Urban ecosystems: challenges and new perspectives for landscape architecture

The paper will discuss the pivotal role of landscape architecture in counteracting biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, especially in urban context. Scholars agree that cities are the ground on which to respond to the pressure of manifold environmental and socioeconomic issues. There has been much talk of climate change and, finally, also on the need to defend globally threatened biodiversity. The conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems is a hot topic, generating a contemporary theoretical debate and a new design approach. Given its multidisciplinary nature, landscape architecture is perfectly suited to address these challenges and define new paradigms for urban development. The responsibility is high, and the demands are varied: a project must be able to design beautiful, inclusive and ecologically valuable spaces, while conveying important messages, raising public awareness and involving citizens. This opportunity for landscape architecture to respond to increasingly hectic global processes, however, implies several challenges.