We research the character of urban ecosystems; what they mean for biodiversity, people’s worldviews, values, and well-being, and socio-spatial inequalities; how nature is viewed as a contributor to finding solutions to wicked sustainability problems; and how its governance is organized across scales. Our interest also relates to urbanization as a global phenomenon, looking at how cities are interlinked with global dynamics through their resource use, emissions, and socio-political dynamics.
Symptomatic of the Anthropocene, cities and other urbanized areas have become major factors influencing our environments on a global scale. Concurrently, urban areas are themselves transforming due to environmental changes along with deliberate actions taken by people. This also means considering and attempting to understand the needs of and making space for other, non-human species, to reiterate what sustainability can consist of. This means engaging with the biophysical processes and functioning of urban and peri-urban spaces (e.g., fundamental ecological questions and the quality of the biophysical environment) along with the individual, practical, and political processes enabling or impeding transformations toward sustainability in urban areas.
At ECOENV, we study the character of urban ecosystems; what they mean for biodiversity, people’s worldviews, values, and well-being, and socio-spatial inequalities; how nature is viewed as a contributor to finding solutions to wicked sustainability problems; and how its governance is organized across scales from the very local to international. Our second line of interest is in urbanization as a global phenomenon rather than individual cities, examining how cities are interlinked with global dynamics through their resource use, emissions, cultural dynamics, and use of political power, policy, and nature-based solutions.
Our research draws on multiple disciplines and inter- and transdisciplinary work. Examples of current research include the applications of multi- and mixed-methods approaches, including basic quantification of urban biodiversity, ecological processes and functions, participatory urban planning, and utilization of GIS-based research to guide more inclusive ecosystem management and governance. Furthermore, we engage in knowledge co-creation and in adaptive action and learning to advance this knowledge in our fields.
Our ambition is to advance the scientific understanding of the complex, dynamic interactions between people and nature, with true depth in the scientific understanding of people, societal structures, and the multiple others with which we share these spaces, i.e. the ecology of cities. As a highly inter-and transdisciplinary pillar, we take responsibility for the training of the next generation of urban scholars and leaders.
Research in this pillar relates closely to the water theme, given that most of the world’s urban settlements are located near water, providing livelihoods but also increasing risks, for example, through climate change-induced flooding. Additionally, through climate change, human settlement in the Arctic may increase, posing new research questions on sustainably managing these areas.