Biodiversity Planning and Design: Sustainable Practices

How do you measure biodiversity, and why should landscape architects and planners care? What are the essential issues, the clearest terminology, and the most effective methods for biodiversity planning and design? How can they play a role in biodiversity conservation in a manner compatible with other goals? These are critical questions that Jack Ahern, Elizabeth Leduc, and Mary Lee York answer in this timely and useful book.

Real-world case studies showcase biodiversity protection and restoration projects, both large and small, across the U.S.: the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle,Washington; the Crosswinds Marsh Wetlands Mitigation Project in Wayne County, Michigan; the Florida Statewide Greenway System; and the Fort Devens Stormwater Project in Ayer, Massachusetts. Ahern shows how an interdisciplinary approach led by planners and designers with conservation biologists, restoration ecologists, and natural and social scientists can yield successful results and sustainable practices. Minimizing habitat loss and degradation-the principal causes of biodiversity decline-are at the heart of the planning and design processes and provide landscape architects and planners a chance to achieve their professional goals while taking a leading role in the environmental community.

Jack Ahern is Professor of landscape architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Elizabeth Leduc received her graduate degree in Planning from UMass Amherst and is currently earning a Law degree from Northeastern University. Mary Lee York holds a Master of Arts in teaching from Tufts University and is currently working on her Masters of Landscape Architecture at UMass while teaching high school biology.

The Landscape Architecture Foundation is a national nonprofit organization whose mission is the preservation, improvement, and enhancement of the environment. It accomplishes its mission through scholarship, research, and information on landscape planning and design -- effective, inexpensive, and democratic tools for protecting natural environments, reclaiming disturbed land, and creating sustainable communities that foster health and safety.