Urban Ecology is a rapidly developing area of research and study. Drawing on the work of many disciplines—including geography, planning, landscape architecture, sociology, economics, anthropology, engineering, and climatology—urban ecologists argue that an understanding of the relationships between living organisms and their urban environment as an integrated social-ecological system is an essential component of the decision-making and planning needed to create viable—and sustainable—cities around the world. Now, Ian Douglas, one of Urban Ecology’s founding fathers (and editor of Routledge’s Handbook of Urban Ecology (2010), has brought together in four volumes the canonical and the very best cutting-edge research. The collection enables users readily to comprehend the philosophies, theories, and history of Urban Ecology, and make sense of the biophysical character of the urban environment, and the diverse habitats found within it. Urban Ecology also assembles essential works exploring how science can be put into practice to generate significant health, economic, and environmental benefits.With a full index, together with a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Urban Ecology is an essential work of reference. The collection will be particularly useful as a database allowing scattered and often fugitive material to be easily located. It will also be welcomed as a crucial tool permitting rapid access to less familiar—and sometimes overlooked—texts. For researchers, students, practitioners, and policy-makers, it is a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.
