SEES:7000 Colloquium - Thursday, 10/17/26, 3:30pm, 255 MacBride Hall

Kelli Larson (School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University)

Talk: "Urban Landscape Sustainability: Drivers & Outcomes for Residential Water Conservation & Habitat Provisioning"

In an urbanizing world, understanding how human-environment interactions affect environmental and societal outcomes is critical for landscape sustainability. An interdisciplinary definition of landscape sustainability underscores maximizing ecosystem services (i.e., environmental and societal benefits) and minimizing disservices (i.e., risks or problems) to enhance human wellbeing while also garnering public support for their maintenance into the future. Since residential lands dominate urban systems, their composition and management affect various outcomes including water consumption and biodiversity, as well as personal enjoyment and wellbeing, among myriad others. My research centers on the overarching questions: what are the causes, consequences, feedbacks, and legacies of land management decisions, and what are the implications for landscape sustainability? With data from residential land systems in U.S. cities, I will present two evidence-based vignettes that address these research questions for: 1) landscape change for water conservation and climate adaptation, and 2) habitat provisioning for biodiversity and wellbeing outcomes. In addition to sharing the results of collaborative research among social and ecological scientists, I will provide empirically supported recommendations for urban planning and environmental management aimed at landscape sustainability.