Urban ecological security is the basic principle of national ecological security. However, analyses of the spatial and temporal dynamics of ecological security remain limited, especially those that consider different scenarios of urban development. In this study, an integrated method is proposed that combines the Conversion of Land Use and its Effects (CLUE-S) model with the Pressure–State–Resp...

In the light of ongoing global urbanization and the high pace of resource consumption, there is an urgent need to foster compact cities. Currently, however, we lack integrative guidelines on how to manage trade-offs between urban densification and the provision of green space. Against this background, this study applies the concepts of green infrastructure and ecosystem services to develop a gu...

Rapid urbanization, land scarcity, and accompanying ecological deterioration in China have received growing attention. In this paper, two fast-growing metropolitan regions, Greater Shanghai and Greater Hangzhou, were selected as case studies to quantify the impact of land use/land cover (LULC) change on regional ecosystem services value (ESV) at the landscape scale since the late 1970s. The res...

Bunn, Urban and Keitt[12] discuss landscape connectivity in the Coastal Plain of North Carolina through a graph theoretic approach using focal-species analysis. Graph Theory is very much useful in the study of landscape connectivity using graph as an ecological construct. Different nodes (vertices) represent habitat patches and edges, the distance (functional distance and not Euclidean distance...

Urbanisation and associated growth patterns (urban sprawl) are characteristic of spatial temporal land use changes taking place at regional levels. Unplanned urbanization and consequent impacts on natural resources including basic amenities has necessitated the investigation and understanding of mechanisms and dynamics of land use and land-use change on a range of spatial scales and evaluate th...

This paper demonstrates an integrated method for studying cropland loss dynamics and the resultant impacts on sustainable development spanning the past 10 years (1996–2006) in response to rampant urban growth. This study deploys remote sensing to obtain accurate measures of cropland change information and applies GIS to examine the spatio-temporal trajectory of cropland loss. Coupled with lands...

Urbanisation of wildlife populations is a process with significant conservation and management implications. While urban areas can provide habitat for wildlife, some urbanised species eventually come into conflict with humans. Understanding the process and drivers of wildlife urbanisation is fundamental to developing effective management responses to this phenomenon. In Australia, flying-foxes ...

iran has mountainous landscapes and half of its surface is occupied by highlands. moreover, iran is an arid country and deserts are located at lower altitudes. most metropolitan areas are positioned in mid-altitudes between mountain and desert. cities grow upwardly toward the highlands under pressures of urbanization and desertification. foothill ecotones are a zone between upland mountains and...

The ability of organisms to disperse across urban landscapes is theorized to be constrained by habitat fragmentation. While previous research has shown the distribution of forest patches is a determinant of dispersal patterns among forest-obligate bird species, the impacts of habitat distribution on the dispersal of “urban-adapted” species, has yet to be examined. Here, we use capture-reencount...

Over the last 50 years, the world has faced an impressive growth of urban population. The walled city, close to the outside, an “island” for economic activities and population density within the rural land, has led to the spread of urban life and urban networks in almost all the territory. There was, as said Margalef (1999), “a topological inversion of the landscape”. The “urban” has gone from ...