Lecture

Urban Water Restoration: Governance and Impact

Graph Chat

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.

Description

This lecture explores the innovative governance of large urban systems, focusing on a case study of urban water restoration. It covers the pillars for achieving sustainability in cities, the background of unsafe water issues, a habitat restoration project, community impacts, and the importance of water management for sustainable development.

Official source

Related concepts (32)

Restoration ecology

Restoration ecology is the scientific study supporting the practice of ecological restoration, which is the practice of renewing and restoring degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats in the environment by active human interruption and action. Ecological restoration can reverse biodiversity loss, combat climate change and support local and global economies.

Prairie restoration

Prairie restoration is a conservation effort to restore prairie lands that were destroyed due to industrial, agricultural, commercial, or residential development. The primary aim is to return areas and ecosystems to their previous state before their depletion. In the United States, after the Black Hawk War had subsided in the mid-1830s, settlers from northern Europe and north east of the US made a home for themselves. They plowed up the tallgrasses and wild flowers in the area.

Forest restoration

Forest restoration is defined as “actions to re-instate ecological processes, which accelerate recovery of forest structure, ecological functioning and biodiversity levels towards those typical of climax forest” i.e. the end-stage of natural forest succession. Climax forests are relatively stable ecosystems that have developed the maximum biomass, structural complexity and species diversity that are possible within the limits imposed by climate and soil and without continued disturbance from humans (more explanation here).

Habitat destruction

Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby reducing biodiversity and species abundance. Habitat destruction is the leading cause of biodiversity loss. Fragmentation and loss of habitat have become one of the most important topics of research in ecology as they are major threats to the survival of endangered species.

Habitat conservation

Habitat conservation is a management practice that seeks to conserve, protect and restore habitats and prevent species extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range. It is a priority of many groups that cannot be easily characterized in terms of any one ideology. For much of human history, nature was seen as a resource that could be controlled by the government and used for personal and economic gain. The idea was that plants only existed to feed animals and animals only existed to feed humans.

Related lectures (64)

Urban Water Restoration: A Case Study

Explores a case study on urban water restoration and innovative governance of large urban systems, emphasizing sustainability and community impacts.

Indices for River Assessment and Classification

Explores the assessment and classification of streams using ecological indices and emphasizes the importance of protecting and restoring river systems.

Sustainable Development Goals: Individual and Collective Actions

Emphasizes the role of individual and collective actions in achieving sustainability through the Sustainable Development Goals and the successes of the Millennium Development Goals.

Climate Change: Understanding Trends and System Structures

Examines the relationship between climate change events and underlying trends, emphasizing the importance of understanding system structures and feedback loops.

Wellbeing and Human Needs: Exploring Sustainable Satisfaction