Our fall quarter seminar series continues with PhD student Aaron Lecciones presenting on December 3 in Gould Hall 440 from 12:30-1:30pm. This is an in-person seminar.
TITLE:
Understanding the social connectivity of blue-green infrastructure in urban wetlands: A scoping review of current themes
ABSTRACT:
Many of the challenges to sustainability in the built environment derive from the degradation of the ecological functions of the natural environment human settlements are built upon. These challenges are compounded by social patterns, economics, and political processes, and other human systems that make cities function. Contemporary urban science has developed to better understand the natural and human complexities of solving urban sustainability by combining social and physical sciences in treating fundamental processes that drive, shape, and sustain cities and urbanization. Many theories and principles that have explored these fundamental processes investigate the role of complex socioeconomic-ecological systems. Studies at the intersection of urban metabolism and the urban fabric, urban ecosystems and urban ecosystem health, and urban ecology attempt to engender sustainability by simulating natural ecosystems in the built environment. A particular set of similar concepts under nature-based solutions (NBS), and commonly appear as blue-green infrastructure (BGI), have recently been scaled to the urban form. The Wetland City is among those urban conceptions where BGI will play an important role. Research in the implementation of NBS and BGI in cities focuses on the geophysical, engineering, and non-human species aspects but seldom on the social dimensions that influence its planning, design, and implementation. Recent research has highlighted the importance of the social dimensions that underpin the success of nature-based solutions and is therefore critical to sustainable urban strategies like the Wetland City. Among the many social dimensions that influence the effectiveness of NBS is the aspect of social connectivity of urban wetlands which is the communication and movement of people, goods, ideas, and culture along and across these wetland landscapes. An investigation of the current state of research in this field for studies conducted between 2000-2024 by scoping literature using the PRISMA methodology reveals thirteen articles analyzed for the types, scale, and function of social connectivity in urban wetlands. There is a dearth of literature that investigates the themes of social connectivity, urban wetlands, and blue-green infrastructure. The definitions in the scoping literature for social connectivity are wide-ranging and apply to different contexts. This variability in meaning and difficulty in setting definitions for social connectivity of blue-green infrastructure in urban wetlands obscures any attempt to conceptually link the importance of the socio-spatial configurations in the success of hybridized built environment landscapes. There is also no specific literature that directly expounds on the physical and spatial aspects of social connectivity in urban wetlands vis-à-vis the co-benefits derived from BGI. A direction of research is proposed concentrating on the social connectivity of BGI to support the successful implementation of hybridized landscapes through nature-based solutions in the built environment.
BIO:
Aaron Julius M. Lecciones is Ph.D. student in the Interdisciplinary Urban Design and Planning Program at the College of Built Environments. Aaron is a Fulbright-CHED Scholar from the Philippines. He is also an Assistant Professor at the College of Architecture at the University of the Philippines Diliman. His research interests are at the intersection of sustainable and resilient urban design, wetland conservation and management, nature-based solutions, and green buildings.