Ecosystem Services Come To Town: Greening Cities By Working With Nature

Ecosystem Services Come To Town: Greening Cities by Working with Nature

The need to find new approaches to the development of cities isbecoming increasingly urgent in this age of continuing populationgrowth, demographic transition, climate change, fossil fuel peakand biodiversity losses. Restoring ecosystem services and promotingbiodiversity is essential to sustainable development – evenin the built environment.

Ecosystem Services come to Town: greening cities by workingwith nature demonstrates how to make urban environmentsgreener. It starts by explaining how, by mimicking nature anddeliberately creating habitats to provide ecosystem services,cities can become more efficient and more pleasant to livein.  The history of cities and city planning is covered withthe impacts of industrial urban development described, as well asthe contemporary concerns of biodiversity loss, peak oil andclimate change.

The later sections offer solutions to the challenges ofsustainable urban development by describing and explaining a wholerange of approaches and interventions, beginning at the regionalscale with strategic green infrastructure, looking at districts andprecincts, with trees, parks and rain gardens and ending withsingle buildings, including with green roofs and living walls.

Technical enough to be valuable to practitioners but stillreadable and inspirational, this guide demonstrates to townplanners, urban designers, architects, engineers, landscapearchitects how to make cities more liveable.