Adaptation to climate change: Using ecological theory to guide urban planting design

Background/Question/Methods Landscape architects face the challenge of designing and accommodating urban nature under the unpredictable changes brought by global climate change.  The responsibility to support urban ecosystems and the well being of people living in them offers an unprecedented opportunity for ecological designers.  Under global warming, a shift in plant growth zones in North America has already been established.  As plant species find new locations for ecological optima, urban ecosystems will adjust.  Our aesthetic experience of seasonality and local ecosystem features will have to adapt accordingly.  To conserve a sense of place for urban dwellers means managing the change of scene that will happen as other species move on, move in, or die off.  Here I consider an approach for adaptation to climate change that supports ecosystem health and protects human sense of place during times of transition. I developed a set of design criteria for planting recommendations in urban areas based on the concepts of niche redundancy, niche complementarity, and phenotypic plasticity as a unified approach to designing for biodiversity and sense of place under changing climate.  Application of theoretical constructs was initiated by the development of a database for two categories of commercially available plants in Michigan – native species and non-invasive non-natives. The spreadsheet includes phenological, ecological and aesthetic variables.
Results/Conclusions Ecologically-based design criteria were then applied in the development of planting plans for urban typologies ranging from small parks in highly urban areas to green corridors that connect fragments of urban nature.  Discussion of the results focuses on the challenges and opportunities involved in applying ecological theory to the built environment.  Challenges include the relationship between general theory and specific application, reliability of data sources, the lack of monitoring data on the success of nature-building strategies, and the breadth of knowledge required to make even a small number of design decisions.  Opportunities include partnership with the community as collaborators for information transfer and installation of urban nature.