Urban sustainability is one of the most pressing and challenging tasks facing humanity today because cities are the primary sources of major environmental problems, the centers of economic and social developments, and home to more than half of the world population. While the ecological, economic, and social dimensions of sustainability are equally important in principle, the ecology of cities i...

Landscape ecology offers a spatially explicit perspective on the relationships between ecological patterns and processes that can be applied across a range of scales. Concepts derived from landscape ecology now permeate ecological research across most levels of ecological organization and many scales. Landscape ecology developed rapidly after ideas that originated in Europe were introduced to s...

■ Abstract Landscape ecology focuses on the reciprocal interactions between spatial pattern and ecological processes, and it is well integrated with ecology. The field has grown rapidly over the past 15 years. The persistent influence of land-use history and natural disturbance on contemporary ecosystems has become apparent. Development of pattern metrics has largely stabilized, and they are wi...

Wetlands are very sensitive to ecosystem changes, so integrated analyses and modeling of their process dynamics as well as their interaction with other hydrologic and ecological components provide valuable information for impact assessment. However, since wetland processes are complex, research methods aiming to improve the understanding of wetland dynamics in a landscape perspective must compr...

Cultural landscapes are increasingly understood as something not merely to be protected. The European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) and the European Landscape Convention (ELC) as well as the new Concepts and Strategies for Spatial Development in Germany propose considering cultural landscapes also as a force to promote cooperative regional development. Common historical roots, special ...