Integration of Instruments for the Protection of Natural Protected Areas in Urban and Biodiversity Strategies and in Urban Planning Regulations

Approximately 75% of the urban settlements in Romania are superimposed or are tangent to at least one natural protected area, these not being integrated from the point of view of their regulation in the urban strategies and in the urban planning regulations. From a spatial point of view, this type of relationship often represents a contrast between the urban fabric and the quasi-natural fabric. However, in the regulatory or strategy instruments for the development of urban settlements, where such contrasts exist, they are only integrated at the border level. The ecotone is, in most cases, the only element mentioned in urban planning instruments and is approached as a land that can only function in isolation and that in no way can support urban development. This reluctance and fear of approaching natural protected areas, also negatively influences the conception of the community, investors and the administration. Urban actors are not informed and therefore not motivated, but neither do they have the opportunity to get involved in the conservation and protection process. The purpose of this article is to research urban and biodiversity strategies at E.U level, to identify gaps in the formulation of urban planning tools, what are the reasons behind generating these gaps and how they can be eliminated, or at least mitigated. The analysis will focus on some models of urban strategies which address natural protected areas, but will also consider related elements, directly related to their conservation, urban ecology and the involvement in the process of urban actors.

Nest aggregations of wild bees and apoid wasps in urban pavements: a street life to be promoted in urban planning

In the last 10 years, knowledges of wild bees and apoid wasps community dynamics have gained interest in urban ecology focusing on the availability of floral resources in cities. Although understudied, the urban environment impacts the conditions of their nesting sites. Recent observations in the Brussels-Capital Region (Belgium) showed that urban pavements can be a novel nesting opportunity for Hymenoptera ground-nesting species such as wild bees and apoid wasps. Here, using citizen science, we investigated the richness of ground-nesting species living under urban pavements, the preferences of the sidewalk joint size related to ground-nesting species size and for sidewalk type or for soils texture under the pavements on the nesting site selection. A total of 22 species belonging to 10 Hymenoptera families of wild bees and digger wasps with their associated kleptoparasites were identified on 89 sites in Brussels. Sandstone setts or concrete slabs with an unbound joint size around 1 cm were found to be best suitable urban pavements for the ground-nesting species. The soil texture under the pavement was highly sandy among our samples. Finally, we also suggest engineering management guidelines to support bee and wasp species nesting under urban pavement in highly urbanized areas. Such observations pave the way for much research in the field of urban ecology to conceive multifunctional pavement promoting biodiversity.

Fishing in the city for food—a paradigmatic case of sustainability in urban blue space

This article presents fishing in the city for food (FCF) as a trenchant example of urban ecology, and the ways in which urban dwellers use, interact with, and depend on urban blue spaces. Our literature review demonstrates how FCF is studied in a diverse body of scientific publications that rarely draw on each other. As such, FCF and its relevance for sustainable and just planning of urban blue space remain relatively unknown. Using the literature review, a survey of FCF in European capitals, and examples from FCF in Stockholm, we demonstrate how attention to FCF raises pertinent and interrelated questions about access to water, food and recreation; human health; animal welfare and aquatic urban biodiversity.

Coproduction of place and knowledge for ecology with the city

Ecology with the city is a transdisciplinary pursuit, combining the work of researchers, policy makers, managers, and residents to advance equity and sustainability. This undertaking may be facilitated by understanding the parallels in two kinds of coproduction. First, is how urban systems themselves are places that are jointly constituted or coproduced by biophysical and social processes. Second, is how sustainable planning and policies also join human concerns with biophysical structures and processes. Seeking connections between coproduction of place and the coproduction of knowledge may help improve how urban ecology engages with diverse communities and urban interests in service of sustainability.

Data-driven smart eco-cities and sustainable integrated districts: A best-evidence synthesis approach to an extensive literature review

As materializations of trends toward developing and implementing urban socio-technical and enviro-economic experiments for transition, eco-cities have recently received strong government and institutional support in many countries around the world due to their ability to function as an innovative strategic niche where to test and introduce various reforms. There are many models of the eco-city based mainly on either following the principles of urban ecology or combining the strategies of sustainable cities and the solutions of smart cities. The most prominent among these models are sustainable integrated districts and data-driven smart eco-cities. The latter model represents the unprecedented transformative changes the eco-city is currently undergoing in light of the recent paradigm shift in science and technology brought on by big data science and analytics. This is motivated by the growing need to tackle the problematicity surrounding eco-cities in terms of their planning, development, and governance approaches and practices. Employing a combination of both best-evidence synthesis and narrative approaches, this paper provides a comprehensive state-of-the-art and thematic literature review on sustainable integrated districts and data-driven smart eco-cities. The latter new area is a significant gap in and of itself that this paper seeks to fill together with to what extent the integration of eco-urbanism and smart urbanism is addressed in the era of big data, what driving factors are behind it, and what forms and directions it takes. This study reveals that eco-city district developments are increasingly embracing compact city strategies and becoming a common expansion route for growing cities to achieve urban ecology or urban sustainability. It also shows that the new eco-city projects are increasingly capitalizing on data-driven smart technologies to implement environmental, economic, and social reforms. This is being accomplished by combining the strengths of eco-cities and smart cities and harnessing the synergies of their strategies and solutions in ways that enable eco-cities to improve their performance with respect to sustainability as to its tripartite composition. This in turn means that big data technologies will change eco-urbanism in fundamental and irreversible ways in terms of how eco-cities will be monitored, understood, analyzed, planned, designed, and governed. However, smart urbanism poses significant risks and drawbacks that need to be addressed and overcome in order to achieve the desired outcomes of ecological sustainability in its broader sense. One of the key critical questions raised in this regard pertains to the very potentiality of the technocratic governance of data-driven smart eco-cities and the associated negative implications and hidden pitfalls. In addition, by shedding light on the increasing adoption and uptake of big data technologies in eco-urbanism, this study seeks to assist policymakers and planners in assessing the pros and cons of smart urbanism when effectuating ecologically sustainable urban transformations in the era of big data, as well as to stimulate prospective research and further critical debates on this topic.

KONSEP ECOLOGICAL CITY DALAM KERANGKA KONSEP EKOLOGI KOTA DAN KOTA BERKELANJUTAN

ABSTRACTCity growth that continues to occur is unavoidable and affects the environment, so an ecological approach is needed to overcome it. One of the city concepts that has developed along with the historical perspective of urban ecology is the ecological city (ecocity). In the development of ecocity in several countries that carry the theme of sustainability city, both practice and concept do not explain the "process" to achieve the city's environmental sustainability goals. The purpose of this paper is to examine the theoretical position of the ecological city concept within the framework of urban ecology and sustainable cities. The method used is a literature review based on the development of the concept of ecocity, urban ecology and sustainable city. Based on the results of the study, it shows that in the urban ecology approach, ecocity can be concluded as a concept that balances the city's metabolism (ecology of cities) through the independence of the structure and function of the ecosystem where humans play a role in determining the process of adaptation and urban development. In the concept of a sustainable city along with the development of eco-form which represents ecological considerations in urban and community spaces, it shows that urban form is one of the elements that can be intervened in achieving sustainable city goals. Ecocity as an eco-form is in the challenge of conflict between aspects of the social environment where the conflict that occurs has shifted from development conflict to green conflict in a sustainable prism. The results of the study show that in the process of managing an environmentally sound city environment (ecocity) it is necessary to consider the integration of humans as social aspects in interaction with ecosystems (social-ecology) in city metabolism as the basis for providing ecosystem services and urban green infrastructure. Keywords: ecological city, city ecology, sustainable city, city metabolism ABSTRAKPertumbuhan kota yang terus terjadi tidak dapat dihindari dan berpengaruh terhadap lingkungan, sehingga dibutuhkan pendekatan ekologi untuk mengatasinya. Salah satu konsep kota yang berkembang seiring dengan perspektif sejarah ekologi kota (urban ecology) adalah ecological city (ecocity). Pada perkembangan ecocity di beberapa negara yang mengusung tema kota keberlanjutan baik praktek maupun konsep tidak menjelaskan “proses” untuk mencapai tujuan keberlanjutan lingkungan kota tersebut. Tujuan makalah ini adalah mengkaji kedudukan secara teoritis konsep ecological city dalam kerangka ekologi kota (urban ecology) dan kota berkelanjutan (sustainability city). Metode yang digunakan adalah review literatur berdasarkan perkembangan konsep ecocity, urban ecology dan sustainable city. Berdasarkan hasil kajian menunjukkan dalam pendekatan urban ecology, ecocity dapat disimpulkan sebagai konsep yang menyeimbangkan metabolisme kota (ecology of cities) melalui kemandirian struktur dan fungsi ekosistem dimana manusia berperan di dalam menentukan proses adaptasi dan perkembangan kota. Dalam konsep kota berkelanjutan seiring dengan perkembangan eco-form yang merepresentasikan pertimbangan ekologi di dalam ruang kota dan komunitas menunjukkan bentuk kota (urban form) merupakan salah satu unsur yang dapat diintervensi di dalam mencapai tujuan kota yang berkelanjutan. Ecocity sebagai eco-form berada di dalam tantangan konflik antara aspek lingkungan sosial dimana konflik yang terjadi mengalami pergeseran dari development conflict ke arah green conflict di dalam prisma berkelanjutan. Hasil kajian menunjukkan di dalam proses pengelolaan lingkungan kota yang berwawasan lingkungan (ecocity) perlu mempertimbangkan integrasi manusia sebagai aspek sosial dalam interaksi dengan ekosistem (sosial-ekologi) di dalam metabolisme kota sebagai dasar di dalam penyediaan ecosystem services dan infrastruktur hijau perkotaan.Kata Kunci : ecological city, ekologi kota, kota berkelanjutan, metabolisme kota