ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of the book. It sets out to guide the next generation of students to a greater understanding of urban ecology. The new urban greenspaces often differed in their climate, soils, and geochemistry and biodiversity from the surrounding rural areas. In this way, novel ecological situations were created, allowing a special urban ecology to evolve. Urban ecology is the scientific study of the relationships of living organisms with each other and with their surroundings in areas dominated by high-density residential and commercial development and by paved or otherwise sealed areas. The techniques employed to study urban ecology include environmental remote sensing, chemical and biochemical analysis, genetics, recording of physical parameters such as temperature and water flows, as well as studying plants, animals and microbes. Studies examine both the effects of urbanization on these biophysiochemical parameters, and the effects of plants, animals and microbes on the built environment.
