Urban green space plays a vital role in the stability of the environment. Green spaces are increasingly becoming an integral part of the efforts to promote sustainability because of the different areas of benefits they provide. Sustainable city ranking systems were used to identify the most sustainable urban extents within the US. Landsat TM 4-5 imagery and textural classification are used as techniques in identifying, classifying and analyzing urban green spaces within nineteen urban extents. Patch analyst was used to analyze the location, structure and fragmentation green spaces within each urban extent. The aim is to determine to what degree urban green spaces can be considered to be an integral part of the sustainability of sustainable urban extents across the US and ascertain whether or not more sustainable urban extents do have more urban green spaces. The results of the study have shown that urban extents that are ranked highly v on sustainable ranking systems do not necessarily have to have large proportion of green spaces. Results have also shown that urban extents that are ranked high on sustainable rankings will not necessarily be affected by increase in population or decrease in urban green space. Finally human modified green spaces have simple geometric shapes compared to natural unaltered green spaces that have more complex geometric shapes. / by Gillian Bloise. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

So Lek Hang Lake. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 196-203). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.vii / Table of Content --- p.ix / List of Figures --- p.xiii / List of Tables --- p.xvi / Chapter CHAPTER 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Problem Statement --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Research Objectives --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3 --- Research Significance --- p.6 / Chapter 1.4 --- Organization of the thesis --- p.7 / Chapter 1.5 --- Definition of Urban Green Space --- p.9 / Chapter CHAPTER 2. --- Literatu re Re view --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2 --- Urban Green Space --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Classification of Urban Green Space --- p.11 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Configuration of Urban Green Space System --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Different Approaches to Urban Green Space Study --- p.14 / Chapter 2.3 --- Urban Green Space in China --- p.15 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- General Problems --- p.16 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Increasing Awareness of Environment --- p.16 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Chinese Definition of Urban Green Space --- p.18 / Chapter 2.4 --- Remote Sensing Techniques --- p.21 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Review of Image Classification Techniques --- p.21 / Chapter 2.4.1.1 --- Conventional Classification Methods --- p.22 / Chapter 2.4.1.2 --- Mixed Pixels Problem --- p.23 / Chapter 2.4.1.3 --- Mixed Pixels，Effects on Conventional Classifiers --- p.25 / Chapter 2.4.1.4 --- Alternative Solutions to Mixed Pixels Problems (Fuzzy Sets) --- p.26 / Chapter 2.4.1.5 --- Problems Fuzzy Classifications are unable to solve --- p.28 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- Object-oriented Classification Concept --- p.30 / Chapter 2.4.2.1 --- Multiresolution Segmentation --- p.30 / Chapter 2.4.2.2 --- Fuzzy Classification Procedure --- p.31 / Chapter 2.4.2.3 --- Object-orien ted Approach to Image Processing --- p.32 / Chapter 2.4.2.4 --- E cognition --- p.33 / Chapter 2.4.2.5 --- Research about ecognition --- p.34 / Chapter 2.5 --- Landscape Ecology --- p.35 / Chapter 2.5.1 --- Basic Principles --- p.35 / Chapter 2.5.2 --- Landscape Metrics --- p.36 / Chapter 2.5.3 --- Application of Landscape Ecology in Landscape Analysis --- p.38 / Chapter 2.6 --- Conclusion --- p.39 / Chapter CHAPTER 3. --- Study Sites and Methodology --- p.41 / Chapter 3.1 --- lntroduction --- p.41 / Chapter 3.2 --- Study Area --- p.41 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Chongqing --- p.41 / Chapter 3.2.1.1 --- Geography and geomorphology --- p.42 / Chapter 3.2.1.2 --- Administration and governance --- p.42 / Chapter 3.2.1.3 --- Environmental Quality --- p.43 / Chapter 3.2.1.4 --- Governm ent Attempt to Improvement --- p.43 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Nanjing --- p.46 / Chapter 3.2.2.1 --- Geography and Geomorphology --- p.46 / Chapter 3.2.2.2 --- Administration and Governance --- p.46 / Chapter 3.2.2.3 --- Landscape Planning of Nanjing --- p.47 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Comparison between Chongqing and Nanjing --- p.47 / Chapter 3.2.3.1 --- Geographical setting --- p.49 / Chapter 3.2.3.2 --- Population --- p.49 / Chapter 3.2.3.3 --- Urbanization and Industrialization Levels --- p.51 / Chapter 3.2.3.4 --- Variation in Landscape Quantity --- p.51 / Chapter 3.2.3.5 --- Comparison from Satellite Images --- p.52 / Chapter 3.3 --- Working procedures --- p.56 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Data --- p.56 / Chapter 3.3.1.1 --- VNIR chann els --- p.58 / Chapter 3.3.1.2 --- SWIR channels --- p.59 / Chapter 3.3.1.3 --- Data Fusion --- p.59 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Designing Hierarchical Classification System --- p.60 / Chapter 3.3.2.1 --- Chongqing --- p.60 / Chapter 3.3.2.2 --- Nanjing --- p.61 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Object-oriented Classification --- p.62 / Chapter 3.3.3.1 --- Introdu ction --- p.63 / Chapter 3.3.3.2 --- Procedure of Object-oriented Classification --- p.65 / Chapter 3.3.3.2.1 --- Analysis of Image Objects --- p.65 / Chapter 3.3.3.2.2 --- Image Segmentation --- p.67 / Chapter 3.3.3.2.3 --- Selection of Features and Data Conversion --- p.67 / Chapter 3.3.3.2.4 --- Class-based Objects Sampling --- p.68 / Chapter 3.3.3.2.5 --- Class-based Objects Analysis --- p.68 / Chapter 3.3.3.2.6 --- Designing Object Level Hierarchy --- p.69 / Chapter 3.3.3.2.7 --- Designing Class Hierarchy --- p.69 / Chapter 3.3.3.2.8 --- Decision Tree Classification Structure --- p.69 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- Comparison with other classification algorithms --- p.70 / Chapter 3.4 --- Landscape Analyses --- p.71 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Selection of Landscape Metrics --- p.72 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Landscape Analysis for entire cities --- p.74 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- Buffer Analysis --- p.74 / Chapter 3.5 --- Conclusion --- p.77 / Chapter CHAPTER 4. --- Results and Discussion I Variations of Image Object Signatures for Sampled Land Covers --- p.78 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.78 / Chapter 4.2 --- Chongqing --- p.79 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Spectral-shape ratio --- p.79 / Chapter 4.2.1.1 --- Selection Criteria --- p.80 / Chapter 4.2.1.2 --- Observations --- p.80 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Segmentation levels --- p.85 / Chapter 4.2.2.1 --- Selection Criteria --- p.85 / Chapter 4.2.2.2 --- Observations --- p.86 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Classifying Rules --- p.93 / Chapter 4.2.3.1 --- Selection Criteria --- p.93 / Chapter 4.2.3.2 --- Level 9 --- p.94 / Chapter 4.2.3.3 --- Level 5 --- p.101 / Chapter 4.2.3.4 --- Level 1 --- p.103 / Chapter 4.3 --- Nanjing --- p.104 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Spectral-shape ratio --- p.104 / Chapter 4.3.1.1 --- Selection Criteria --- p.105 / Chapter 4.3.1.2 --- Observations --- p.105 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Segmentation Levels --- p.111 / Chapter 4.3.2.1 --- Selection Criteria --- p.111 / Chapter 4.3.2.2 --- Observations --- p.111 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Classifying Rules --- p.119 / Chapter 4.3.3.1 --- Selection Criteria --- p.119 / Chapter 4.3.3.2 --- Level 8 --- p.119 / Chapter 4.3.3.3 --- Level 4 --- p.126 / Chapter 4.3.3.4 --- Level 1 --- p.129 / Chapter 4.4 --- Discussion --- p.131 / Chapter CHAPTER 5. --- Results and Discussion II Image Classification --- p.134 / Chapter 5.1 --- lntroduction --- p.134 / Chapter 5.2 --- Chongqing --- p.135 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Class hierarchy --- p.135 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Description of the site --- p.136 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- Classification of “lake´ح --- p.138 / Chapter 5.2.4 --- "Classification of ""crops and grassland""" --- p.139 / Chapter 5.2.5 --- Classification of “low density urban´ح --- p.140 / Chapter 6.3.3 --- Classification Result --- p.142 / Chapter 5.2.7 --- Error matrix --- p.144 / Chapter 5.2.8 --- Class Proportion --- p.144 / Chapter 5.2.9 --- Post-classification Aggregation --- p.147 / Chapter 5.3 --- Nanjing --- p.149 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Class Hierarchy --- p.149 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Description of the site --- p.151 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Classification of lake --- p.151 / Chapter 5.3.4 --- "Classification of ""crops and grassland II´ح" --- p.153 / Chapter 5.3.5 --- "Classification of ""low density urban""" --- p.154 / Chapter 5.3.6 --- Classification Result --- p.155 / Chapter 5.3.7 --- Error Matrix --- p.156 / Chapter 5.3.8 --- Class Proportion --- p.161 / Chapter 5.3.9 --- Post-classification Aggregation --- p.161 / Chapter 5.4 --- Discussion --- p.163 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- Problems of object-oriented classification --- p.163 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- Strengths of object-oriented classification --- p.165 / Chapter 5.4.3 --- Transferability of classifying rules --- p.166 / Chapter CHAPTER 6. --- "Results and Discussion HI Landscape Structure of ""Urban Green Space"", Chongqing and Nanjing" --- p.167 / Chapter 6.1 --- Introduction --- p.167 / Chapter 6.2 --- Chongqing --- p.167 / Chapter 6.2.1 --- Landscape composition --- p.167 / Chapter 6.2.2 --- Fragmentation --- p.169 / Chapter 6.2.3 --- Contagion --- p.171 / Chapter 6.2.4 --- Patch Shape Complexity --- p.171 / Chapter 6.3 --- Nanjing --- p.173 / Chapter 6.3.1 --- Landscape composition --- p.173 / Chapter 6.3.2 --- Fragmentation --- p.175 / Chapter 6.3.3 --- Contagion --- p.177 / Chapter 6.3.4 --- Patch Shape Complexity --- p.178 / Chapter 6.4 --- Discussion --- p.179 / Chapter 6.4.1 --- Similarities --- p.179 / Chapter 6.4.2 --- Differences --- p.182 / Chapter CHAPTER 7. --- Conclusion --- p.186 / Chapter 7.1 --- Summary on findings --- p.186 / Chapter 7.1.1 --- Summary on image object analyses --- p.186 / Chapter 7.1.2 --- Summary on object-oriented classification --- p.187 / Chapter 7.1.3 --- Summary on landscape studies of ´ب´بurban green space´ح --- p.189 / Chapter 7.2 --- Limitations of the research --- p.190 / Chapter 7.2.1 --- Data preparation --- p.190 / Chapter 7.2.2 --- Image classification --- p.191 / Chapter 7.2.3 --- Landscape Analysis --- p.193 / Chapter 7.3 --- Suggestions for further research --- p.194 / Bibliography --- p.196 / Appendix 1´ؤEquations of object features --- p.204 / Appendix 2´ؤEquations for Landscape Metrics --- p.208 / Appendix 3´ؤVariations of Object Features along Segmentation Levels in Chongqing --- p.216 / Appendix 4´ؤVariations of Object Features along Segmentation Levels in Nanjing --- p.244 / Appendix 5´ؤClassifying Rules --- p.277 / Appendix 6´ؤVariations in Landscape Metrics along Buffers from City Center in Chongqing --- p.282 / Appendix 7´ؤVariations in Landscape Metrics along Buffers from City Center in Nanjing --- p.290

Com a modernização da agricultura, uma consequência foi o grande êxodo rural que ocorreu no Brasil e na América Latina na segunda metade do século XX. Dessa maneira os alimentos começaram a viajar maiores distancias, consequentemente encarecendo os preços, principalmente dos mais perecíveis, como as hortaliças. Nesse contexto surge a agricultura urbana ocupando espaços vazios urbanos e produzindo alimentos frescos próximos a centros consumidores. O presente trabalho foi realizado no município de Piracicaba, onde existe uma grande quantidade de hortas urbanas; também motivou o início deste trabalho a existência de quintais agroflorestais urbanos, e o conhecimento dos benefícios ambientais que trazem para as cidades de maneira geral, partindo do pressuposto de que existem diversos benefícios ambientais, sociais e econômicos na agricultura e agrossilvicultura urbana. Pensando na questão ambiental, os quintais agroflorestais urbanos podem parecer insignificantes inicialmente, pela própria dimensão física limitada; entretanto, em conjunto eles desempenham uma grande função ambiental, promovendo infiltração da água das chuvas e melhorias no microclima, além do acréscimo de biodiversidade ao ecossistema urbano. As hortas urbanas têm seu potencial ambiental, entretanto a questão estéticas, sanitária e de segurança alimentar são mais facilmente visualizadas, pois efetivamente aumentam a oferta de hortaliças frescas a preços acessíveis dentro das cidades, melhorando a alimentação da população. Entretanto, a questão dos agrotóxicos dentro do ambiente urbano é uma discussão um pouco complexa, que também deve ser trazida em nível de política pública. O presente trabalho parte da hipótese de que políticas públicas que contemplem a multifuncionalidade da agricultura e agrossilvicultura urbana e periurbana trariam o efeito positivo dessa prática para dentro dos municípios. O presente trabalho para da hipótese de que uma política pública de saneamento favorece uma agricultura multifuncional dentro da cidade. Essa tese é dividida em capítulos que constituem artigos. O primeiro capítulo quantifica em área os quintais agroflorestais urbanos dentro da cidade, mostrando que 20% da cobertura arbórea urbana está contida em quintais agroflorestais. O segundo capítulo faz uma análise de dados referentes a classe social de mantenedores de quintais permeáveis nas residências, mostrando que aparentemente a classe média tem menor tendência a manter quintais permeáveis. O terceiro traz um diagnóstico das hortas urbanas de Piracicaba, e a tipificação dos agricultores, como subsídios para conversão para agricultura ecológica. O quarto capítulo faz uma análise de uma política pública ligada com hortas urbanas dentro de Piracicaba, mostrando seus pontos fortes e fragilidades, entre os pontos fortes se destacam o emprego de mão-de-obra, o efeito paisagístico, de limpeza, estética e saneamento e a produção de hortaliças frescas próximas do mercado consumidor reduzindo custo energético com transportes, e das fragilidades a presença de aplicação de defensivos agrícolas dentro da área urbana. Para contemplar a multifuncionalidade das hortas urbanas é importante a existência de políticas locais que contemples a diversidade de aspectos ecológicos econômicos e ambientais da agricultura e agrossilvicultura urbana. / With the modernization of agriculture, a consequence was the great rural exodus that occurred in Brazil and Latin America in the second half of the twentieth century. In this way the food began to travel greater distances, consequently increasing the prices, especially of the more perishable ones, like the vegetables. In this context, urban agriculture occupies empty urban spaces and produces fresh food close to consumer centers. The present work was carried out in the municipality of Piracicaba, where there is a great amount of urban gardens; also motivated the beginning of this work the existence of urban agroforestry yards and knowledge of the environmental benefits they bring to cities in general, based on the assumption that there are several environmental, social and economic benefits in urban agriculture and agroforestry. Thinking about the environmental issue, urban agroforestry yards may seem insignificant initially, by their own limited physical dimension; however, together they play a major environmental role, promoting infiltration of rainwater and improvements in the microclimate, as well as adding biodiversity to the urban ecosystem. Urban gardens have their environmental potential, however, the aesthetic, sanitary and food safety issues are more easily visualized, since they effectively increase the supply of fresh vegetables at affordable prices within cities, improving the population\'s nutrition. However, the issue of pesticides within the urban environment is a rather complex discussion, which must also be brought to the public policy level. The present work is based on the hypothesis that a public policy of sanitation favors a multifunctional agriculture within the city. This thesis is divided into chapters that constitute articles. The first chapter quantifies in the area the urban agroforestry quintals within the city, showing that 20% of the urban tree cover is contained in agroforestry yards. The second chapter analyzes data on the social class of permeable backyard keepers in households, showing that the middle class seems to be less likely to keep backyards permeable. The third brings a diagnosis of the urban gardens of Piracicaba, and the typification of the farmers, as subsidies for conversion to organic farming. The fourth chapter presents an analysis of a public policy linked to urban gardens in Piracicaba, showing its strengths and weaknesses, among the strengths are the employment of labor, the landscape effect, cleaning, aesthetics and sanitation and the production of fresh vegetables close to the consumer market, reducing energy costs with transport, and from the weaknesses the presence of agricultural pesticides in the urban area. In order to contemplate the multifunctionality of urban gardens, it is important to have local policies that contemplate the diversity of the ecological, economic and environmental aspects of urban agriculture and agroforestry.

abstract: Cities are increasingly using nature-based approaches to address urban sustainability challenges. These solutions leverage the ecological processes associated with existing or newly constructed Urban Ecological Infrastructure (UEI) to address issues through ecosystem services (e.g. stormwater retention or treatment). The growing use of UEI to address urban sustainability challenges can bring together teams of urban researchers and practitioners to co-produce UEI design, monitoring and maintenance. However, this co-production process received little attention in the literature, and has not been studied in the Phoenix Metro Area. I examined several components of a co-produced design process and related project outcomes associated with a small-scale UEI project – bioswales installed at the Arizona State University (ASU) Orange Mall and Student Pavilion in Tempe, AZ. Specifically, I explored the social design process and ecohydrological and biogeochemical outcomes associated with development of an ecohydrological monitoring protocol for assessing post-construction landscape performance of this site. The monitoring protocol design process was documented using participant observation of collaborative project meetings, and semi-structured interviews with key researchers and practitioners. Throughout this process, I worked together with researchers and practitioners to co-produced a suite of ecohydrological metrics to monitor the performance of the bioswales (UEI) constructed at Orange Mall, with an emphasis on understanding stormwater dynamics. I then installed and operated monitoring equipment from Summer 2018 to Spring 2019 to generate data that can be used to assess system performance with respect to the co-identified performance metrics. The co-production experience resulted in observable change in attitudes both at the individual and institutional level with regards to the integration and use of urban ecological research to assess and improve UEI design. My ecological monitoring demonstrated that system performance met design goals with regards to stormwater capture, and water quality data suggest the system’s current design has some capacity for stormwater treatment. These data and results are being used by practitioners at ASU and their related design partners to inform future design and management of UEI across the ASU campus. More broadly, this research will provide insights into improving the monitoring, evaluation, and performance efficacy associated with collaborative stormwater UEI projects, independent of scale, in arid cities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Sustainability 2019

The human population is rapidly urbanizing, creating dramatic changes in local land use and land cover, unprecedented species loss, and a society increasingly disconnected from nature. Nature, specifically biodiversity, has been shown to provide benefits and enhance well-being to humans. Living in an environment with reduced opportunity to interact with or experience biodiversity has increasingly been recognized as both a public health and environmental issue, whereby separation from nature can negatively impact human well-being and how humans value nature, diminishing interest in and understanding of nature and its conservation. Because urban living reduces contact with nature, it is imperative to understand how urban residents perceive and benefit from urban nature to better manage urban biodiversity to both support human well-being and conservation efforts. This study examines how urbanites perceive and benefit from two types of urban nature, trees and birds, by combining surveys of local residents with tree and bird data collected in two Midwestern agricultural cities, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, Iowa from neighborhoods of varying urban intensity. A residential survey was distributed to these neighborhoods during the summer of 2018 to assess resident perceptions of neighborhood biodiversity and its benefits. In general, residents were not able to assess relative levels of biodiversity compared to other neighborhoods, except in the case of high tree species richness. There was a strong relationship between perceived biodiversity and actual biodiversity, as well as reported knowledge of a given taxon, but only residential perceptions of biodiversity, not actual biodiversity, were strongly related to reported benefits. Respondent perceptions of the influence of trees on their well-being exhibited strong relationships with a person’s connection to trees. Reported influence of birds on well-being was strongly related to a person’s connection to trees, connection to birds, and landscaping practices to support wild species in their yards. Actual bird species richness was significantly negatively related to perceived influence of birds on well-being. Perceived nuisances associated with trees were significantly negatively related to perceived tree species richness, while a person’s connection to trees was strongly positively related to tree nuisances. These results indicate that reported perceptions of the benefits from biodiversity are most heavily influenced by resident perceptions of biodiversity itself and orientation toward nature. This finding also implies that residents benefit from the presence of biodiversity, but that perceived benefits are only related to respondent perceptions of biodiversity, not to actual biodiversity. Further research is necessary to understand why and how this paradox occurs, yet this study provides reason to support efforts to increase knowledge of species as well as provide biodiverse environments that create opportunities for interaction with urban nature. Providing both would strengthen urban resident well-being and support biodiversity and conservation initiatives within cities.

In the Midwestern US, forested and other woody plant habitats are embedded in a matrix of agricultural and urban landcover that alters configurations of “natural” habitats and creates novel habitat types. Variation in the type and juxtaposition of landcover in the matrix between habitats can profoundly impact the spatial and temporal distributions of insects. Intense urban and agricultural development alters habitats, increases fragmentation, and may decouple trophic interactions if plants or animals cannot disperse to needed resources. Specialist insects represent a substantial proportion of global biodiversity and their fidelity to discrete microhabitats provides a powerful framework for investigating organismal responses to human land use. Specialist herbivores and parasitoids that depend on discrete plant habitats simplify assessment of how trophic interactions, local demographic traits, and dispersal processes affect responses to landcover heterogeneity. Herbivore responses to landcover change are highly idiosyncratic and not well characterized. Parasitoid wasps are predicted to be more prone than their herbivore hosts to local extinction in response to increased habitat fragmentation, but often respond differently to similar landcover contexts. Understanding and predicting idiosyncratic spatial population dynamics of simple host-parasitoid communities and other insect systems requires integration of metacommunity-level ecological paradigms with spatial analyses across multiple spatial scales. We sampled site occupancy and densities for two plant-herbivore-parasitoid systems from 250 sites across a 360 km2 urban/ agricultural landscape across three study years to ask whether and how human development decouples interactions between trophic levels. We first performed a single year analysis to investigate broad scale patterns. We compared patterns of site occupancy, host plant density, herbivory and parasitism rates of insects at two trophic levels with respect to landcover at multiple spatial scales. Geospatial analyses were used to identify landcover characters predictive of insect distributions. We found that herbivorous insect densities were decoupled from host tree densities in urban landcover types at several spatial scales. This effect was amplified for the third trophic level in one of the two insect systems: despite being abundant regionally, a parasitoid species was absent from all urban/ suburban landcover even where its herbivore host was common. Our results indicate that human land use patterns limit distributions of specialist insects. Dispersal constraints associated with urban built development are specifically implicated as a limiting factor. Our multi-year analysis of trophic interactions in urban versus agricultural landcover showed that important results from our single-year study are consistent over time and provided useful insights into the factors mediating spatial distributions of specialist insects in altered landscapes. While we observed that insect species responded to landcover at consistent local- and landscape-scale spatial extents, we observed that coarse grain landcover categories (i.e. urban versus agricultural) at low spatial resolution yielded the most consistent patterns of organismal response. Our results indicate that agricultural versus urban landcover contexts can mediate distinct spatial population structuring across linked trophic levels. This finding has important implications for conservation and pest management strategies in heterogeneous landscapes and is an important consideration when translating heuristics regarding metacommunity dynamics from one broad spatial context to another.

Because urban areas comprise a variety of biotic (e.g. people, trees) and abiotic (e.g. streets, water) components that interact and are often interdependent upon one another, it is helpful to study urban areas as urban ecosystems. Our goal in Chapter 2 is to measure and quantify the spatial and demographic structure of the urbanized portion of Salt Lake County, Utah. We use 18 metrics from four broad categories (density, centrality, accessibility, and neighborhood mix) to measure urban form for three age-based residential neighborhood types. Using analysis of variance (ANOVA) we test for differences in mean values for the 18 urban form metrics. We find measureable differences in the spatial and demographic characteristics of these neighborhoods, suggesting that the rate of urban sprawl in Salt Lake County has been holding steady, if not increasing, during the last 20 years. Chapter 3 seeks to better understand how spatial heterogeneity in urban tree canopy is related to household characteristics, urban form, and the geophysical landscape of residential neighborhoods. We consider neighborhood age a factor that moderates the relationship between these determinants of tree canopy, and the abundance of tree canopy observed. Using linear regression analysis with neighborhood age as interaction term, we assess the relationship between tree canopy and 15 determinants of tree canopy abundance at three neighborhood ages. We find that neighborhood age has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between several determinants of canopy cover and the abundance of canopy cover observed. While the urban forest provides many benefits to human well-being, it also consumes considerable quantities of water. An important question in Chapter 4 is to determine whether a growing urban forest increases overall residential irrigation demand, decreases demand, or has no apparent effect. Using a water demand model borrowed from agronomy, we estimate irrigation water demand based on the area of three residential landscape types and climatic factors. We project future residential water demand by generating residential landscape scenarios based on predicted urban forest canopy growth. We find that urban forest growth has the effect of stabilizing or potentially decreasing overall residential irrigation water demand.

Egg hatchability has been correlated with many factors, including clutch size, presence of helpers, timing of breeding and predation risk. Hatching failure is higher in a suburban population of Florida Scrub-Jays than in a wildland population, but the reasons for this pattern are unclear. An analysis of long-term demographic data on scrub-jays in both habitats revealed the factors that best explained variation in hatching failure, and an experiment tested whether two potential site factors, ambient temperature and predation risk, could increase hatching failure in the suburbs. Although a global model was best supported by the data for occurrence of partial hatching failure (PHF), clutch size and site were the most significant parameters in this model, which is consistent with the analysis of rates of PHF. I further examined two potential site differences, ambient temperature and predation risk, which might increase PHF in the suburbs. Human activity may increase the perception of predation risk, thus suburban jays may take fewer, longer off-bouts or make fewer incubation feedings to decrease this perceived risk. These behavioral changes may increase nest temperature, thus increase embryo mortality. I placed thermocouples and video cameras at nests during incubation to gauge both ambient and nest temperature and behavior of scrub-jays at each site. I predicted higher ambient temperatures in the suburbs, because suburban areas often serve as heat islands. I also predicted fewer, longer off-bouts and fewer feedings in the suburbs and where human activity was increased experimentally. Ambient temperatures were higher in the suburbs as a result of higher daily minimums rather than higher maximums. Furthermore, females exposed to increased human activity took fewer but not longer off-bouts than suburban or wildland controls; therefore, they increased their nest attentiveness.

Bioacoustics is a relatively new field of research focused on studying the acoustic signals of vocal animal species. The field has been a topic of interest for many years due its passive approach and avoidance of species-level limitations, such as tracking rare or nocturnal species. It has been used to locate birds in terrestrial environments; however, localization in urban environments remains unstudied. This research aims to fill the gap by attempting to estimate the location of 30 discrete calls in eight unique, urban environments. Sites represented two distinct traffic scenarios: moderate traffic and high traffic. Three system arrays of three different sizes utilizing the Song Meter SM2+ units were tested at each site to determine the effect of array size on call visibility and location estimation. An American robin (Turdus migratorius) distress call was played through a loudspeaker at the thirty locations for each array. The spectrogram of each of these calls was examined to determine the number of channels with a visible call signature. If the file contained at least one visible call per song meter (36% of our sound files), cross correlation was used to determine the differences in the time of arrival of calls at all the microphones in the array, called lag values, which were used to calculate the origin location of the call. However, resulting lag values in this study were too large to produce reliable location estimates. This was likely due to imprecise synchronization in the field or poorly defined calls within the spectrograms. Our overall low visibility is likely a result of the high signal to noise ratio common in urban environments. Further research is necessary to continue to test the viability of acoustic localization in urban environments.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 575-607) Pt. A. Ecological cityscapes: theory & practice -- pt. B. Urban ecology Australia &ecopolis: ecocity projects in South Australia -- pt. C. Towards a theoretical synthesis of ecopolis About creating and maintaining 'ecological cities' and the necessary conditions for making ecocities. Sets the creation of human settlement in an ecological context and demonstrates through case study analyses that practical approaches to urbanism can be made within a theory of city-making grounded in principles of direct democracy and cooperative community processes.