Session abstracts > Session 8

Session 8: Urban and industrial socio-ecosystems: from past to future

Quentin Borderie¹, Frederic Gob², Manon Kohler³, Laurent Lespez⁴

Since millennia to centuries, urbanization and industrialization have been causing lasting and profound changes in local socio-ecosystems (incl. hydrology, climate, soil and biodiversity), shaping progressively the global scale and so-called Anthropocene era. Thus, like their former counterparts, modern urban and industrial socio-ecosystems are facing hydro(-morpho)logical extremes (e.g., peak flows, droughts), along with water geochemical changes ; increased urban air temperatures and atmospheric pollution ; as well as intensified soil compaction and soil nutrient depletion. However, today’s pace and magnitude of changes are raising unprecedented management challenges in human-nature interactions for urban and industrial systems.

 Yet, most of the properties of such systems are inherited (although not exclusively) from spatial artificialisation processes and/or psychological and social processes related to spatial identity, shaping socio-ecosystem trajectories over fairly long times.

As such today´s challenges in urban resilience and liveability, and thus success in tackling them, are largely determined not only by the present but also by the history of cities.

To discuss transitions and possible transformation/adaptation strategies, we invite contributions on past, present and future urban and industrial socio-ecosystems, including multiproxy analysis from historical and sedimentary archives and analytical, prospective, and monitoring works. We especially expect presentations about:

1. History of urbanization and its environmental consequences:

- Long-term artificialisation of urban rivers and soils

- Development of irrigation and artificial hydrosystems from the Neolithic onwards

- Archaeology of urban anthroposols

- Urban agriculture over time

- Industrialization and its environmental consequences

- Archaeology of pollution and waste management

- History of temperature overheating/ air pollution management

- …

2. From past to future challenges:

- Future of the cities in the context of global warming

- Restoration of urban rivers

- Management of urban anthroposols

- Interactions between urban forms and air pollution and/or urban heat

- Assessment of urban overheating and urban heat mitigation in various city contexts (incl. urban heat island, heat stress and outdoor thermal comfort perception studies)

- …

1 - Département de Vaucluse, UMR 7041, CNRS

2 - LGP-CNRS, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne 

3  - THéMA. UMR-CNRS 6049, Besançon

4 - LGP-CNRS & Université de Paris Est-Créteil