Publisher : Landscape and Urban Planning
Place of publication :
Publication year : 2014
Thematic : Urban Biodiversity
Language : English
Note
Recent research and professional interest in planning for sustainable and resilient cities
emphasizes the assessment of a broad spectrum of urban ecosystem services. While such assessments
are useful to establish specific benchmarks, and for measuring progress towards sustainability and
resilience goals, they do not motivate, or support the innovations required to provide specific
ecosystem services as an intentional part of routine urban and infrastructure development activity by
municipalities and professionals. In this context, predictions for unprecedented urbanization and
development of new urban infrastructure represent a unique opportunity to "learn-by-doing".
Significant advances in urban sustainability have recently been made through transdisciplinary
collaborations among researchers, professionals, decision-makers and stakeholders. However, these
advances, often through pilot projects, have limited transferability to other cities due to the inherent
biophysical and cultural uniqueness of the city in which they originated, and of the projects and plans
themselves. The promise of practicing "learning-by-doing", therefore, remains an elusive goal, not yet
fully integrated with urban development. In this essay, a model for "safe to fail" adaptive urban design
is proposed to provide a framework model to integrate science, professional practice, and stakeholder
participation. The model is a transdisciplinary working method, and includes experimental design
guidelines, monitoring and assessment protocols and strategies for realizing specific urban ecosystem
services integral with urban development. The "safe-to-fail" adaptive urban design model encourages
and rewards innovation in a low-risk context - while assessing the achievement and performance of
the specific intended ecosystem services.
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Keywords : marine-biodiversity
Encoded by : Pauline Carmel Joy Eje
