Plant Ecology in a Changing World
  • Topics
    • Topic Overview
    • Biomes and Climates in a Changing World >
      • Adaptation, biodiversity, and environment
      • Climate constrains plant distributions
      • Biome and climate relationships
      • Deserts
      • Grassland, savanna, and shrub biomes
      • Forest biomes
      • Alpine and tundra biomes
    • Plant adaptation >
      • Plant microclimate 1
      • Plant microclimate 2
      • Leaf energy budgets
      • Water movement through the soil-plant continuum
      • Principles of photosynthesis
      • Photosynthesis responses to light and temperature
      • Environmental stresses limit resource capture and use
      • Nutrients in the environment
      • Adaptation to environmental stress
    • Resource Allocation Changes with Environment >
      • Architecture and canopy processes
      • Plant phenology and resource allocation enhance performance
      • Leaf economic spectrum
      • Life history and reproduction
      • Defense against herbivory
      • Plant competition
    • Plant Responses to a Changing World >
      • Global changes occurring today
      • Invasive species
      • Atmospheric CO2 impacts plant
      • C3/C4 photosynthesis and climate
      • Climate change and the global carbon cycle
      • Climate warming and its impacts
    • Engineering Plant Communities >
      • Remember Utah's past and envision our future
      • Restoration ecology
      • Managed ecosystems
      • Utah urban ecology
      • Urban ecological futures
  • Assignments
    • Assignment Overview
    • Discussion
    • Problem sets
    • Ecology & Global Changes
    • Plant ecology policy
    • Defense of policy
    • Exam #1
    • Exam #2
  • Campus
    • Campus Overview
    • Grasses
    • Green infrastructure >
      • GI Overview
      • Stormwater >
        • GI 1
        • GI 2
        • GI 3
        • GI 4
        • GI 10
      • Green roof
      • Pollinator >
        • Pollinator species
    • Trees of the Wasatch
    • Shrubs of the Wasatch
    • Invasives
  • Biomes
    • Biome Overview
    • Climate diagrams
    • Vegetation sight-seeing trip
    • Biome images
  • Models
  • Lab
Still in preparation - check back soon
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Topic 32 - Urban ecology and green infrastructure

Essential elements from Topic 32:
Over the next 30 years, the population along the Wasatch Front will more than double. In October 2015, the State announced that it had 3 million inhabitants. This will parallel a global growth as the world's population expand from 7 to 10 billion people In both cases. Virtually all of this new growth will occur in urban systems and not in rural environments. Here, we will 
  1. Describe land use changes along Utah's Wasatch Front associated with urban ecosystem expansion. As urbanization takes place, we are converting the valley lands from a semi-arid grassland or desert rangeland to an urban forest. While the focus in on the Salt Lake Valley, similar changes are occurring in Cache Valley, Heber Valley, Ogden Valley, Tooele Valley, and Utah Valley.
  2. Describe our local water supply and the water challenges today and those anticipated in our future.
  3. Describe the fossil fuel emissions within our urban setting and its overall impact on global warming and on air quality. Dispel the myth that planting more trees will be a solution to reduce greenhouse gases and solve our air quality challenges.
  4. Repeat the message of Envision Utah and the Mountain Accord efforts to help frame the questions and provide planning opportunities to be considered in urban development, watershed protection, and improving air and water quality to sustain Utah's future.
  5. With urbanization comes the need to redesign the ecology of the urban landscape and to re-insert elements that make the urban ecosystem more functional as well as aesthetically attractive.  We will broadly define the term green infrastructure and how it is interpreted by ecologists, engineers, planners, and social scientists.
  6. Describe how bioretention systems can be used to increase water infiltration locally, to cycle nutrients, to process toxic elements from impervious surfaces, and to add to the richness of a community.
  7. Describe how porous pavements can be used to alter water runoff flows and to serve as a deep water sources for urban trees.
  8. Describe green roof systems as a functional and attractive green infrastructure.
  9. Explore the options for green infrastructure research, testing, and implementation, on our own campus, especially opportunities connected with the restoration of Red Butte Creek.

Click here to learn more about green infrastructure in place at the University of Utah.
Click here to download PDF of slides associated with Topic 32
Click here to view YOUTUBE vidoes on Topic 32
Jim Ehleringer, University of Utah