Urban Ecology Studies in China, with an Emphasis on Shanghai

Abstract

Urban ecology as a new scientific discipline was derived from the convergence of ecology and urban science, and began to develop in the early 1970s. In 1971, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched an international cooperative research program, Man and the Biosphere (MAB), which addresses the impact of increased human activity on the whole biosphere, current environmental pressures and resource shortages, and conducts a search for rational approaches and methodologies for managing the biosphere. Among the 14 research projects of the program, was the Ecological Prospects for Energy Utilization in Urban and Industrial Systems. This project brought about a great advance in the study of urban ecology worldwide. Around this period a number of studies were conducted in Brussels, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Rome, Moscow, Berlin, and elsewhere, and the results were published broadly (Duvigneaud, 1974; Kunick, 1974; Numata, 1977; Vester and Hesler, 1980; Boyden et al., 1981; Giacomini, 1981; Bornkamm et al., 1982; Yanitsky, 1982; Bonnes, 1984). When the concept of urban ecology was introduced into China in the early 1980s, Chinese ecologists, economists, geography specialists, and scientists in urban planning were attracted by the new discipline and started studying this field in China from their different specialized perspectives. This chapter briefly reviews general trends as this discipline grew in China over the last 20 years, and details the current emphasis and new developments in urban ecological study in China, especially in Shanghai.