Urban development typically displaces or extirpates wildlife and decreases habitat. While some species such as the grey squirrel and raccoon adapt well to urban living, other species are less successful due to a lack of habitat or the loss of other species. As urbanization continues, the way that humans develop land and interact with species living on that land must be reevaluated. One development model that has been common in the Washington DC area is multi-use development. This development type accommodates various land uses in a small area. The layout of multi-use developments typically includes a central open area for events surrounded by retail and restaurants on the ground level and apartments and office space above. This creates a community where people have all of their needs for goods, housing, and work met within a small area. Another name for these types of multi-use developments is a Town Center. One of the newest proposed multi-use developments in the Washington DC area is at the former Landmark Mall location. The development aims to revitalize the now closed Landmark Mall in Alexandria, Virginia. As a design in development, the Landmark Mall Redevelopment Plan is a prime opportunity to explore a new concept for development: a wildlife town center. In my experience, typical Town Centers are not designed for wildlife. They are designed for heavy human foot traffic with plant selections and surfaces to withstand such traffic. How might a town center be re-imagined to support wildlife and also provide for humans? Animal Aided Design is one strategy. The process of Animal Aided Design takes a sampling of species that could live in a landscape and provides the critical needs for those species. This thesis takes the process of Animal Aided Design and applies it to the Landmark Mall Redevelopment Plan. While the design focuses on five particular bird species, the intention is to create conditions that will suit many more than those five species and that the site will attract a variety of birds as year-round residents, as well as those passing through during migration or staying for the breeding season. The project creates a novel habitat to help increase the viable living and foraging areas for wildlife and protects wildlife populations, while giving people the opportunity to find joy in their interactions with other species. / Master of Landscape Architecture / Urban development decreases available habitat and causes wildlife to move to new areas or perish. While some species such as the grey squirrel and raccoon adapt well to urban living, other species are less successful due to a lack of habitat or the loss of other species. As development in urban areas continues, the way that humans develop land and interact with species living on that land must be reevaluated. One development model that has been common in the Washington DC area is multi-use development. This development type accommodates various types of businesses and housing to exist near each other in a small area. The layout of multi-use developments typically includes a central open area for events surrounded by retail and restaurants on the ground level and apartments and office space above. This creates a community where people have all of their needs for goods, housing, and work met within a small area. Another name for these types of multi-use developments is a town center. One of the newest proposed town center developments in the Washington DC area is at the former Landmark Mall location. The development aims to revitalize the now closed Landmark Mall in Alexandria, Virginia into a place for community gathering. As a project in development, the Landmark Mall Redevelopment Plan is a prime opportunity to explore a new concept for development: a wildlife town center. In my experience, typical Town Centers are not designed for wildlife. They are designed to withstand people walking around with their children and pets. The plant selection in these areas are not typically native and have little benefit to the local wildlife. How might a town center be re-imagined to support wildlife and also provide for humans? One would take an approach that is more holistic and designs for the basic needs of wildlife as well as the humans. This strategy is called Animal Aided Design. This thesis takes the process of Animal Aided Design and applies it to the Landmark Mall Redevelopment Plan. While the design focuses on five particular bird species, the intention is to create conditions that will suit many more than those five species and that the site will attract a variety of birds as year-round residents, as well as those passing through during migration or staying for the breeding season. The project creates a novel habitat to help increase the viable living and foraging areas for wildlife and protects wildlife populations, while giving people the opportunity to find joy in their interactions with other species.

Up to 75 percent of new construction between 2000 and 2030 may â be redirected inward or into more compact, mixed-use suburban developments (Nelson, 2004). If this assertion is even nearly true, and if the goals of the Clean Water Act are to be met in the next generation of American cities, then we must find feasible and effective ways of improving urban watershed health using retrofit and infill development as a primary means. The aim of this study is to evaluate the patterns and approaches of suburban infill developments in order to determine which methods and extents are deemed capable of improving the health, sustainability and natural services of urban streams and watersheds. Water is considered to be foundational to urban and suburban sustainability and is treated as a primary indicator of overall health and sustainability within the context of this study. This thesis presents three pilot studies that examine urban watershed health using a single case as a vehicle. The studies, in the order they are presented, are: 1) Form- analyzing the relationship between landuse patterns and imperviousness, 2) Planning- relating questions of development scale planning and design to natural and cultural systems at the watershed scale and 3) Valuation- illustrating three possibilities for determining the economic value of improving urban watershed health. / Master of Landscape Architecture

The inner-ring suburbs of major metropolitan areas such as Washington, DC are either being redeveloped already or are poised to be redeveloped over the next several decades. The engineered 'gray' infrastructure networks in these areas, largely put in place between 100 and 75 years ago, are aging and reaching the end of their useful life. New developments are being funded by real estate investment trusts and developers and are being welcomed by municipalities and a public that are often genuinely inspired to create the more livable places of the future. Such redevelopments provide a unique opportunity not to just import new 'green' features, but to reimagine the fundamental connections between ecological, human, and non-human systems within the fabric of the larger community in a way that profoundly improves the cognitive experience of a place for the people and wildlife that reside there. The project begins by recognizing this opportunity and posing a question. Through thoughtful design, how can we bring people back into balance with their environment and back into touch with each other? By working with the cultural and built fabric of a place, the project proposes to reintroduce ecological systems and create places that might not be a perfect clean slate but are somehow just right for the people that live there. The project proceeds first by developing an understanding of the overall ecological context for each of four primary development corridors in Virginia, west of Washington, D.C. across the Potomac River. Then, key intersections between stream systems and the development corridors are identified and assessed to determine (a) whether any existing landscape framework surrounding the stream feature is in place and (b) whether the amenities necessary to support a walkable Urban Village center are present within a half mile in each direction along the route. The project proposes a design for revealing a continuous flow stream channel currently piped underground and creating integrated stormwater detention basins along the historic stream channel path at the headwaters of Spout Run in northern Arlington County Virginia. Stormwater mains downstream from the headwaters have already been deemed below capacity for the unprecedentedly intense storms that have become an annual occurrence. Here, the major transportation and development corridor, Route 29 (Lee Highway), just across the Potomac River west of Washington D.C, crosses Glebe Road and a unique geological formation, dubbed for this thesis as the 'Headwaters Plateau'. It is an intersection between historically significant transportation routes as well as a unique intersection between landscape and the built environment. Around the Headwaters Plateau, not just Spout Run but the waters of four other streams begin their path to the Potomac River, flowing through numerous Arlington County neighborhoods along the way. As redevelopment plans take shape for the Lee Highway corridor through northern Arlington County, this thesis proposes the unique intersection between the Headwaters Plateau at Spout Run Gap along Route 29 as the site for the core of a modern Urban Village, with the Plateau and the Spout Run Headwaters Channel as the landscape framework around which the redeveloping Village should be built. / Master of Landscape Architecture / This thesis proposes a design for revealing a continuous flow stream channel currently piped underground and creating integrated stormwater detention basins along the historic stream channel path at the headwaters of Spout Run in northern Arlington County, Virginia. Stormwater mains downstream from the headwaters have already been deemed below capacity for the unprecedentedly intense storms that have become an annual occurrence. Here, the major transportation and development corridor, Route 29 (Lee Highway), just across the Potomac River west of Washington D.C, crosses Glebe Road and a unique geological formation, dubbed for the purpose of this thesis as the 'Headwaters Plateau'. It is an intersection between historically significant transportation routes as well as a unique intersection between landscape and the built environment. Around the Headwaters Plateau, not just Spout Run but the waters of four other streams begin their path to the Potomac River, flowing through numerous Arlington County neighborhoods along the way. As redevelopment plans take shape for the Lee Highway corridor through northern Arlington County, this thesis proposes the unique intersection between the Headwaters Plateau at Spout Run Gap along Route 29 as the site for the core of a modern Urban Village, with the Plateau and the Spout Run Headwaters Channel as the landscape framework around which the redeveloping Village should be built. Through design, this thesis is an investigation of the potential integration of ecological systems such as stream hydrology into the design of modern 'Urban Villages' with the intent to create impactful individual experiences that provide a shared sense of connection within the community to its surrounding landscape. Throughout the country, redevelopment plans are focused on creating increased-density 'mixed-use' communities within existing urban and suburban areas - often called Urban Villages in the lexicon of the New Urbanism planning theory. This represents a move away from the predominant approach of separation of land use zoning practices. Such redevelopments provide a unique opportunity to not only import new 'green' features, but to reimagine the fundamental connections between ecological, human, and non-human systems within the fabric of the larger community in a way that profoundly improves the cognitive experience of a place for the people and wildlife that reside there.

Humankind has lived on earth for a geologically brief time. Our species has proven a remarkable ability to adapt to our environment through the development and use of tools and technology. Little evidence suggests when our need to tame nature took hold in our collective cultural consciousness, yet throughout western history, human needs and activities have been perceived as separate from the natural world. We stand at the beginning of a new millennium, aware of the cycles which govern the flows of life on our planet, yet far from understanding the specifics of how they work. This building, an Institute for Urban Agriculture, seeks to challenge that notion of separation. The design expresses architecturally the ways in which the technological systems and organic systems work together to sustain the mission of the Institute. Through every aspect of the building design, the perceived separation of those systems is woven together to express an holistic view of the building as a fully integrated system. Human intervention is a necessary part of a healthy urban ecosystem, and positive relationships with the natural world contribute to the qualities of human health. Inspired by careful observation and experience of the surrounding urban landscape, this design recognizes those interactions and builds upon their social, ecological and economic values. Architecture becomes the medium for communicating transformed ideas about our relationships with the natural world to the building inhabitants and to the public at large. / Master of Architecture

The dominant definitions of sustainability are too various and neglect essential elements necessary for effective sustainability discourse. This project considers what current understandings of sustainable development mean to those who subscribe to them and how those understandings affect public policy for sustainable development. I begin by presenting a timeline on the evolution of the term 'sustainability'. Then, I offer narrative policy analysis as a methodological tool for investigating communities of meaning with contending views on sustainability. This provides a foundation for the analysis of case studies using Harrisonian Sustainability Narratives-efficiency, equity, and ethics-as lenses through which three corresponding U.S. case studies are explored, each representing different levels of analysis-corporate, state, and individual. First, the Business Roundtable, a lobbying organization comprised of the CEOs of top U.S. companies exemplifying the efficiency narrative, claims that the problem of sustainable development can be addressed through free markets, which continually increase eco-efficiency and encourage technological advancement. Next, the Environmental Protection Agency, a state organization mandated to protect water and air and to manage toxic and solid wastes and representing the equity narrative, sees the problem of sustainable development as ensuring the just distribution of natural limits so as to reduce the impact of those limits on individuals within communities. Lastly, the ethical anthropology of Anna Peterson, philosopher of religion, points to the power of ethical narratives in creating wide-scale changes to our ideas about humanness and human nature as they relate to our relationship with our environment for sustainability. / What I found in common with both the efficiency and equity narratives, representing both the political and corporate perspective and having significant influence on policy formation, is that they are pro market-based solutions of ecoefficiency and technological advancement. What they blatantly lack is guidance on what we ought to do, ought to value. I conclude that a humanist ethic is missing from both these narratives. Neither narrative sees matters of justice as co-equal partners with sustainability for sustainable development. Policy resulting from these narratives may offer efficiency and process but fails to include a robust humanist ethics necessary for a true sustainability. The way we think about our relationship to the environment shapes our behavior towards it. Just Sustainable Viability combines a complex systems approach that views human societies as complex adaptive systems and aims at optimizing social adaptive capacity with notions of distributive and procedural justice. With the inception of this new vision for sustainability, a new narrative must follow that firmly places humanity within the context of complex social and environmental systems. / by Andrea Leigh Best. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

城市化是影響全球碳循環的最重要的由人類活動主導的影響因素之一。本質上，城市碳儲存和碳釋放，無論以人工的（如能源消耗、建築物、廢物等）或自然組成部份（如城市綠色植被，城市土壤等），都與城市緊密相關。在城市碳循環中，無論人工或自然組成部份都是同等重要，因為在研究中必須同時考慮兩者的貢獻。然而，已有的研究過於片面，且大多數集中于城市能源利用和碳排放方面。該研究試圖將城市系統作為一個整體，定量地探討城市人工及自然組成部份對二氧化碳排放量的貢獻。 / 首先，我們提出一個基於過程的“城市土地的定義，以表述城市土地動態變化的本質，并運用閾值方法成功提取所定義的“城市土地。我們運用多源的遙感數據，包括夜晚燈光影像，LandSat影像及Modis影像，分析城市化過程及相應的土地利用/覆蓋變化。總體而言，在過去25年間，中國城市用地擴張了3.8倍，農田和林地是城市土地擴張的主要來源。 / 其次，以經過校準的夜晚燈光數據作為指示變量，我們開發了一個自上而下的分解模型來估算城市尺度下化石燃料消耗導致的二氧化碳排放。在中國快速城市化的背景下，城市二氧化碳排放量占全國總排放量的比例大幅增加。與農村地區相比，由於較高的收入水平，生活方式的改變及更便利地獲得電力能源，中國城市的人均排放量遠高於全國平均量。這與發達國家的情景截然相反。另外，由於當地經濟規模和結構的影響，東部地區的人均碳排放量低於西部地區。結果還表明，快速增長的經濟和城市化是二氧化碳排放量增加的主要驅動力，且能源效率在2000年之後反而呈現增長趋势，也是促進二氧化碳排放量增加的主要原因。如果國家宣佈并嚴格執行更嚴格的可持續發展目標，則經濟結構及能源結構調整將在減碳方面發揮作用。 / 第三，本研究還根據儲存-變化方法，估算了城市系統的自然組成部份，也就是城市植被和土壤的碳儲存和釋放。結果表明，儲存於城市植被和土壤中碳量與城市化石燃料排放的碳量相當，且城市土壤是主要的碳庫，儲存了約93%的碳。隨著城市不斷擴張，由於大量自然植被被破壞，城市植被變成碳源并向大氣釋放碳；而城市土壤則變成碳庫，吸收了大氣中部份的二氧化碳。鑒於中國未來持續的城市化過程，該研究結果為城市管理者提供了科學依據，以通過提高城市植被和土壤的碳儲量，吸收部份化石燃料燃燒排放的二氧化碳。 / 最後，我們還運用格蘭傑檢驗分析小尺度氣候變量對二氧化碳增加的響應。結果表明，在中國城市化較低地區，氣溫與二氧化碳變化存在雙向格蘭傑因果關係；而在快速城市化地區，如東部沿海城市，僅存在氣溫變化導致二氧化碳排放量增加的單向格蘭傑因果關係。該研究首次在城市尺度解釋了氣候對二氧化碳增量的響應關係。總體而言，本論文綜合地探索了中國快速城市化背景下，城市人工及自然組成部份對二氧化碳排放量的共同貢獻。這些研究結果為當地政府建設低碳城市提供了科學依據和決策支持。 / Urbanization is undoubtedly one of the most significant anthropogenic forces affecting global carbon cycle. Carbon storage and release through anthropogenic (e.g. energy consumption, building, waste) and natural components (e.g. urban vegetation and soil) are intrinsically coupled in urban areas. Both anthropogenic and natural components are equally important for understanding the carbon cycle in urban areas and have to be considered simultaneously. Present studies however mostly one-sided and primarily focus on anthropogenic emissions. Given the substantial scientific gaps, this study aims to build better knowledge on the contributions of urban areas to the increasing atmosphere CO₂ emissions at an urban scale, considering both anthropogenic and natural components simultaneously. / First, a process-based definition of urban areas is proposed to capture the inherent dynamics of urban areas, and a threshold technique is developed to map the defined urban areas in this study. Multi-sensor remotely sensed data are used to analyze the dynamic urbanization and related land use/cover conversions. Overall, urban areas have increased by 3.8 times over the studied period of 1985-2010. Croplands and forests are the major sources of the growing urban areas. / Second, taking calibrated nighttime light imagery as a proxy variable, we develop a top-down model to estimate fossil fuel CO₂ emissions on the urban scale. Driven by the rapid urbanization in China, the contributions of urban areas to the CO₂ emissions have increased substantially. In contrast to the developed counties, per capita CO₂ emissions in urban China are higher than the national average, due to higher income, change in lifestyle and easy access to electricity, whereas per capita CO₂ emissions in eastern China is lower than that in western China, due to the diverse scale and structure of local economy. Our analysis also reveals that the booming economy and urbanization are major drivers of the increasing fossil fuel CO₂ emissions, while the decoupling effect of energy efficiency reverses in the post-2000 period caused by the booming economy. It is foreseeable that economic reconstruction and energy structure would play a significant impact on carbon reduction if stricter environmental targets are released. / Third, carbon storage and change in natural components of urban areas, in particular, urban vegetation and soils, are also estimated in this study. A stock-change method is applied in this study. This study identifies that the amount of carbon storage in urban areas is comparable to that emitted from fossil fuel burning, and urban soils are the major carbon pools in urban areas. Along with urban expansions, urban vegetation becomes sources of carbon due to loss of biomass, whereas urban soils act as sinks of carbon because increasing urban areas enhance the carbon storage in them. Given the foreseeable urbanization in China, our study has implications for urban managers to enhance carbon storage through urban vegetation and soils, hence offsetting CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel burning. / Finally, a local temperature response to the increasing CO₂ in urban areas is analyzed by local Granger causality test. Bidirectional Granger causality presents between surface air temperature and carbon variables in less urbanized regions of China. In the rapid urbanization areas such as eastern coastal regions, only presents the Granger causality from surface air temperature to the fossil fuel CO₂ emissions. This is the first attempt to offer insights of local temperature variables response to the increasing CO₂ across urban China. Our integrated results are novel in exploring the contributions of expanding urban areas to CO₂ emissions across China, including anthropogenic and natural components of urban areas simultaneously. We believe that our findings have clear significance for local governments who strive for constructing low-carbon cities. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Meng Lina. / Thesis (Ph.D.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 203-218). / Abstracts also in Chinese.

經濟增長伴隨的城市環境問題已經成為全球普遍關注的問題。如何有效的認識、預測、控制城市環境污染問題，以及如何最大程度降低環境污染帶來的危害成為全社會共同面對的課題。城市社區作為人們日常生活和活動的場所，環境問題更引起社會的關注。因此如何維持一個環境可持續社區更成為一個焦點問題。 / 地理資訊系統對於實現環境可持續發展起到非常重要的作用。然而現實世界中的環境與地理過程是動態的、不斷變化的，傳統的二維、三維地理資訊僅表達地理場景的某一時刻，加上其以空間資料為核心的特徵約束了自身的能力與應用範圍。因此，這樣的地理資訊系統並不能很好的體現和表達當今快節奏的、不斷變化的現實世界，迫切需要新類型、新來源的地理資訊，新方式的分享方式來為人們提供將動態的，即時的資訊有機融合的新功能。以資料庫、模型庫為核心的虛擬地理環境在一定程度上突破了傳統地理資訊系統存在的不足，為研究和認識環境問題提供新的支撐，它具有再現過去和預測未來的雙重功能。同時，感測器技術的發展徹底改變了地理空間資訊的收集方式。地學感測器網路為我們提供了一個在地理環境中表現時間要素的機會。通過現實世界中無處不在的感測器可以捕獲空間物件與地理現象的演變過程，實現實時、動態地監測地理過程。 / 本研究提出將地學感測器網路與虛擬地理環境融合在一個三維線上地學視覺化與模擬平臺下，利用感測器資料的即時性，運用虛擬地理環境的基本理論與方法，構建一個跨越虛擬與現實的社區環境資訊感知平臺。本研究將這個平臺定義為實時動態的虛擬地理環境。 / 本研究以環境監測與模擬為背景，構建實時動態虛擬地理環境的概念框架以及原型系統，為環境可持續社區發展提供深度感知與管理方向。具體的研究內容包括具體內容如下：1）探討實時動態虛擬地理環境的概念框架、研究內容和基礎理論；2）構建多感測器實現的實時動態的虛擬地理環境原型系統框架；3）構建三維線上虛擬地理環境平臺；4）基於開放地理空間資訊聯盟的感測網服務與虛擬地理環境的集成；5）感測器資料在實時動態虛擬地理環境中的表達與模擬。 / 本文首次提出現時的虛擬地理環境。創新點體現在：1）初步提出實時動態虛擬地理環境的理論與基本原理，比較系統地闡述了實時動態虛擬地理環境的概念和基本理論；2）設計了多感測器實現的實時動態虛擬地理環境框架與實現方法；3）開發了一個適用於實時動態虛擬地理環境的可定位可擕式環境感測系統；4）設計了基於事件的環境監測與報警；5）運用新的對話模式實現環境監測與資料共用；6）提出了一個基於移動感測資料的多級處理方法，以滿足地理過程模擬。 / Urban environmental issue, which is closely relative to the economic growth, has become a global issue of common concern. How to better understand, predict and control urban environmental pollution, and how to minimize the hazard it causes, is a concern of the whole society and a new subject we must face. Environmental issues of urban communities, which are the major places holding our daily life and activities, attract more attentions. Therefore, how to maintain an environmentally sustainable community is an issue of critical importance. / It is quite necessary to construct a comprehensive and systematic platform to support the management of urban environment. GIS is a platform to achieve the goals since it reviews fundamental subjects in spatially-oriented fields for understanding, integrating, and modeling the nature and human society. In the past, the data that fueled GIS was typically created to represent the state of the geo-scape at a specific moment in time. And this kind of data has been proven to be very valuable for numerous GIS applications and analysis, even the "current" snapshot falls out of sync with the real world quickly. However, the real world especially the environment is in flux and geographic processes are dynamic, yet the traditional 2D/3D GIS models represent only a single instance of the scene, namely the moment when the images used to create them were actually collected. The "current" snapshot cannot well reflect today’s fast-paced, ever-changing world. An emergency of new types and sources of geographic content, and new ways of sharing them is needed to provide people with exciting new capabilities to incorporate dynamic, real-time information. / With the two cores of database and model database, Virtual Geographic Environment (VGE) breaks the limitations of traditional GIS, which provide new support to study and understanding of environmental issues. VGE can reproduce the past history and predict the future development. Meanwhile, advances in sensor technology and deployment strategies are revolutionizing the way that geospatial information is collected and analyzed. Geosensor networks provide us an opportunity to incorporate the temporal aspect into the geographic environment. With the numerous sensors distributed in the real environment, the evolution of spatial objects or geographic process can be captured, and real-time dynamic monitoring and analyzing of geographic phenomenon will be realized. / This thesis is proposed to incorporate geosensor networks with VGE in an online 3D geoscience visualization and simulation platform, to use real-time sensor data and the basic theory and methods of VGE, then to build a community environmental information perception platform crossing the reality and virtuality. In this study, this platform is defined as Live Virtual Geographic Environment. / This thesis takes environmental monitoring and simulation as the background, aims to build a conceptual framework and a prototype of Live Virtual Geographic Environment to point out the way of environmentally sustainable community perception and management. The work of this thesis can be summarized as follows: 1) investigate the conceptual framework, research content and basic theory of Live VGE; 2) build a system framework of multi-sensor enabled Live VGE prototype; 3) build an online 3D VGE platform; 4) incorporates sensor web services with VGE based on the OGC standards; 5) sensor data representation and simulations in Live VGE. / In this thesis, a Live VGE is proposed. The contributions of this research can be drawn as follows: 1) initially proposed Live VGE theory and rationale, systematically expounded Live VGE concepts and related theories; 2) designed the framework and implement approach of multi-sensor enabled Live VGE; 3) developed a locatable and portable environment sensing system for Live VGE; 4) event-based environmental monitoring and alert; 5) a new interaction method to achieve environmental monitoring and data sharing; 6) proposed a multi-stage method for mobile sensing data to meet the demand of geographical process simulation. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Che, Weitao. / Thesis (Ph.D.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 155-162). / Abstracts also in Chinese.

Urbanisation is a global issue, and rapidly gaining attention from researchers as a major cause of biodiversity loss. Gardens represent a considerable proportion of the urban landscape in the UK and have significant potential to promote urban biodiversity and reduce species loss providing they can be designed and managed appropriately. This research focused on gardens in St Andrews, Scotland, and investigated the influence of environmental variables such as age and area on arachnid and beetle biodiversity with the aim of identifying key predictors of arthropod species richness in urban environments. The key result of this research was that the age and area of individual gardens was not a strong predictor of ground active arthropod biodiversity. This suggests that more recently developed or smaller gardens can contribute to the overall urban region species richness pool as well as larger or more ancient gardens. The most important predictor of ground active arachnid and beetle species richness was the proportion of porous (or 'green') habitat surrounding each garden, and suggested that urban density and habitat connectivity at the regional scale are of key importance. In general, variables measured within gardens (e.g. the provision of microhabitats such as leaf litter, non-managed vegetation, etc.) did not exert any measurable effect on the biodiversity of arachnids or beetles. The findings of this research suggest that the regional availability of heterogeneous greenspace habitat is of high importance for promoting and maintaining urban arthropod biodiversity.

Leung Wai Yin Phyllis. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 1998-99, design report." / In double-leaves format. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 68). / PREFACE --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENT --- p.iii / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2. --- Proposition --- p.3 / Chapter 3. --- Background Exploration --- p.9 / Chapter 4. --- Project Brief --- p.19 / Chapter 5. --- Design Process --- p.31 / Chapter 6. --- Final Design --- p.45 / Chapter 7. --- Conclusion --- p.60 / Chapter 8. --- Appendix --- p.62 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.67

published_or_final_version / abstract / Geography / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy