Ch. 14 & 15: Urban Environmental Management & Endangered Species and Protected Areas Flashcards
What is defined as a sustainable city?
A city that meets social and economic needs of its residents without undermining its ecological continuity overtime. This includes:
-Fair distribution of opportunities
-Adequate living standards for all
-Access for participation
-Doesn’t overwhelm system’s carrying capacity (overconsumption, wastes, etc)
What are the 4 principles the National Academy of Sciences highlighted to achieve sustainability in cities?
- The planet has biophysical limits
- Human and natural systems are intertwined and come together in cities
-Urban inequalities undermine sustainability efforts
-Cities are highly interconnected, so multi-scale governments are needed
(these points use sustainability as more of a process rather than an end-point)
What are the common attributes of resilient systems?
-Adaptable
-Robust
-Flexible
-Redundant
-Resourceful
-Inclusive
-Integrated
What is urban form and what characteristics do sustainable urban forms have?
Urban form refers to type and distribution of infrastructure used in cities that’s a key factor to influencing environmental quality. Characteristics are:
- Compact and higher density (new buildings erected to existing structures; this improves walkability and social interaction)
-Diverse (physically and socially)
-Incorporate passive solar design
-more green spaces and trees to capture ecological value
What is urban sprawl? What are the impacts?
Urban sprawl is the uncontrolled expansion of cities and their surrounding areas; it usually includes homes located farther from city centers, low rise and density homes, and home sizes increase while ppl per house decrease
Impacts:
-Commuting (going from one place to next) times clash lots, leading to congested traffic jams
-Higher infrastructure costs and less-effective public transit
-Displaced habitat and agricultural land
What are some strategies to reduce energy use by transportation within cities?
- Facilitate teleworking and teleservices
-Ensure that parking arrangements encourage reducing car travel (by limiting parking supply, put price on parking, restrict it in certain zones)
-Encourage ride-sharing programs
-Initiate transit pass programs to make the process of integrating into public transit system easier
-Facilitating the use of bicycles and other alternatives w/ a smaller ecological footprint
What’s the difference between primary and secondary pollutants?
Primary pollutants: released directly through human activity (ex/ pollutants from vehicle exhausts like carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrous acid)
Secondary pollutants: indirectly released from human activity but form through chemical reactions in the atmosphere
(ones that need sunlight to encourage chemical reaction are called photochemical pollutants (ex/ photochemical smog, tropospheric ozone)
What is the urban heat island effect? What are some solutions to mitigate it?
Urban heat island effect is an increased temp in central urban areas compared to surrounding areas
solutions to mitigate:
- Design buildings and neighborhoods to balance building structures with geometric shapes to reduce amount of energy hitting the surface
-Use light-colored surfaces and less thermally absorbing exterior facing on buildings
-Include more green spaces and roofs to shade heat-absorbing surfaces
Explain the highest sustainable management of waste on the hierarchy pyramid: Prevent & reduce
-Avoid purchasing single-use products are products w/ excessive packaging
-Making manufacturers have the need to use less packaging by establishing deposit refunds on glass bottles, or banning certain products
Explain the reuse section on the hierarchy of waste management.
Reusing involves the redistribution of previously owned and used materials in their original form from one agent to the next; its done a transfer of ownership (sale, swap, gift, etc) or temporary use agreement (share, borrow, rental, share loan)
-ex/ places like yard sales, flea markets, second-hand libraries are great for this
-This reduces the need for raw materials and it makes high-quality and durable good last longer
What are brownfields?
They are abandoned or inactive industrial sites where soil get contaminated through disposal practices accepted in earlier times before ppl appreciated the long-term consequences; the leaking underground storage tanks (LUST) caused a lot of problems
How do urban areas affect the quality and quantity of water?
-The expansion of roads, construction of buildings and parking results in more stormwater running off quicker; consequences of this result in flooding, and reduce recharge of aquifers
How can municipal gov’ts and residents protect water supplies?
Municipal gov’t: creating or enhancing more parks which encourages community gardens, ban use of pesticides, and protect and restore wetlands and other areas
Residents: planting more trees and shrubs, using native species for home gardens instead of lawns and imported plants, and grow vegetables at home in an allotment garden
What the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic values of nature?
Extrinsic - Nature valued for how it can help and what it provides for humans
- extrinsic values could be consumptive (the organism is harvested) or non-consumptive (organism is not harvested and resource is not destroyed; ex/ the aesthetic enjoyment ppl get from viewing natural landscape)
Intrinsic - the inherent worth of nature for its own sake, apart from its value to humanity (ex/ forests have intrinsic values for its biodiversity, contribution to the hydrology cycle, being a big carbon sink, etc)
What is extirpation? When is a species considered ecologically extinct?
Extirpation: When a species is eliminated from one part of their range but still exist somewhere else
A species is considered ecologically extinct when:
-it exist in such low numbers it can’t fulfill its ecological role in the ecosystem
What is genetic bottleneck?
It’s when the population of a certain species decreases by a lot due to, for ex/ overhunting, and it bounces back (some still survive), but only very limited variety of genetic material is available to be passed down to their offspring
What are the main pressures causing extinction/endangerment?
-Overharvesting
- taking more of a natural resource than can be replenished
ex/ Passenger pigeon: most abundant land bird on Earth; easy target, slaughtered in massive amounts for food
-Habitat loss
- Agriculture is the #1 main cause of this; has removed areas like forests, natural prairie grassland, and wetlands
ex/ passenger pigeons’ habitat breeding ground was converted for agriculture
-pollution -
- 2nd most important cause of endangerment for freshwater species in Canada;
-consumption
-introduction of exotic species
- responsible for about 40% of animal extinctions; they outcompete native species for needed resources or prey on the native species themselves
what are the drivers of tropical deforestation?
-Rapid growing human population
-overconsumption of resources by consumers
-inequality in distribution of wealth
What is predator control?
It’s when a certain predator species is targeted for elimination because they consume same resource humans need
ex/ Wolves; because they prey on the livestock (specifically endangered caribou) we need, they have been shot, poisoned, and trapped
What are the characteristics that a species can have that make it more vulnerable to extinction?
-Specialists (have narrow niches/ specialized habitats for feeding and breeding)
-Insular and local distributions
-Few populations and/or small population size
-High economic value
-Low biotic potential (few offspring makes them susceptible to overhunting)
-Need for large home range
-Species that aren’t effective dispersers
Why has the COSEWIC (Committee on the Status of Endangered Species in Canada) act proposed been criticized?
-There was more economic analysis focus on costs to protect w/ out considering other (intrinsic or extrinsic benefits) benefits
-The process takes too long (up to decades)
-In only 2 cases has SARA (Species At Risk Act) been used to protect habitat
