Richard T. T. Forman's research while affiliated with Harvard University and other places
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Publications (60)
In a bold move, the Ecological Society of America (ESA) decided in 1982 to open a Washington Office. Promoting an ecological viewpoint at the national level and providing advice on matters of national and international importance were the long‐term objectives. Seemingly few if any ESA actions have been more significant. ESA President Lawrence Bliss...
Many of the early leading ecologists, especially Americans, were surveyed (primarily between 1952 and 1959) to learn what (1) initially inspired an ecological interest, (2) stimulated a major career direction in ecology, and (3) was one’s major career accomplishment. Patterns of responses from 73 ecologists, primarily in their own words using their...
Towns and villages are sometimes viewed as minor, even quaint, spots, whereas this book boldly reconceptualizes these places as important dynamic environmental 'hotspots'. Multitudes of towns and villages with nearly half the world's population characterize perhaps half the global land surface. The book's pages feature ecological patterns, processe...
ContextTo understand, even improve, the land of shrinking nature and spreading urbanization, a science applicable from remote natural areas to cities is needed. Objective
Today’s scientific principles of urban ecology are articulated and compared with ecology based primarily on natural ecosystems; we either robustly merge the trajectories or watch...
Context
Urban landscapes are a mixture of built structures, human-altered vegetation, and remnant semi-natural areas. The spatial arrangement of abiotic and biotic conditions resulting from urbanization doubtless influences the establishment and spread of non-native species in a city.
Objectives
We investigated the effects of habitat structure, the...
Richard T. T. Forman and Jianguo Wu call for global and regional approaches to urban planning.
This chapter traces the United States Regional Association of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (USIALE) evolution from and early relationship to the International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE). This chapter describes the early meeting sites of IALE, and individual leadership that emanated from the United States during...
We lost a great one in ecology, an important person in the development of landscape ecology in North America and a gem of person on July 10, 2014. Paul continued to work in his office as much as he could throughout his many treatments for the decades-long illness that finally killed him, and was in his office until the week before he died. He leave...
An artist can translate a compelling inspiration into a painting or object that inspires the public, and even pleases the artist. In addition to inspiration and materials, skill is a key to success. Skill might be thought of as a set of principles, knowing what works and what doesn’t—color mixtures, composition, types of lines, and much more. The a...
Five minutes after leaving a tropical city one of the plane’s two engines dies. The plane begins dropping. Rich primeval rainforest awaits on one side, and town-dotted farmland on the other. Someone snaps an instant photograph, carries it to the open cockpit, and the pilot explodes in laughter. The passengers remain petrified until we slip over a r...
The extensive under-used area of roadsides along public highways could readily provide valuable environmental, economic, and cultural benefits for society. Furthermore, local food sources are an increasing priority as energy and environmental costs of long-distance transport increase. This article highlights the central goals and principles for int...
Urban rivers daily receive tons of phosphorus and other pollutants from stormwater generated by impervious surfaces. Constructed detention ponds and biofiltration cells (biofilters) are often effective for localized stormwater treatment, yet less is known about their effectiveness for large built areas. Our goals were to assess stormwater phosphoru...
Urban growth reduces open space in and around cities, impacting biodiversity and ecosystem services. Using land-cover and population data, we examined land consumption and open space loss between 1990 and 2000 for all 274 metropolitan areas in the contiguous United States. Nationally, 1.4 million ha of open space was lost, and the amount lost in a...
With rapid global urban growth, the proximity between urban and protected areas will increase. We identify four categories of nations, based on the proportion of people in urban areas, the amount of protected area, and the 1995 and estimated 2030 distance between cities and protected areas: urbanized nations (>60% urban) with a high population dens...
How does nature work in our human-created city, suburb, and exurb/peri-urb? Indeed how is ecology - including its urban water, soil, air, plant, and animal foundations - spatially entwined with this great human enterprise? And how can we improve urban areas for both nature and people? Urban Ecology: Science of Cities explores the entire urban area:...
Due to human population growth and migration, there will be nearly 2 billion new urban residents by 2030, yet the consequences of both current and future urbanization for biodiversity conservation are poorly known. Here we show that urban growth will have impacts on ecoregions, rare species, and protected areas that are localized but cumulatively s...
With land planning, socioeconomics and natural systems as foundations, this book combines urban planning and ecological science in examining urban regions. Writing for graduate students, academic researchers, planners, conservationists and policy makers, and with the use of informative urban-region color maps, Richard Forman analyzes 38 urban regio...
Improving ecological conditions around the road network is emerging as a significant objective of transporta - tion, along with providing safe and efficient mobility. Reading landscape patterns is a key to success. The prime goal of this article is to identify ecologically appropriate and inappropriate locations for road construction, removal, and...
The four-million-mile U.S. road system ties the land together for us, providing unprecedented human mobility, yet it slices nature into pieces. Can the newly emerged science of road ecology provide solutions that lead to a gentler roadprint?
To understand “adjacency arrangement” (configuration of a patch and its adjoining elements) as a basic unit of landscape pattern, we studied 30 woodland patches (Populus tremuloides) in Alberta, Canada, with adjacent vegetation varying from 0% shrubland (100% grassland) to 100% shrubland (0% grassland). We evaluated (1) how important adjacency effe...
An extensive road system with rapidly increasing traffic produces diverse ecological effects that cover a large land area. Our objective was to evaluate the effect of roads with different traffic volumes on surrounding avian distributions, and its importance relative to other variables. Grassland bird data (5 years) for 84 open patches in an outer...
In view of an extensive road system, abundant and rapidly growing vehicular traffic, and a scattered literature indicating that some ecological effects of roads extend outward for >100 m, it seems likely that the cumulative ecological effect of the road system in the United States is considerable. Two recent studies in The Netherlands and Massachus...
Ecological flows and biological diversity trace broad patterns across the landscape, whereas transportation planning for human mobility traditionally focuses on a narrow strip close to a road or highway. To help close this gap we examined the 'road-effect zone' over which significant ecological effects extend outward from a road. Nine ecological fa...
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ID - 115
Abstract A huge road network with vehicles ramifies across the land, representing a surprising frontier of ecology. Species-rich roadsides are conduits for few species. Roadkills are a premier mortality source, yet except for local spots, rates rarely limit population size. Road avoidance, especially due to traffic noise, has a greater ecological i...
Land conversion due to human activities produces distinctive spatial patterns across the landscape. It remains unclear, however, how particular spatial arrangements of remnant habitat patches influence species persistence. We present a conceptual model of landscape change that focuses explicitly on habitat spatial arrangement. Four sequences, chara...
We use a simple spatial model to illustrate an ecologically optimum sequence of landscape change, evaluate how much ecological difference it makes, and determine if there is a phase during which its use is most effective or important in protecting nature. Compared with a random pattern of vegetation removal, the spatial solution protects five times...
Land planners, conservationists and natural resource managers are inherently optimists, yet few would deny that the land continues to degrade at an alarming rate. Human population growth curves all imply continued or accelerated land degradation in the present decade and subsequent decades (Ehrlich, 1988; Worldwatch Institute, 1992).
A dozen general principles of landscape and regional ecology are delineated to stimulate their evaluation, refinement, and usage. Brief background material and a few references provide entres into the subjects. The principles are presented in four groups: landscapes and regions; patches and corridors; mosaics; and applications. Most appear useful i...
In view of the bewildering diversity of landscapes and possible patterns therein, our objectives were to see if a useful modeling method for directly comparing land mosaics could be developed based on graph theory, and whether basic spatial patterns could be identified that are common to diverse landscapes. The models developed were based on the sp...
Boundaries are often the most conspicuous features on land, yet our understanding of boundaries depends largely on how we perceive land. Does one focus on (1) a boundaryless pattern of gradients (analogous to certain impressionist paintings), (2) patches in a mosaic, (3) a network of corridors, or (4) boundaries or edges in a mosaic? All approaches...
Efforts to improve Britain's upland conifer plantations as wildlife habitats have largely concentrated on retaining and creating habitats on unplanted land. Here we argue that, in addition, it would be beneficial to assign 15–25 per cent of the plantations to long rotations containing small permanently uncut cores, while shortening the rotations of...
With roots penetrating many disciplines and approaches to landscape study, and with ongoing development in Europe, landscape ecology has emerged recently and generated considerable interest in North America. The expansion of the field in the United States of America (USA) over six years: has been rapid; has attracted significant numbers of leading...
Landscape Ecology is an emerging science of gaining momentum over the past few decades in the scientific as well as in the planning-management worlds. Although the field is rooted in biology and geography, the approaches to understanding the ecology of a landscape are highly divers. This hybrid vigor provides power to the field. One can no longer v...
People attempt to improve their well-being. The environment provides materials, but also constrains the effort. This interplay between human aspiration and ecological integrity is an underlying theme of sustainable development and of this article. Alternating changes over a long time span is another theme. At times, technology and organization have...
Woody plants and evidence of browsing were measured on eight reclaimed strip mines in Maryland and West Virginia to see whether revegetation patterns differed adjacent to concave, straight, and convex forest boundaries. Two clonal species predominated (Rubus allegheniensis and Robinia pseudoacacia), followed in abundance by three wind-dispersed spe...
Organisms may be constrained by the energetic costs incurred while obtaining resources in fragmented landscapes. We used a spatially neutral model of deer wintering habitat to evaluate the effects of landscape fragmentation on the aggregation of deer habitat. The spatially neutral model used Bayesian probabilities to predict where deer wintering ar...
Guidelines for submitting commentsPolicy: Comments that contribute to the discussion of the article will be posted within approximately three business days. We do not accept anonymous comments. Please include your email address; the address will not be displayed in the posted comment. Cell Press Editors will screen the comments to ensure that they...
Landscape structural characteristics, such as patch size, edge length, and configuration, are altered markedly when management regimes are imposed on primeval landscapes. The ecological consequences of clearcutting patterns were explored by using a model of the dispersed patch or checkerboard system currently practiced on federal forest lands in th...
Three relatively distinct major themes emerge from the chapters of this book. I will first introduce and briefly explore a key question of ethics, as this is a foundation of all planning, management, and individual actions in landscapes. The second section will focus on how landscape heterogeneity affects the spread of disturbance, the subject of t...
Woody plants were recorded along 9 peninsulas in Maine. Species richness decreased significantly with distance from the mainland, with an average loss of c7 species over a distance of 16 000 m. Plant community structure varied both along the peninsulas from mainland to the tip (eg Pinus resinosa and Acer spicatum near the mainland, Potentilla tride...
Hedgerows originated and coexist with agriculture. Their internal structure and species diversity vary widely with origin (planted, spontaneous, or remnant), farming practices in adjacent fields, and the refined art of hedgerow management. Most hedgerow species are forest-edge species, and apparently none is limited to hedgerows. Wide hedgerows com...
Uses a set of fundamental ecological concepts to pinpoint emergent patterns when comparing the natural landscape with the major types of human-modified landscapes, and focuses on how the structural characteristics of landscapes change along a gradient of increasing human modification. Ecological attributes used for comparison include horizontal str...
Three decades of research at the William L. Hutcheson Memorial Forest have resulted in 123 published articles, 66 doctoral and master's theses, and 73 published abstracts. References for these are presented. The William L. Hutcheson Memorial Forest in Franklin Township, New Jersey, was established in 1955 with two primary objectives: (1) to maintai...
Landscapes as ecological units with structure and function are composed primarily of patches in a matrix. Patches differ fundamentally
in origin and dynamics, while size, shape, and spatial configuration are also important. Line corridors, strip corridors,
stream corridors, networks, and habitations are major integrative structural characteristics...
Pinpointing major objectives as a vision for transportation and society provides a cost-effective framework for numerous detailed solutions along the road network. Three major objectives, with road ecology a central player, are highlighted: (1) improve the natural environment close to the entire road network; (2) integrate roads with a sustainable...
As transportation-related environmental issues and associated public concern rapidly grow, fortuitously, the science of road system ecology also emerges. To link broad ecological flows across the landscape with key engineering dimensions immediately around a road, simple spatial models appear particularly promising. Eight useful examples gleaned fr...
Citations
... Although not on the same scale as the birth of the internet, as a landscape ecologist, I acknowledge (as I am sure many do) the significance of the Allerton Park event as one that went on to not only help In April 1983, 25 ecologists and geographers met at Allerton Park, Illinois to discuss directions and approaches to landscape ecology (Risser et al. 1984). At this important meeting the seeds of modern landscape ecology were sown and an identity for landscape ecology was established (Wu 2013a;Forman 2023). In this editorial I reflect on this important meeting, look at its impact on landscape ecology, and suggest what landscape ecologists need to do over the next 40 years. ...
... However, our world today is replete with unsustainable villages, cities, and regions. To achieve sustainability from local to global scales, our landscapes and regions must be better designed and planned [1][2][3]. This requires sustainable landscape architecture [4], or sustainable landscape design. ...
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... Urbanization has dramatically transformed traditional rural landscapes into urban settings in recent years, fundamentally altering land use and arrangement [8]. This transformation is reflected in the changing landscape observed by highway viewers, with structures intruding into otherwise rural areas with increasing frequency [9]. ...
... Em sistemas agrícolas, o uso da terra (tipos de culturas, práticas de manejo) e a estrutura da paisagem (arranjo espacial de seus elementos) são fatores importantes na determinação dos processos ecológicos e na distribuição da fauna (ZOONEVELD; FORMAN, 1989). Nos modelos convencionais, a simplificação da estrutura da paisagem agrícola tem exercido impacto negativo sobre a vegetação e a fauna. ...
... In 1969, Ian McHarg, in California, USA, published "Design with Nature", emphasizing the use of ecological principles in urban planning and design by carefully considering the ecological and landscape characteristics of regions [22]. Contemporary scholar Richard T.T. Forman has revealed the pa erns and ecological processes of urban landscapes from the perspective of landscape ecology in "Urban Ecology: Science of Cities" [23]. Concepts such as the eco-city, sustainable city, green cities, and city in a garden propose development models that enhance urban ecological service functions, promoting the coordinated development of "environment-economy-society" [24][25][26]. ...
... For example, research at the global scale aids in comprehensive and systematic thinking about NBS for urban sustainability issues, regional-scale studies are wellsuited for holistic NBS planning and layout, and site-scale research is pivotal for NBS implementation. As Forman and Wu (2016) stated, "Society must think globally, plan regionally, then act locally." Furthermore, there is an apparent mismatch between the scale of NBS research and practice in the field of urban sustainability. ...
... Considering these spatially dependent dynamics, the microclimatic conditions created by landscape elements, such as tree canopy quality and location, gain importance in terms of urban ecology and sustainability (EGERER et al. 2020). As Forman describes, these spatial characteristics listed as land uses, built structures, anthropogenic flows, and human activities are considered the key attributes of urban ecology (FORMAN 2016). Therewith, urban landscapes generate various unique and unpredictable patchworks of socio-ecological patterns. ...
... La trame verte en tant que concept polysémique est devenue une réalité multidimensionnelle (Goodspeed et al., 2021). Les définitions relatives à la trame verte urbaine partagent essentiellement le souci de la « continuité » entre ses composantes (Forman, 2014). Le concept de « connectivité écologique », à l'échelle urbaine en prend plusieurs dimensions à savoir : les réservoirs de biodiversité (Baranyi et al., 2011), les corridors écologiques (Pascual-Hortal & Saura, 2006) et les matrices éco paysagères (Pezzagno et al., 2021). ...
... Given greater hazards in urban zones (predation, physiological, disturbance) the plastic response observed in AS is likely an adaptive change towards energetic efficiency (Frey et al., 2018; Seress et al., 2011). Moreover, AS success as an urban invasive is attributed to their capacity to adapt and respond to external stimuli while minimizing conflicts in already hazardous zones [123]. ...
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... In Europe, planning angles exhibited contrasting premises to the type of landscape ecology practiced in North America, which emphasized Geographic Information Systems (GIS) (Forman & Godron, 1984). A decade later, with the political ecology study of "third world countries", paradigmatic cross-cutting of academic silos to study nature and culture hybrids from a non-Western, Global South perspective appeared (Forman, 1990;Naveh et al., 2002;Eibach & Haller, 2021;Fúnez-Flores et al., 2022). A critical move to activate consilience of mountain themes further popularized alternative mountain ontologies (Messerli & Ives, 1997;Smith & Mark, 2003;Naveh, 2007;Lang et al., 2012;Pandian, 2014;Gose, 2018;Texeiria, 2022). ...
