Urban Social-ecological Innovation: Implications for Adaptive Natural Resource Management

The urban landscape, as home to the majority of the global population, has been the scene of significant and lasting ecological degradation. Consequently, modern cities rely on distant and geographically vast areas for the provision of a range of important ecosystem services. Urban centres also, however, comprise important hubs of human invention and innovation. Collective approaches to the use and management of green space in urban social-ecological systems, as a form of social-ecological innovation, provide a valuable resource in the production and adaptive management of local ecosystem services. Urban social-ecological innovation (USEI), therefore, comprises an important consideration in urban environmental governance. Research on innovation in urban social-ecological systems is analysed here and an evaluation of the insights thereby derived culminates in the development of a conceptual framework. We propose that such a framework can be applied by practitioners and researchers alike to evaluate the mediating nature of USEI towards increasing the resilience of productive urban landscapes.