planning concept “Ecological planning” a joint name of urban ecological planning, eco-

province/-city/-town/-village planning (“eco-district planning” in general), or ecological urban planning.

The proposed mechanism of (He et al., 2011) includes a framework where SEA and ecological

planning are fully incorporated into urban planning which forms a two-way constraint mechanism to

ascertain environmental quality of urban planning. Although in practice, planning and SEA processes

may conditionally be unified. Under this framework, ecological planning provides ecological principles

or requirements to guide the planning at a very early stage whilst SEA works as an appraisal tool in the

end to ensure that environmental issues are considered in the preferred option(s).

Figure 2. Double-constraint mechanism for urban planning. (He et al., 2011)

Moreover, as shown in their case study, the integration of urban planning, SEA and ecological planning

may be constrained due to slow changes in the contextual factors, in particular the political and cultural

dimensions. Currently within the context of China, there may be three major elements which facilitate

integration of the three political tools, which are (1) regulatory requirement of SEA on urban planning,

(2) the promotion or strong administrative support from government on eco-district building, and (3) the

willingness of urban planners to collaborate with SEA experts or ecologists. Thus according to (He et al.,

2011) the integration of urban planning, SEA and ecological planning may be a response to persistent

failure of urban planning to deliver social and environmental justice.(Wu, 2008) claim that integration of

ecology and social sciences can be done using landscape ecology as a framework. Ecological approaches

represent the ‘‘science’’ of urban landscape ecology which views cities as spatially heterogeneous

landscape composed of multiple interacting patches within and beyond the city limits. However,

landscape ecology also includes the ‘‘art’’ component, i.e., the humanistic and social science perspectives

necessary for integrating ecology, socioeconomics, design, planning, and management. Thus, the

‘‘science’’ and ‘‘art’’ of landscape ecology provides an appropriate framework for studying the links

between ecology and humans in cities by promoting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches.

This is vital for research to provide understanding for urban sustainability.

Table 1

During information seeking a number of explicit landscape ecology approaches were found, from conceptual frameworks to technical methods or tools. 8 of these were picked

out, since they are quite recently developed and aimed at application in urban planning. The approaches are summarized in this table.

Approach Type

Qualitative/

quantitative Scale

Potential

strengths Purpose Features and challenges Landscape ecological

assesment LEA

(Mortberg et al.,

2007)

Conceptual and

methodological

framework

Quantitative

/qualitative

Landscape

Regional

Proactive

Systematic

Transparent

Exploratory

A tool for integrating biodiversity

issue planning in SEA

Predictive modelling of habitat distribution in geographic information systems

based on empirical data

Testing on future planning scenario analysis

Landscape ecological decision support system

Quantify, integrate and visualise the effects of urbanisation scenarios on

aspects of biodiversity on a landscape level.

Land suitability index

(Marull et al., 2007)

Methodological

Framework

(technical)

Quantitative Landscape

Regional

Modular

Transparent

Precise yet

operational

Straightforward

Highly

effective

An operational, holistic tool aimed

at delivering SEA of

developmental land uses for

municipal planning

Hierarchical system of cartographic indices, formally integrated in

mathematical language, developed through GIS,

Evaluates land suitability by combining three main sub-indices concerning (i)

the vulnerability of the biosphere, lithosphere, and hydrosphere to impacts

arising from implementing development proposals; (ii) the natural heritage

value of the target area; and (iii) its contribution to terrestrial ecological

connectivity

Evaluates the impact of municipal urban plans, and alternative planning

scenarios

Challenge: new and more comprehensive and reliable data are always needed

Urban sprawl

simulation approach

(Vimal et al., 2012)

Methodological

Framework

(technical)

Quantitative Landscape

Regional

Multi level

Comprehensive

Supportive

Project future urbanization and to

assess the direct and indirect

threats on biodiversity at a regional

scale for conservation strategies

Demographic forecast at municipal scale, spatial forecast of future built

location at infra-municipal scale

Biodiversity pressure asessment

A multi-level approach based on three impacts of urban development: (i ) the

direct consumption of high diversity sites, the indirect urban effects on the

surrounding area over a scale of (ii) 2 km and a scale of (iii)50 km

Further research needed into not only the main taxonomic groups distribution,

but also species diversity and their ecology.

Urban to rural

gradient approach

Conseptual and

methodological

framework

Quantitative

/qualitative

Local

Landscape

Effective

Widely used

Sucessfull

Understanding the distribution of

plants and animals as well as

ecosystem processes along

gradients of urbanization

Quantifying urbanization gradients

Study of organism responses to urbanization gradients

Integration of ecological and social science information

(McDonnell and Hahs, 2008) claims future research is needed in more specific

measures of urbanization can be used to gain a mechanistic understanding of

species and ecosystem responses to urbanization gradients. New studies that

investigate in greater detail the techniques used to quantify the gradient, and

their implications for research findings. Research in comparing urbanization

gradients in different cities.

Ecological land-use

complementation

ELC

(Colding, 2007)

Conseptual

framework

Qualitative Local

Landscape

Adaptive

Specific

Provide for increased habitat

availability

Promote landscape

complementation and

supplementation in conservation

planning

Land uses in urban green areas could synergistically interact to support

biodiversity when clustered together in different combinations relative to

when they are interspersed in a heavily developed urban matrix.

Realisation of ‘emergent’ ecological functions of land use.

More recearch on ELC is warranted

It requires collaboration among diciplines

Neighborhood

mosaic concept

(Hersperger, 2006)

Conseptual

framework

Qualitative Local Promising

Useful

Analysis as well as a design

concept with the potential to foster

the integration of landscape

ecological knowledge into land-

use planning and management

The neighborhood mosaic with its three key characteristics – patch adjacency,

patch-and-matrix pattern, and patch neighborhood, captures essential spatial

relationships and landscape ecological interactions.

Facilitate the transfer of landscape ecology process knowledge to application.

A starting point for the questions and the strategies that will guide the

planner’s analysis and design

There is much potential for developing this qualitative approach into a

quantitative one.

The network concept

(Hidding and

Teunissen, 2002)

Conseptual

framework

Qualitative Regional

Local

Pro-active

New

perspective

Integrated

planning

Regionally

made-to-

measure

Triggers further

elaboration of

ideas

Addressing a gap between leading

spatial concepts and spatial reality

Reconsideration of the idea of

fragmentation

Give rise to a much more complex

and compound spatial organisation

in land-use planning

and management

Correspond to the emerging trends of the network society which is

characterised by high mobility, spatial

activities possibly becoming footloose, the rise of urban networks, and the

interweaving of city and

countryside. Give rise to new forms of interaction between city and

countryside.

Contains well-defined principles for spatial organisation.

Challenges in defining the spatial extent of a neighborhood in ecology and

planning

Spatial organisation resulting from the use of network concepts is more

complex than the traditional

image of cities, surrounded by green, open space.

Temporary

conservation

(Kattwinkel et al.,

2011)

Conseptual

framework

Quantitative

/qualitative

Regional

Local

Contemporary

innovation

Increases area

value

Increased urban

biodiversity

Investigate conservation planning

options for urban conservation

with special focus on business

areas.

Demonstrate that dynamic land use

supports urban biodiversity in

terms of species richness and rarity

Setting aside brownfields before redevelopment

Maintain a spatio-temporal mosaic of different successional stages ranging

from pioneer to pre-forest communities.

Extrapolating species distribution models through space and time.

Conservation integrated into urban land uses rather than separated

Challenge in the public negative perception of brownfield sites

Discussion

There seem to be a broad consensus among landscape ecology practitioners about the need for bridging

the gap between landscape ecology and urban planning. I have not found examples claiming the opposite

or strong areas of controversy, just various perspectives and suggestions on how to achieve it. Diverse

applications of strategic environmental planning is found across the world, however the common goal is

to promote sustainability by influencing planning and decision-making processes at an early stage. My

impression is that topics in the research field is still mainly focused on empirical case studies on many

different scales, organisms and processes and modeling studies to extrapolate empirical studies across

space and time. Research producing guidelines and general rules and application in multidisciplinary

landscape studies is not rich and such research seem to be urgently needed with the rapid expansion of

cities worldwide. This was also demanded by (Opdam et al., 2001) in 2001, and it is interesting that the

situation apparently has not changed much. However positive changes since 2001 can be identified.

Integration of landscape ecology with urban planning is an area with steadily expanding attention, and has

been for some years. International journals like Landscape Ecology and Landscape and Urban Planning

publishes numerous papers on urban landscape ecology. They are involved with conceptual, scientific,

and design approaches to urban land use, and emphasize ecological understanding and a multi-

disciplinary approach to analysis, planning and design. Further, assessing the 8 specific landscape

ecology approaches I present in this paper the majority of them seem to be concerned about bridging the

above mentioned gap. For these authors it is important to develop approaches in which its underlying

concepts and application can be grasped by planners, who are its main end-users. I should make clear that

my chosen set of landscape ecology approaches represents a limited range of available research.

However, in my view, I did perform a relative extensive information seeking and the set of approaches

therefore should give a good picture of state-of-the art research.

When it comes to critical appraisal of the literature I use, my general observation is that all of them have

formulated problems which are clearly defined within their research topic and they make sure to establish

its significance. Study design, data analysis, and conclusions is in my opinion of good quality.

Furthermore some of them use case studies for demonstrating the applicability of proposed frameworks,

ie. (Mortberg et al., 2007) and (He et al., 2011). The majority also explains the justifications behind their

approach, leaving it open for debate, or suggest further research needs. I have mainly assessed research

papers from a few European countries and China. This corresponds well with the fact that some EU

nations have a longer history of strong Environmental Appraisal including Denmark, the Netherlands,

Finland and Sweden. I found it suitable to focus on assessing literature underlying the SEA system.

Despite the fact there is limited amount of “new-thinking” I produce in this literature review, the research

question and my findings should be both internationally valid and relevant for readers interested in and

occupied in this field of research.

Conclusion

Apparently, landscape ecology planning capabilities to influence urban planning and achieve urban

sustainable development are often constrained, despite accumulation of knowledge and quality of tools

and methods are increasing. Better collaboration, integration of ecological plans and urban plans,

generalization and standardization of landscape ecology approaches can improve sustainable urban

planning and decision-making in the future.

One research paper claim a reason for this is not attempting to bridge the gap to generalization and

application by authors of detailed studies. A better mechanistic basis for landscape ecology knowledge

application is needed. More modeling studies to produce guidelines and general rules and tools for

integration to the landscape level is needed. A second research paper highlight the importance of results

of landscape ecological modeling activities being related to the realities of governance and planning,

saying in this process SEA could play a role as an interface. There is a need for proactive landscape

ecological planning approaches, and for instance LEA was developed to offer this. “Value judgments” of

indicators is essential in the decision-making processes. Experts together in cross-disciplinary teams can

improve the quality of the analysis and resulting design. A third research paper talks about increasing

conflicts underlying the planning, institutional barriers and differences in “mind sets” of planning

authorities (in China). They recommend more collaboration between environmentalists and urban

planners, and calls for a shift in the contextual factors, in particular the political and cultural dimensions.

They also propose a framework where SEA and ecological planning are fully incorporated

into urban planning. A fourth research paper talk about the ‘‘science’’ and ‘‘art’’ of landscape ecology

providing an appropriate framework for studying the links between ecology and humans in cities.

Taken as a whole, including landscape ecology in urban planning can be achieved by breaking

institutional barriers, changing mind-sets of urban planning authorities, reducing the separation between

ecological plans and urban plans and increasing coherence and standardization in research. That is my

take home message.

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