PARENT SESSION
Special Session 7: Social capacity development for environmental management: International cooperation and ecological solution
Organized by: S HONG and N NAKAGOSHI
Monday, August 8, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Exhibit Hall 210a-e, Level 2, Palais des congrès de Montréal

Ecological indicators of urban ecosystem for environmental management.

Nakagoshi, Nobukazu^*,1, ¹ IDEC Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Japan

ABSTRACT- Ecosystem management has come to the front as a new strategy for sustainable land use management. In urban area, maximizing the ecological function of green spaces is one of the main themes for ecosystem management. While much recent studies have investigated the broad principle for managing urban ecosystems, little work has been conducted to determine into planning and the essential system or processes for obtaining the efficient implementation result. However, a few management decisions with reflect ecological information had been carried out because of the conflicts between ecological goals and socio-economical goals. The preference between these two different goals strongly relates to the social capacity on environmental management. This study aims to determine the required system and indicators for conducting urban ecosystem management with special focus on the functions of biodiversity conservation and air purification of urban green spaces. Important indicators to implement urban ecosystem management had also been proposed for each process. However, indicators suggested in the study are provisional. The overview of recent studies revealed that method and indicators to prioritize the area for biodiversity conservation are diverse and had not reached to the stage to generalize yet. Data quality, adequate taxa and methods to select sits for preservation are the main three themes to be solved. Up to date, the amount of absorbed or adsorbed pollutants by urban green spaces at the local level is not predictable because of the lack of studies exploring the spatiotemporal adsorption ability of urban green spaces which in corporate the spatial movements of air pollutants. Moreover, ecological research seems to be difficult to judge the green space quality in relatively short time when we develop the political decision making in the project. Ecologists might be able to contribute to promote social capacity development through dealing with those themes under the strong relationship with local authorities. Social scientists also have a great task to brush up the proposed indicators through systematic studies integrate the policies and challenges related to the air cleaning capacity of urban green spaces and consensus building.

Key words: biodiversity conservation, ecological indicators, management process, urban green spaces