Urban areas have grown markedly over the past century, such that today more than half of the world’s population lives in them. While urban areas still make up a relatively small fraction of the terrestrial surface of the Earth, their historic growth and present locations pose important questions and challenges when viewed through the lens of climate change. In particular, unlike many other ecosystems that are expected to move with climate change, urban ecosystems are likely to remain in their present locations and thus may appear as islands in a surrounding sea of changing land uses. Thus, it is important to understand how human demography and land use may interact in and around urban ecosystems in relation to climatic change. To address this interaction, we will investigate historic trends related to demography, energetic variability, and land use in the United States.
Results/Conclusions
Using spatiotemporally consistent demographic data coupled with interannual climatic data we will discuss how urban ecosystems relate to ecosystem stability historically and what the implications are for future growth. In addition, we will discuss how land use may change in relation to static or growing human populations in urban ecosystems. By linking demography and land use, we can begin to understand how resilient urban ecosystems will be in a changing climate.
