Problem Analysis in Urban Ecology, Autumn 2003
CFR 474 / CFR 574 / URBDP 598D / GEOG 486A (5 Credits)
Tuesdays: (3:30-4:50; Anderson 304/06)
Thursday: (2:30-5:50; Anderson 304/06)
Occasional Thursday Seminars: (4:30-5:50; Anderson 223)

Instructors   Description   Objectives   Class Project

Guest Speakers   Assignments   Class Schedule   Readings

Syllabus (Word Doc)   Urban Ecology Links

Announcements

Urban Ecology Home Page

Announcements

18 Nov 2003 - Put the slides from Marina's intro and the Research Question Exercise on the weeks link. Also fixed the link to last week's reading by Robert Costanza.

6 Nov 2003 - CDTED website back up and links changed on our panel page

31 Oct 2003 - names and links for Panel members are up, but at the moment (11:23) the metrokc website is not responding - try those links later if you have problems.

29 Oct 2003 - links on the urban ecology website updated for brainstorming sites and others

28 Oct 2003 - Links to today's powerpoint (PPT) or PDF files have been updated.

14 Oct 2003 - Fixed link to Thursday's reading - sorry for the confusion. Marina Alberti's presentation for today is now available.

13 Oct 2003 - Change in reading for this Thursday's guest lecture by Derek Booth - see readings above

6 Oct 2003 - Reader is now available at Professional Copy - 4200 University Ave NW - corner of 42nd and University Ave.

2 Oct 2003 - Week 2 reading will be available on the CFR Library Reserve Shelf by noon Friday, Oct 3rd.

2 Oct 2003 - The course reader has been sent to Professional Copy and should be ready Friday, October 3rd in the late afternoon. Reader is listed under CFR 474 / CFR 574 / URBDP 598D / GEOG 486A, Call them - 634-2689 to be sure it is available.

Instructors

John Marzluff College of Forest Resources Office: Anderson 123E Tel: 616-6883 E-mail: corvid@u.washington.edu	Marina Alberti Department of Urban Design and Planning Office: Gould 410H Tel: 616-8667 E-mail: malberti@u.washington.edu
Gordon A Bradley Office: Anderson 123G College of Forest Resources Tel: 685-0881 E-mail: gbradley@u.washington.edu	Craig ZumBrunnen Department of Geography Office: Smith 416D Tel: 543-4915 E-mail: craigzb@u.washington.edu
Clare Ryan Office: Anderson 123 H College of Forest Resources Tel: 616-3987 E-mail: cmryan@u.washington.edu	Eric Shulenberger Office of Research Office: 204 Winkenwerder Hall Tel: 685-1457 E-mail: ericshul@u.washington.edu
Robert Reineke Urban Ecology Office: Anderson 301 Tel: 616-2874 E-mail: picapica@u.washington.edu	Jeff Hepinstall Urban Ecology Tel: 293-3237 Office: And.30/Gould410F E-mail: jahwash@u.washington.edu

Description

Problem Analysis in Urban Ecology focuses on understanding the drivers, policies, patterns, processes, and consequences of land use change stemming from human settlement. This class is part of a year-long sequence of classes, designed specifically for Urban Ecology students, that seeks to introduce students to the concepts, approaches, and issues in urban ecology. We will learn about how urban ecological problems are framed, defined, and approached. Class discussions will cover local development, policy, and ecological issues arising from land use change along the urban gradient from the urban fringe to the urban core. Based on information provided by students during the initial class meetings, faculty will divide the class into interdisciplinary student research teams. Each team will be responsible for developing a group proposal for investigating a researchable question that is relevant to a pressing urban ecological issue.

Objectives

The primary objective of this course is to enable student teams to develop viable group research proposals addressing researchable questions about urban ecological problems. The general issue we want teams to address is “the functionality of urban ecosystems.” We are interested in identifying and addressing researchable questions, the answers to which will contribute to our understanding of how urban ecosystems function from economic, ecologic, and social perspectives viewed across the urban gradient. Research themes can address questions related to urbanization of any landform within the Puget Sound basin (e.g., forests, farmland, fresh or saltwater shorelines, etc.) and can address questions related to highly urbanized areas (i.e. cities) as well. Research themes can also incorporate drivers at local, regional or global scales that impact ecologic function within any of these local landforms at any point along the urban gradient. As a result, students might develop research questions associated with problems as diverse as the economic, hydrological, shoreline, or upland habitat consequences of sprawl or they might, like last year’s undergraduates, study the interface of ecologic & human functionalities within the heart of Seattle. Projects might focus on people, vegetation, wildlife, policies, regulations, or other relevant components of urban systems. Ideally, a mixture of such foci will be addressed.

Because of the unique setting of western Washington, which features large cities adjacent to relatively unsettled wildlands and extensive shorelines, many of the most pressing urban ecological issues concern land use changes at the urban fringe. As a class, we will spend substantial time considering such issues from multiple perspectives so that the drivers, resulting patterns, consequences, and relevant policies can be understood and integrated into socially-relevant research projects.

A panel of community leaders (representing both private and public organizations) begins the problem identification thought process by discussing possible questions from their perspective. This “outside” panel will be followed by an “inside” panel consisting of last year’s student research groups. The inside panel will summarize their research and suggest ideas or additional questions that spring from their work. New students will work in groups with faculty to mold suggestions from either panel into preliminary researchable questions. Preliminary questions and research approaches will then be presented to and discussed with the outside panel to ensure the utility and societal relevance of our research.

We have the following specific objectives for students:
1. To understand the drivers (social, economic, policy, physical and biological) of land use change.
2. To understand how land use and land cover can be quantified as settlement patterns.
3. To understand the processes which determine settlement patterns and the consequences of those patterns for social and ecological functions.
4. To understand how science and policy might (conceivably) interact to guide human settlement patterns in an ecologically sustainable way.
5. To build, strengthen, and apply group process skills so that interdisciplinary teams of students and faculty can be maximally effective in addressing urban ecological issues.

Class Project

We have three distinct categories of students in this class. Each will be applying the same overall project to a different end: (1) Urban Ecology Graduate Fellows will use the project as the starting point for their interdisciplinary group project; (2) Urban Ecology undergraduates may use their project as the jumping-off point for their senior capstone project. (3) Other graduate students may use the project to develop thesis topics or additional publishable papers.
The final class papers will be integrated group-authored papers and must:

1. Clearly state the researchable question or set of question(s) and explain those questions’ utility re understanding urban ecological functionality.
2. Review the relevant literature.
3. Provide initial thoughts on an approach (i.e., methodology) to answering the question(s). This must include an initial review of the methodological literature.
4. Discuss the societal relevance of your question(s) and how your results will help resolve problems presented by the panel of community leaders.

Guest Panel

We invite a panel of local professionals to visit our class and discuss issues they feel are important to their particular organizations. These panelists represent both public and private organizations that have varying perspectives (biological, social, economic) on development issues from the urban fringe to the urban core. The general question posed to the panel is “What strategies, tactics, and priorities does your organization employ or advocate for managing metropolitan* development to simultaneously minimize impacts on local ecosystems and enhance the quality of life and well being of human populations?”

This general question is posed in the context of land use change associated with urbanization. In preparing for the panel discussion, the faculty have asked each panelist to consider these specifics:

1. What are the factors of primary importance to both human and non-human system impacts that we must consider in managing development?
2. What are the major threats to the functionality* of urban (or urbanizing) ecosystems?
3. What are optimal approaches to protect these ecosystems from threats, enhance their functionality, or mitigate/manage negative impacts?
4. What information and issues are most important to consider in making specific management decisions?
5. What knowledge areas/themes/topics/issues are most important in informing these decisions?
6. What knowledge is currently being applied to (1) predict or quantify human or ecosystem impacts/interactions and (2) to manage/mitigate negative effects?
7. What are the gaps in knowledge/understanding that most limit optimal management of urban development (within the context of the general question posed to the panel)?

*By “metropolitan” we mean the standard metropolitan area defined by the US Census, which includes the full range of urbanization from downtown to the urban fringe.
*”Functionality” is a convenient “catch–all” term that can encompass many variables: e.g., social (recreation, public health, sense of community, attachment to place), economic (housing affordability, infrastructure, transportation, natural resources, tax base), and ecological (energy, nutrients, biodiversity, stability)

The panel members will visit class twice: the first (Nov. 6) to present and exchange ideas, the second (Dec. 4) to comment on student formulation of research projects.

Each student shares responsibility for engaging our panelists in discussion that will help clearly articulate the key issues/needs identified by each panelist. That is, we expect students to actively participate by asking questions both during individual presentations and during the panel discussion that follows. This is the best, indeed the only way we can be clear on what questions we might choose to investigate, and how to frame the project (i.e., design those questions and the research to answer them) so as to meet the panelists’ objectives. We will frame each project more precisely as the class proceeds, but we initially need to clearly understand each panelist’s concerns, issues, and needs.

Assignments

Assignment 1: Due Oct. 23. Based on meeting with your team during first 2 weeks and discussing: work styles, expectations (of class, project, and group), group process, scheduling work, and cognitive maps, each team is to prepare a written summary of their group’s styles, similarities and differences in cognitive maps, timelines (a schedule), and commitments to group work. These are to be discussed with your faculty mentor.

Assignment 2. Due Nov. 25. Oral and written presentation of initial draft of researchable questions and proposal for addressing same. Focus on research questions and general methods. Groups should propose research that clearly combines at least two aspects of urban ecology (drivers, policy, patterns and processes, and consequences). Urban Ecology Graduate Fellows should develop questions, hypotheses, and methods that the group determines are feasible for a 2-year period of study. Other student groups will likely devise research questions amenable to a 1 year period of research. However, the proposed research period is flexible and can be discussed with the faculty mentors. The entire class will discuss each group’s preliminary proposal with the purpose of improving it prior to completion of the final written version.

Assignment 3. Due Dec. 9. Final oral presentation and written proposal due. Each group will submit their final paper covering the topics outlined above and give an oral presentation of same to the class and faculty. (State the problem, review the literature, formulate the researchable question, describe in general how you will attack the question, and explain how results from your research will help resolve the problem.)

Class Schedule

Readings

WEEK 1

1) Grimm et al. (2000). Integrated approaches to long-term studies of urban ecological systems, BioScience 50:571-84.

2) Collins et al. (2000). A New Urban Ecology, American Scientist 88(5): 416-425.

WEEK 2

Tuesday:

1) Paul Waddell and Gudmundur F. Ulfarsson, Introduction to Urban Simulation: Design and Development of Operational Models. Forthcoming in Handbook in Transport, Volume 5: Transport Geography and Spatial Systems, Stopher, Button, Kingsley, Hensher eds. Pergamon Press. It is available at: http://www.urbansim.org/ and click on Papers and then Introduction to Urban Simulation: Design and Development of Operational Models or if that is a problem click here to download from our own website.

2) Puget Sound Regional Council report on Regional Monitoring: Population, Employment and Housing 1995-2000, available at: http://www.psrc.org/projects/monitoring/peh.htm

Tuesday:

3)“The Politics of Environmental Policy.” Ch. 2, pp. 44-93. (Paper copy only).

4) Lach et al. (2003). Advocacy and Credibility of Ecological Scientists in Resource Decisionmaking: A Regional Study. Bioscience 53(2):170-178.

WEEK 3

Tuesday: 1) Turner, M.G. 1989. Landscape Ecology: the effect of pattern on process. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 20:171-197.

2)Alberti, M., Booth, D., Hill, K., Coburn, B. Avolio, C., Coe, S. and D. Spirandelli, The Impact of Urban Patterns on Aquatic Ecosystems: An empirical analysis in Puget lowland sub-basins. In preparation for Landscape Ecology.

Thursday:

3) Hydrologic trends associated with urban development for selected streams in the Puget Sound Basin, Western Washington. Water-Resources Investigations Report 02-4040.

4) Paul, M.J. and J.L. Meyer. 2001. Streams in Urban Landscape.

#3 and 4 above substituted for: Collins, B. D., Montgomery, D. R., and Sheikh, A. J., in press, Reconstructing the historic riverine landscape of the Puget Lowland, in Montgomery, D. R., Bolton, S., Booth, D. B., and Wall, L., (editors) Restoration of Puget Sound Rivers, Univ. of Washington Press.

WEEK 4

Interorganizational Committee on Guidelines and Principles for Social Impact Assessment. 1995. Guidelines and principles for social impact assessment. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 15:11-43.

WEEK 5

1) Vitousek P.M. et al. 1997. “Human Domination of Earth’s Ecosystems,” Science 277, 494-499

2) McDonnell et al. 1997, “Ecosystem processes along an urban-to-rural gradient,” Urban Ecosystems 1:21-36

3) Picket et al. 2001. “Urban Ecological Systems: Linking terrestrial ecological, physical, and socioeconomic components of metropolitan area,” Annual Review of Ecological Systems 32:127-57.

WEEK 6: TBA

WEEK 7

Costanza R. 2003. A vision of the future of science: reintegrating the study of humans and the rest of nature. Futures 35:651-671.

WEEK 8: TBA

WEEK 9: TBA

WEEK 10: NONE

WEEK 11: NONE