‘Rage against the machine’? The opportunities and risks concerning the automation of urban green infrastructure

• © 2018 Elsevier B.V. Contemporary society is increasingly impacted by automation; however, few studies have considered the potential consequences of automation on ecosystems and their management (hereafter the automation of urban green infrastructure or UGI). This Perspective Essay takes up this discussion by asking how a digital approach to UGI planning and management mediates the configuration and development of UGI and to whose benefit? This is done through a review of key issues and trends in digital approaches to UGI planning and management. We first conceptualize automation from a social, ecological, and technological interactions perspective and use this lens to present an overview of the risks and opportunities of UGI automation with respect to selected case studies. Results of this analysis are used to develop a conceptual framework for the assessment of the material and governance implications of automated UGIs. We find that, within any given perspective, the automation of UGI entails a complex dialectic between efficiency, human agency and empowerment. Further, risks and opportunities associated with UGI automation are not fixed but are dynamic properties of changing contextual tensions concerning power, actors, rules of the game and discourse at multiple scales. We conclude the paper by outlining a research agenda on how to consider different digital advances within a social-ecological-technological approach.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Social och ekonomisk geografi -- Kulturgeografi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Social and Economic Geography -- Human Geography (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Ekologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Ecology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Digital technology

Ecosystem services

Environmental governance

Landscape management

Smart city

Social

ecological

technological systems

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