The Effect of Landscape History on the Urban Environment: Past Landscapes, Present Patterns

Abstract

Urban environments around the world are the result of their evolutionary and geographic history, and more contemporary influences of the social, cultural, economic, political and technical systems that shaped their construction. In this chapter, we use urban filters as the overarching framework within which specific aspects pertaining to the history of the landscape will be discussed. Legacy effects are discussed under the subthemes of urban form and development history, biodiversity, biological invasions, soils, urban freshwater bodies, natural disasters, the effects of war on urban environments and extinction debts. Lastly, the collective effects of changing urban environments over time manifests in citizens through desensitisation, termed generational amnesia or the extinction of experience, which has important consequences for residents’ perceptions towards urban biodiversity. In trying to disseminate patterns and processes in urban areas of the Global South, this overview revealed that more urban ecology research is required to begin untangling the effects of urbanisation and bioclimatic regions from the drivers that are much more context-specific. Growing the number of studies conducted in the Global South is critical to ensure that there is an evidence base that is representative of the full range of conditions for cities around the world.