introduction this study is dealt with the environmental planning from a bio-cybernetic and hierarchical systems viewpoint within the context of landscape ecology. this viewpoint requires not only knowledge of the science of ecology but also ecological wisdom in order to recognize the place of humankind in nature. the conceptual and practical approach which is provided will help landscape planne...

Urbanization has been cited as an important factor in worldwide amphibian declines, and although recent work has illustrated the important influence of broad-scale ecological patterns and processes on amphibian populations, little is known about the factors structuring amphibian communities in urban landscapes. We therefore examined amphibian community responses to wetland habitat availability ...

In face of a dramatic decline of wild bee species in many rural landscapes, potential conservation functions of urban areas gain importance. Yet effects of urbanization on pollinators, and in particular on wild bees, remain ambiguous and not comprehensively understood. This is especially true for amenity grassland and extensively managed wastelands within large-scale residential housing areas. ...

Urbanization is a global multidimensional process that manifests itself through rapidly changing human population densities and changing land cover. The growth of cities is due to a combination of four forces: natural growth, rural to urban migration, massive migration due to extreme events, and redefinitions of administrative boundaries. Half of the world’s population today lives in urban area...

Portraying urban functional zones provides useful insights into understanding complex urban systems and establishing rational urban planning. Although several studies have confirmed the efficacy of remote sensing imagery in urban studies, coupling remote sensing and new human sensing data like mobile phone positioning data to identify urban functional zones has still not been investigated. In t...

Habitat loss from urban development threatens native plant populations in many regions of the world. In addition to direct plant mortality, urban intensification potentially impacts pollinator communities and in turn disrupts the pollination mutualisms that are critical to the viability of native plant populations. We placed standardized flowering plant arrays into woodlands along a gradient of...

Facing urban warming, mitigation and adaptation strategies are not efficient enough to tackle excessive urban heat, especially at the local scale. The local climate zone (LCZ) classification scheme is employed to examine the diversity and complexity of the climate response within a city. This study suggests that zonal practice could be an efficient way to bridge the knowledge gap between climat...

The role of scenic landscapes in restoring human mental fatigue has begun to receive attention from landscape researchers. However, little is known about the positive role of visually-preferred landscapes on restorative environments and in improving the mental fatigue of people. This study attempted to determine the relationship between the predictors of preference and restorative components of...

Urban and peri-urban forests determine different habitat services for biodiversity according to their characteristics. In this study, we relate ecological characteristics of urban and peri-urban forests to forest bird species richness and we assess whether their effect changed over time due to the urban sprawl within the urban region of Milan, Italy. We analyse two periods (1998–2002 and 2010–2...