Addressing urban challenges with nature-based approaches can improve and protect ecosystem services. Yet, planning has not efficiently integrated such to manage land use. This paper examines interactions between human natural systems that result in services changes use cover areas. It develops a social-ecological model for change, ecosystems integrates solutions planning. The treats spatial var...

tehran city has been subject of critical environmental challenges during the course of 20th. century namely: massive population growth, broad expansion, reduction in urban open/green spaces, increasing in energy consumption and waste production. releasing industrial wastewater into river valleys have led to considerable changes in structure of city's natural landscape. the natural structur...

Urban agriculture (UA) has a long tradition in many countries worldwide, is actively engaging about 800 million people, and is now increasingly considered by urban planning and land-use personnel. Urban cropland, in particular, covers more than 67 Mha or more than 5% of the total global cropland area. Urban agriculture practices have many benefits and, in particular, may contribute to food secu...

Urban soils and vegetation contain large pools of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) and may sequester these elements at considerable rates; however, there have been no systematic studies of the composition of soils beneath the impervious surfaces that dominate urban areas. This has made it impossible to reliably estimate the net impact of urbanization on terrestrial C and N pools. In this study, we c...

Accumulation of anthropogenic litter (i.e. garbage; AL) and its ecosystem effects in marine environments are well documented. Rivers receive AL from terrestrial habitats and represent a major source of AL to marine environments, but AL is rarely studied within freshwater ecosystems. Our objectives were to 1) quantify AL density in urban freshwaters, 2) compare AL abundance among freshwater, ter...

Approximately 75–80% of the population of North America currently lives in urban areas as defined by national census bureaus, and urbanization is continuing to increase. Future trajectories of fossil fuel emissions are associated with a high degree of uncertainty; however, if the activities of urban residents and the rate of urban land conversion can be captured in urban systems models, plausib...