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Preface

The first edition of this book began with the following words, written in 2003:

For thousands of years we humans have been learning how to manage our

relationship with nature. Every generation creates a new set of circum-

stances as our population and economy grow, as our impacts on the natural

environment increase, and as our knowledge of the consequences of our

actions and means of controlling them advance. Every generation must

adapt to those circumstances. Our evolving social and political system has

enhanced our ability to make collective decisions about the use and manage-

ment of the natural environment, as well as how to adapt to it. Although

we face a myriad of environmental and related economic and social chal-

lenges, the good news is that we continue to learn.

We have, in fact, continued to learn, and the reason for the second edition of this

book is to chronicle what we have learned in the past decade. In our fast-changing

world, it does not take a generation for a new set of circumstances to emerge,

and we cannot wait a full generation to respond and adapt to them.

We are faced with new environmental challenges, led by climate change and its

prospective impacts on water supplies, agriculture, ecosystems, and coastal cities

due to sea level rise and increasing incidences of extreme weather events. We are

under a climate change imperative that requires mitigating our impact by reduc-

ing emissions of greenhouse gases and adapting to the consequences of climate

change that are likely to occur despite our mitigation efforts.

In addition to climate change, we are faced with population trends that have

resulted in more than half the global population living in cities, with the prospect

of 80% by 2050. This is actually good news for natural ecosystems, as urbanization

tends to lead to a lower environmental impact per person and drives down fertility

rates that should slow population growth to a stable 89 billion by mid-century.

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The global challenge we face, as Stewart Brand puts it, is to Green the hell out of

our growing cities (2009, 69), making them livable and sustainable, reducing

their ecological footprint, and providing social and economic opportunities for

their growing populations. The second challenge is to protect the newly emptied

countryside, its agriculture, forest, and watershed resource lands and its biodiver-

sity and ecological services.

The first edition chronicled emerging approaches to environmental land use

planning and management. Providing a framework for teaching and learning

interdisciplinary environmental planning, it emphasized land use, land analysis,

methods, and policies for planning and managing urban development, as well as

rural resource agriculture and forestlands in the United States. These emerging

approaches included environmental and community design, environmental engi-

neering and science, information systems, integrative approaches, collaborative

processes, land conservation, smart urban growth management, and environmen-

tal regulatory and nonregulatory policies and their legal foundation.

The first edition traced the evolution of these approaches, with the assumption

that our continuing learning process does (and must) get better to meet emerging

challenges. This is no more evident than in the brief span of years that have

passed since the first edition was published. Nearly all of these approaches have

advanced, and this second edition presents this next generation of environmental

planning. The community continues to be the laboratory, where new methods,

technologies, designs, and policies are devised, tried, and judged. Therefore, this

edition uses more case studies of these approaches in action.

The new edition also has a slight shift in emphasis and includes emerging chal-

lenges and responses.

Sustainable communities. Because of demographic and social trends,

more emphasis is placed on urbanization and the growing movement

toward sustainable and livable communities. Not only do we see citizens

and cities creating this movement, but U.S. federal agencies are focusing

on this theme. There are many dimensions to this movement, including

energy and climate protection, stormwater management, green infrastruc-

ture, public health and active living, mobility, economic vibrancy, affordabil-

ity, social interaction, community resilience, and environmental justice,

among others. They are all interrelated and are all necessary for sustain-

able communities.

Climate change. This has become the defining environmental issue of

the century. Planning efforts focus on climate protection or mitigation

through the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and carbon

sequestration by advancing energy efficiency and low-carbon sources,

reforestation, and soil management. Reducing GHG emissions also benefits

energy security by lowering oil consumption, decreasing urban air pollu-

tion, and minimizing other fossil-fuel-related environmental impacts.

International efforts toward sustainability. While the first edition

emphasized policies and practices in the United States, the sustainability

movement has accelerated around the world, and there is much to be

learned from Europe, Australia, and Japan, as well as emerging approaches

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in China, Brazil, and other developing nations. This edition highlights these

efforts through case examples.

The second edition is also reorganized based on the teaching experience of

many instructors, including myself. I have found that students need a big picture

context on environmental planning to start, but they are more receptive to digging

into the technical issues of environmental and land analysis that provide an ana-

lytical foundation before addressing design, planning, and policy issues. There-

fore, the book is now organized into three parts:

Part I: A Framework for Environmental Land Use Planning

and Management

This section, Chapters 14, contains the first four chapters from the first edi-

tion, revised to reflect emerging issues and approaches in environmental plan-

ning. Chapter 1 explores concepts of environmental management, Chapter 2

focuses on the interdisciplinary nature of environmental planning, and Chap-

ter 3 discusses land use planning from the perspective of sustainable commu-

nities. Chapter 4 highlights the growing role of collaborative processes in engag-

ing people in environmental planning decisions and implementation.

Part II: Environmental Planning: Technical Principles and Analysis

This section, Chapters 514, contains an updated and revised version of the

material in the first editions Chapters 1118, focusing on the science, techni-

cal analysis, and engineering methods used in environmental planning. Many

of these methods have improved since the first edition was published, especially

geospatial tools and the development of digital and web-based techniques for

soil evaluation, wetlands mapping, stormwater analysis, and forest and water-

shed assessment. Chapter 12 is a new chapter on land use and climate change

addressing mitigation and adaptation planning, as well as related community

energy planning and urban air quality protection.

Part III: Planning, Design, and Policy Tools for Environmental Land

Management

This final section, Chapters 1519, includes updated and revised versions of

the first editions Chapters 510 on design, financial, and policy approaches for

sustainable communities, smart growth, natural hazard mitigation, and ecosys-

tem and watershed management. The quest for sustainable cities has become a

movement not only in the U.S. but around the world. The designers, engineers,

planners,andpolicymakerscontinueto make advances in response to the grow-

ing market for green and livable buildings, neighborhoods, and communities.

Because of extensive new material and the desire to avoid expanding the text by

using more resources, certain sections have been removed from the earlier edi-

tion. Many of these sections are still useful, and where appropriate, they are

retained in PDF form on the book website (www.envirolanduse.org) and cited in

the margins of the new second edition. In addition, because of the changing

nature of this field, the book website is loaded with web-based resources linked to

chapter references and case studies. The website will be periodically updated with

new links and information as we continue to learn.

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