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bioRxiv · 10.1101/605105

Evaluating environmental and ecological landscape characteristics relevant to urban resilience across gradients of land-sharing-sparing and urbanity

Dennis, M.·Scaletta, K. L.·James, P.
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Abstract

Within urban landscape planning, debate continues around the relative merits of land-sparing (compaction) and land-sharing (sprawl) scenarios. Using part of Greater Manchester (UK) as a case-study, we present a landscape approach to mapping green infrastructure and variation in social-ecological-environmental conditions as a function of land sparing and sharing. We do so for the landscape as a whole as well as for areas of high and low urbanity. Results imply potential trade-offs between land-sparing-sharing scenarios relevant to characteristics critical to urban resilience such as landscape connectivity and diversity, air quality, surface temperature, and access to green space. These trade-offs may be particularly complex due to the parallel influence of patch attributes such as land-cover and size and imply that both ecological restoration and spatial planning have a role to play in reconciling tensions between land-sparing and sharing strategies.

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Dennis, M., Scaletta, K. L., James, P.. 2019-04-10. Evaluating environmental and ecological landscape characteristics relevant to urban resilience across gradients of land-sharing-sparing and urbanity. https://doi.org/10.1101/605105

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