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Today, there is a growing demand for designed landscapes--from public parks to backyards--to be not only beautiful and functional, but also sustainable. Sustainability means more than just saving energy and resources. It requires integrating the landscapes we design with ecological systems. With Principles of Ecological Landscape Design, Travis Beck gives professionals and students the first book to translate the science of ecology into design practice.

This groundbreaking work explains key ecological concepts and their application to the design and management of sustainable landscapes. It covers biogeography and plant selection, assembling plant communities, competition and coexistence, designing ecosystems, materials cycling and soil ecology, plant-animal interactions, biodiversity and stability, disturbance and succession, landscape ecology, and global change. Beck draws on real world cases where professionals have put ecological principles to use in the built landscape.

The demand for this information is rising as professional associations like the American Society of Landscape Architects adopt new sustainability guidelines (SITES). But the need goes beyond certifications and rules. For constructed landscapes to perform as we need them to, we must get their underlying ecology right. Principles of Ecological Landscape Design provides the tools to do just that.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Right Plant, Right Place: Biogeography and Plant Selection
• Chapter 2 Beyond Massing: Working with Plant Populations and Communities
• Chapter 3 The Struggle for Coexistence: On Competition and Assembling Tight Communities
• Chapter 4 Complex Creations: Designing and Managing Ecosystems
• Chapter 5 Maintaining the World as We Know It: Biodiversity for High-functioning Landscapes
• Chapter 6 The Stuff of Life: Promoting Living Soils and Healthy Waters
• Chapter 7 The Birds and the Bees: Integrating Other Organisms
• Chapter 8 When Lightning Strikes: Counting on Disturbance, Planning for Succession
• Chapter 9 An Ever-shifting Mosaic: Landscape Ecology Applied
• Chapter 10 No Time Like the Present: Creating Landscapes for an Era of Global Change
• Bibliography
• Index

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CHOICE Review

An initial glance at this book's title might lead a reader to think that the book is about innovative ecological landscape practices that average homeowners with half-acre lots in urban and suburban areas could easily adopt. Instead, the book emphasizes ecology at a much larger scale that is more applicable to a forest, prairie, or park. The principles may be difficult to implement on a small patch of urban landscape for the simple reason that ecology occurs at a scale beyond the control of an average homeowner. Even so, these principles should be included or at least considered in all landscape installations. Landscape architect Beck (New York Botanical Garden) covers such topics as biogeography and selecting plants, plant communities, competition, invasive species, biodiversity, healthy soils and waters, wildlife, natural and manmade disturbances, and climate change and its effect on plant communities. This reviewer enjoyed reading this book and recommends it for everyone. He especially liked the fact that the author backed up his discussions by referencing scientific studies. All would live in a much more sustainable world if the methods presented here were implemented on a wide scale. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. B. Rowe Michigan State University

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Travis Beck is Landscape and Gardens Project Manager with the New York Botanical Garden. He is a registered landscape architect and LEED Accredited Professional with a Master's degree in horticulture from The Ohio State University.