1. |
- Andersson, Erik, et al.
(author)
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A context-sensitive systems approach for understanding and enabling ecosystem service realization in cities
- 2021
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In: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 26:2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Understanding opportunities as well as constraints for people to benefit from and take care of urban nature is an important step toward more sustainable cities. In order to explore, engage, and enable strategies to improve urban quality of life, we combine a social-ecological-technological systems framework with a flexible methodological approach to urban studies. The framework focuses on context dependencies in the flow and distribution of ecosystem service benefits within cities. The shared conceptual system framework supports a clear positioning of individual cases and integration of multiple methods, while still allowing for flexibility for aligning with local circumstances and ensuring context-relevant knowledge. To illustrate this framework, we draw on insights from a set of exploratory case studies used to develop and test how the framework could guide research design and synthesis across multiple heterogeneous cases. Relying on transdisciplinary multi- and mixed methods research designs, our approach seeks to both enable within-case analyses and support and gradually build a cumulative understanding across cases and city contexts. Finally, we conclude by discussing key questions about green and blue infrastructure and its contributions to urban quality of life that the approach can help address, as well as remaining knowledge gaps both in our understanding of urban systems and of the methodological approaches we use to fill these gaps.
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2. |
- Andersson, Erik, et al.
(author)
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Urban resilience thinking in practice : ensuring flows of benefit from green and blue infrastructure
- 2021
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In: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 26:4
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Present and future urbanization together with climate change and other uncertainties make urban quality of life a criticalissue, and one that will need constant attention and deliberation. Across cities and contexts, urban ecosystems in the form of greenand blue infrastructure, have the potential to contribute to human well-being as well as supporting biodiversity, and to do so underdiverse conditions. However, the realization of this potential depends not only on the green and blue infrastructure itself, the well-beingbenefits are outcomes of the structures and processes of the entire urban system. Drawing on theory and insights from social-ecologicaltechnological systems (SETS) research and resilience assessments, we describe how a systemic understanding of the generation anddelivery of green and blue infrastructure benefits may inform cross-sectoral strategies and interventions for building resilience aroundthis particular aspect of human well-being. Connecting SETS to non-academic discourse and practice, we describe the urban systemin terms of three systemic controlling variables: infrastructure, institutions, and the perceptions of individual beneficiaries, which wecall filters, and how these can be used in different participatory processes to assess and build resilience around green and blueinfrastructure and its benefits.To ground the conceptual and theoretical framework in real world complexity and make it operational in practice we discuss three casestudies applying the framework in Barcelona, Halle, and Stockholm. All cases share the same general three-step process but theirindividual combinations of methods and adaptions of the filters framework are designed to fit with three necessarily unique collaborative,transdisciplinary processes. The cases are discussed in terms of outcomes and output, the ways they made use of the conceptualframework, and the challenges they faced. This exploratory work points to a new way of engaging with urban resilience—the strengthof the approach is that it is not limited to the identification of specific interventions or policy options, nor trying to prevent change;rather it focuses on how to move with change and build resilience through constant balancing of different types of SETS change. Ourstudy reinforces the growing understanding of how well-being benefits positioned as emergent outcomes of internal SETS interactionsoffers leverage for mainstreaming green and blue infrastructure throughout diverse governance processes and sectors.
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3. |
- Andersson, Erik, et al.
(author)
-
Urban resilience thinking in practice: ensuring flows of benefit from green and blue infrastructure
- 2021
-
In: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 26:4
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Present and future urbanization together with climate change and other uncertainties make urban quality of life a critical issue, and one that will need constant attention and deliberation. Across cities and contexts, urban ecosystems in the form of green and blue infrastructure, have the potential to contribute to human well-being as well as supporting biodiversity, and to do so under diverse conditions. However, the realization of this potential depends not only on the green and blue infrastructure itself, the well-being benefits are outcomes of the structures and processes of the entire urban system. Drawing on theory and insights from social-ecological-technological systems (SETS) research and resilience assessments, we describe how a systemic understanding of the generation and delivery of green and blue infrastructure benefits may inform cross-sectoral strategies and interventions for building resilience around this particular aspect of human well-being. Connecting SETS to non-academic discourse and practice, we describe the urban system in terms of three systemic controlling variables: infrastructure, institutions, and the perceptions of individual beneficiaries, which we call filters, and how these can be used in different participatory processes to assess and build resilience around green and blue infrastructure and its benefits.To ground the conceptual and theoretical framework in real world complexity and make it operational in practice we discuss three case studies applying the framework in Barcelona, Halle, and Stockholm. All cases share the same general three-step process but their individual combinations of methods and adaptions of the filters framework are designed to fit with three necessarily unique collaborative, transdisciplinary processes. The cases are discussed in terms of outcomes and output, the ways they made use of the conceptual framework, and the challenges they faced. This exploratory work points to a new way of engaging with urban resilience—the strength of the approach is that it is not limited to the identification of specific interventions or policy options, nor trying to prevent change; rather it focuses on how to move with change and build resilience through constant balancing of different types of SETS change. Our study reinforces the growing understanding of how well-being benefits positioned as emergent outcomes of internal SETS interactions offers leverage for mainstreaming green and blue infrastructure throughout diverse governance processes and sectors.
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4. |
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5. |
- Fischer, Hubertus, et al.
(author)
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Reconstruction of millennial changes in dust emission, transport and regional sea ice coverage using the deep EPICA ice cores from the Atlantic and Indian Ocean sector of Antarctica
- 2007
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In: Earth and Planetary Science Letters. - : Elsevier BV. - 0012-821X. ; 260, s. 340-354
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Continuous sea salt and mineral dust aerosol records have been studied on the two EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring inAntarctica) deep ice cores. The joint use of these records from opposite sides of the East Antarctic plateau allows for an estimate ofchanges in dust transport and emission intensity as well as for the identification of regional differences in the sea salt aerosolsource. The mineral dust flux records at both sites show a strong coherency over the last 150 kyr related to dust emission changes inthe glacial Patagonian dust source with three times higher dust fluxes in the Atlantic compared to the Indian Ocean sector of theSouthern Ocean (SO). Using a simple conceptual transport model this indicates that transport can explain only 40% of theatmospheric dust concentration changes in Antarctica, while factor 5–10 changes occurred. Accordingly, the main cause for the strong glacial dust flux changes in Antarctica must lie in environmental changes in Patagonia. Dust emissions, hence environmentalconditions in Patagonia, were very similar during the last two glacials and interglacials, respectively, despite 2–4 °C warmertemperatures recorded in Antarctica during the penultimate interglacial than today. 2–3 times higher sea salt fluxes found in bothice cores in the glacial compared to the Holocene are difficult to reconcile with a largely unchanged transport intensity and thedistant open ocean source. The substantial glacial enhancements in sea salt aerosol fluxes can be readily explained assuming sea iceformation as the main sea salt aerosol source with a significantly larger expansion of (summer) sea ice in the Weddell Sea than inthe Indian Ocean sector. During the penultimate interglacial, our sea salt records point to a 50% reduction of winter sea icecoverage compared to the Holocene both in the Indian and Atlantic Ocean sector of the SO. However, from 20 to 80 ka beforepresent sea salt fluxes show only very subdued millennial changes despite pronounced temperature fluctuations, likely due to thelarge distance of the sea ice salt source to our drill sites.
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6. |
- Grüning, Björn, et al.
(author)
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Bioconda: A sustainable and comprehensive software distribution for the life sciences
- 2017
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- We present Bioconda (https://bioconda.github.io), a distribution of bioinformatics software for the lightweight, multi-platform and language-agnostic package manager Conda. Currently, Bioconda offers a collection of over 3000 software packages, which is continuously maintained, updated, and extended by a growing global community of more than 200 contributors. Bioconda improves analysis reproducibility by allowing users to define isolated environments with defined software versions, all of which are easily installed and managed without administrative privileges.
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7. |
- Haase, Dagmar, et al.
(author)
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Greening cities - To be socially inclusive? About the alleged paradox of society and ecology in cities
- 2017
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In: Habitat International. - : Elsevier BV. - 0197-3975 .- 1873-5428. ; 64, s. 41-48
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Greening cities, namely installing new parks, rooftop gardens or planting trees along the streets, undoubtedly contributes to an increase in wellbeing and enhances the attractiveness of open spaces in cities. At the same time, we observe an increasing use of greening strategies as ingredients of urban renewal, upgrading and urban revitalization as primarily market-driven endeavours targeting middle class and higher income groups sometimes at the expense of less privileged residents. This paper reflects on the current debate of the social effects of greening using selected examples. We discuss what tradeoffs between social and ecological developments in cities mean for the future debate on greening cities and a socially balanced and inclusive way of developing our cities for various groups of urban dwellers. We conclude that current and future functions and features of greening cities have to be discussed more critically including a greater awareness of social impacts.
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8. |
- Kaufmann, Patrik, et al.
(author)
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Ammonium and non-sea salt sulfate in the EPICA ice cores as indicator of biological activity in the Southern Ocean
- 2010
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In: Quaternary Science Reviews. - : Elsevier BV. - 0277-3791 .- 1873-457X. ; 29:02-jan, s. 313-323
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Sulfate (SO42-) and ammonium (NH4+) flux records over the last 150,000 years from both Antarctic EPICA ice cores (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) are presented. The ice core record from Dome C is influenced by the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean (SO), whereas Dronning Maud Land is facing the Atlantic sector. Generally, they reflect the past atmospheric aerosol load and, thus, potentially reveal the fingerprint of marine biogenic sources from the SO. The most important feature of both, the nssSO(4)(2-) as well as NH4+ flux records, is the absence of any significant glacial cycles, in contrary to the distinct transitions for mineral dust and sea salt aerosol over the last 150,000 years. This finding challenges the iron fertilization hypothesis on long time scales, as the significant changes in dust, e.g. from the last glacial maximum toward the Holocene have neither an impact on nssSO(4)(2-) nor on NH4+ fluxes found in interior Antarctica. The inter-site correlation of both species is weak, r(2) = 0.42 for the nssSO(4)(2-) flux and r(2) = 0.12 for the NH4+ flux respectively, emphasizing the local Source characteristics of biogenic aerosol from the SO. Millennial variability in NH4+ and nssSO(4)(2-) is within the uncertainty of our flux estimates. Correlation with mineral dust and sea ice derived sodium shows only a very weak influence of dust deposition on those insignificant changes in nssSO(4)(2-) flux for the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean, but also small transport changes or terrigeneous sulfate contributions may contribute to those variations at EDML.
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9. |
- Kronenberg, Jakub, et al.
(author)
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The thorny path toward greening : unintended consequences, trade-offs, and constraints in green and blue infrastructure planning, implementation, and management
- 2021
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In: Ecology and Society. - : Resilience Alliance, Inc.. - 1708-3087. ; 26:2
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Urban green and blue space interventions may bring about unintended consequences, involving trade-offs between the different land uses, and indeed, between the needs of different urban inhabitants, land users, and owners. Such trade-offs include choices between green/blue and non-green/blue projects, between broader land sparing vs. land sharing patterns, between satisfying the needs of the different inhabitants, but also between different ways of arranging the green and blue spaces. We analyze investment and planning initiatives in six case-study cities related to green and blue infrastructure (GBI) through the lens of a predefined set of questions an analytical framework based on the assumption that the flows of benefits from GBI to urban inhabitants and other stakeholders are mediated by three filters: infrastructures, institutions, and perceptions. The paper builds on the authors' own knowledge and experience with the analyzed case-study cities and beyond, a literature overview, a review of the relevant city documents, and interviews with key informants. The case studies indicate examples of initiatives that were intended to make GBI benefits available and accessible to urban inhabitants, in recognition of GBI as spaces with diverse functionality. Some case studies provide examples of trade-offs in trying to plan and design a green space for multiple private and public interests in densely built-up areas. The unintended consequences most typically resulted from the underappreciation of the complexity of social-ecological systems and more specifically the complexity of the involved infrastructures, institutions, and perceptions. The most important challenges addressed in the paper include trade-offs between the different ways of satisfying the residents' different needs related to the benefits from ecosystem services, ensuring proper recognition of the inhabitants' needs and perceptions, ecogentrification, caveats related to the formalization of informal spaces, and the need to consider temporal dynamics and cross-scale approaches that compromise different goals at different geographical scales.
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10. |
- Łaszkiewicz, Edyta, et al.
(author)
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Greenery in urban morphology : a comparative analysis of differences in urban green space accessibility for various urban structures across European cities
- 2022
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In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 27:3
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The understanding of urban social-ecological systems requires integrated and interdisciplinary methods. This paper explores differences in the accessibility of urban green spaces (UGS) based on urban morphology. In contrast to other comparative analyses that followed simplified quantification of UGS provision and/or omitted the impact of morphological properties of urban space, this study proposes three improvements. First, it uses the share of UGS in the service area of 300 m walking distance around each residential building in a city as a measure of UGS provision. Second, it includes the potential physical accessibility of UGS as warranted by key actors, such as owners or managers, who decide whether UGS are open or not to potential users. Third, it links UGS accessibility and heterogeneous urban structures. We developed a mixed-methods analysis that combines multiple data sources regarding UGS, the spatial distribution of residential buildings, and street networks. We conducted our analysis in five case-study cities (Barcelona, Halle, Lodz, Oslo, and Stockholm). Our findings suggest that the urban structures where the human–environment interaction transformed the space (such as in the core city areas) are characterized by limited UGS in the service area. Urban structures that are less transformed by human activity (especially suburbia) have the highest share of selected UGS in the service area. In addition, even if the share of UGS in the service area is high, many of them might have limited physical accessibility. In the broader sense, this highlights that social-ecological processes are linked to urban form and cannot be separated in an analysis. Therefore, social-ecological systems could be better understood through the lens of urban morphology.
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