An urban area is a space with high population density which develops new, major and complex structures in comparison to the areas surrounding it. In order to develop these structures and maintain population and its ac...An urban area is a space with high population density which develops new, major and complex structures in comparison to the areas surrounding it. In order to develop these structures and maintain population and its activity, the metabolism of urban areas needs a lot of external sources of energy and nutrients （water, food, materials...）, which produces heat waste, garbage, sewage and pollution which are some of the major problems for urban sites, and the related areas from it. This metabolism promotes major environmental changes in the urban areas, which promote stress on vegetation used in gardening. The main environmental factors that affect vegetation in urban areas are the same that have been defined in literature from long time ago, but now they are acting as the sum of complementary and synergic effects of these classical stresses at the same moment, in the same place, which happen due to the incredibly amount of energy that we place in the systems. This is called global change. Ecophysiological studies can provide objective information to be used as a tool to improve the vegetation management in urban areas from design to process, and consequently avoiding the potential vulnerabilities associated with global change. Present paper tries to show several examples about the plant response, measurement tools and vulnerabilities and adaptations to global change under urban conditions. It can be concluded that the large availability of vegetal material and the great technical development can be highlighted as strong points of gardening and urban landscaping while, as weak points, it could be mentioned the changing taste of consumers, which can force the introduction of new vegetal material with no time for adaptation, Urban gardening and landscaping can be considered to be exposed to global change, but in our opinion it is necessary to carry out more studies to determine the real degree of vulnerability of this activity to this complex kind of stress.展开更多
文摘An urban area is a space with high population density which develops new, major and complex structures in comparison to the areas surrounding it. In order to develop these structures and maintain population and its activity, the metabolism of urban areas needs a lot of external sources of energy and nutrients （water, food, materials...）, which produces heat waste, garbage, sewage and pollution which are some of the major problems for urban sites, and the related areas from it. This metabolism promotes major environmental changes in the urban areas, which promote stress on vegetation used in gardening. The main environmental factors that affect vegetation in urban areas are the same that have been defined in literature from long time ago, but now they are acting as the sum of complementary and synergic effects of these classical stresses at the same moment, in the same place, which happen due to the incredibly amount of energy that we place in the systems. This is called global change. Ecophysiological studies can provide objective information to be used as a tool to improve the vegetation management in urban areas from design to process, and consequently avoiding the potential vulnerabilities associated with global change. Present paper tries to show several examples about the plant response, measurement tools and vulnerabilities and adaptations to global change under urban conditions. It can be concluded that the large availability of vegetal material and the great technical development can be highlighted as strong points of gardening and urban landscaping while, as weak points, it could be mentioned the changing taste of consumers, which can force the introduction of new vegetal material with no time for adaptation, Urban gardening and landscaping can be considered to be exposed to global change, but in our opinion it is necessary to carry out more studies to determine the real degree of vulnerability of this activity to this complex kind of stress.
