Open Space, Biodiversity And Environmental Management

Introduction

Nobody would deny that land use planning is an increasingly important aspect in management. Traditionally, land use managing presupposes human welfare, quality of life, and environmental protection is taken into consideration. However, it is necessary to balance between economic and environmental objectives, which mean maximizing profit while preserving the natural habitat. In other words, land use management aims at controlling the interaction between society and the environment. It is crucially important to understand that a project is not likely to produce a profit unless it is environmentally friendly. Needless to say that inefficient land use managing poses health hazards to society. In the end, it may lead to irreparable harm, such as geological damages or waste of natural resources. Thus, unreasonable planning of the developments will subject non-renewable resources to fast depletion or provoke various accidents due to natural disasters.

Special attention should be given to the fast-growing cities, where ineffective urban land management may cause the degradation of environmentally sensitive land and open space. It is obvious that accelerated urbanization requires a larger area of land available. Doubtless, this poses a grave problem in terms of socio-economic development. To a broader extent, soil and water resources of good quality are limited, and it is essential to maintain and enhance their state. Land use management ensures successful implementation of the strategy, which allows for growth while providing safe livelihood.

Moreover, promoting an adequate infrastructure, including factories, roads, and schools, is a continuing concern within a land use and environmental management. Difficulties arise, however, when an attempt is made to manage the environment effectively and at the same time to provide a high quality of life for the local residents. Hence, the structure and land use patterns in a metropolitan setting have received considerable attention from the decision-makers. It needs to be mentioned that such big cities as Greater Adelaide are liable to serious limitations, explicit threat to biodiversity and soil or water contamination. Implementation of the land use management strategies is a fundamental mechanism for developing the built environment in Greater Adelaide without further air pollution, water and soil decline, and for enhancing good urban design and citizen’s welfare.

Open Space, Biodiversity and Environmental Management

Greater Adelaide metropolitan setting faces some challenges due to geological peculiarities that occur in the east and west. These natural barriers led to the urban sprawl from the north to the south. Moreover, the sprawling development poses a serious public health hazard to the society. It is worth admitting that without having any access to the eastern and western part of the city commuting distances make a vehicle to drive additional miles, which causes an increase of air pollution. What is more, sprawl consumes open spaces and agricultural land, so many rare species are currently under threat (Randolph 2004). Taking these facts into consideration, the main concern is to connect the northern and southern parts of the city without damaging the natural habitat. For this purpose, it is necessary to outline a plan of the metropolitan setting, which will replace the inefficient main arterial roads in Adelaide and minimize the impact on the existing neighborhoods. To be more precise, more innovative performance standards to control the location and influence this development are to be used (Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure 2014).

To make the city more compact, it is necessary to increase the density along the transit corridors. This can be achieved when the new buildings have no direct access to the main road. Incidentally, it will help to avoid the problem with active traffic flow and, as a result, lessen air pollution in a particular area (Randolph 2004). However, an increase in density along the transit corridors will pose the problem with infrastructure, which will need to be updated. For instance, it is desirable to introduce new developments, such as hostels, along the transit corridors, so it will reduce the distance traveled, and, hence, will save an open space (Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure 2014).

Preserved open space is a useful tool to fulfill various environmental objectives of Greater Adelaide, such as parks and recreations, wetland protection, farmland preservation, and urban forestry. It is increasingly hard to conserve the natural environment within the urbanized centers. Though, land use managers are to foresee possible threats to the environment and to provide careful consideration. In fact, Oaklands Park and Mawson Lake epitomize open spaces, which need to be protected effectively. Regarding this factor, zoning regulation is highly recommended to keep the polluting industry away from the parks and recreational areas. Consequently, it will preserve natural resources and, in the end, will save infrastructure costs, as state-of-the-art filters will be no longer required (Honachefsky 2000).

In the land use management, the control over open spaces is aimed at ensuring public health and safety. For this reason, more thought is given to zoning regulation. It is hard to ignore that the sprawl in Greater Adelaide affects an undeveloped area to a great extent. The process of the development of new dwellings instead of maintenance of recreational facilities is not viewed to be beneficial for the environment (Honachefsky 2000). Ideally, residential area is to be concentrated in the land for residential purposes only, while the development of new dwellings on the territory of open spaces is considered to be a violation of public interests.

The problem of density in Greater Adelaide may be solved by building-up the skyscrapers in the residential area. However, the vacant land assigned for the development should not to be environmentally sensitive. Many considerations in terms of geology, topography, climatic conditions, and water are to be taken (Jones et al. 2005). As it was mentioned previously, the land of Greater Adelaide suffers from natural geological barriers, which is why bearing capacity and sustainability, as well as the tendency to slide, are crucially important aspects for land use planning. It should be mentioned that high skyscrapers affect microclimate, which is why it is essential to foresee the potential air movements, radiation, shades and sunlight during land use planning.

Though, it is acceptable to enhance the community features on open spaces with the help of the mix land use. In other words, cluster development in a buildable and non-sensitive area is regarded to be a contributing factor to the natural environment and human community. For example, new schoolground parks or community gardens can be built on the local green spaces (Leung 2003). This sensitive land use planning is perfectly balanced with protection from air pollution. Such public space as Riverbank Promenade in Greater Adelaide will increase walking and biking sites for the residents and, as a result, will have a good environmental impact.

Greater Adelaide is situated next to the agricultural land, so such a location poses a risk to fertility of soil in the whole region. As it was outlined, the commercial areas of Greater Adelaide are to be situated relatively far from the residential areas. Nevertheless, it represents a problem for agricultural land. Most companies in the advanced manufacturing occupy fringe areas of the city and cause irreparable harm to them by non-agricultural use. The process of industrialization enhances the consumption of valuable land and makes its soil no longer appropriate for agricultural use. What is more, within the last decades soil degradation of the Greater Adelaide land makes the biomass production more challengeable (Chisholm & Dumsday 2009). It is hard to argue that air pollutants emitted by the factories located on the agricultural land increase risk of soil degradation, and, as a consequence, reduce the amount of biomass production. In fact, urban activities disrupt the extraction of mineral resources, such as aggregates and minerals.

As an urban influence is unavoidable, land use managers are to control the lot sizes and separation distances in order to lessen the bad environmental impact. In order to halt the degradation, it is necessary to reduce emissions in the agricultural sector by means of keeping industries away from the agricultural area. Apart from the factories and plants, non-industrial organizations located near the agricultural land may pose hazards to the soil quality. For example, universities and shopping centers will promote reactivation of the volume of traffic on the nearby roads, which means an increase of air pollutants emitted by vehicles, and, hence, the risk of soil degradation. In such a way, it is vital that the agricultural land should not have any built structures meant for both industrial and non-industrial uses (Randolph 2004).

The protection of potable water supplies is one of the main concerns in Greater Adelaide. It is a widely held view that water contamination in big cities is hard to prevent. Nevertheless, it is crucial to reduce bad environmental impact of urban activities by reasonable land use planning. The fact is that most contaminants originate from human activities on the land. Buildings and roads of the city cover twenty percent of the countryside, which is abysmal for water regime. Moreover, polluted groundwater endangers peculiar geological formations in the east and west of the city. Hence, it is increasingly important to analyze quality, location, vulnerability, and availability of water for a long period of time during land use planning. Special attention should be paid to the airports and highways in Greater Adelaide, as such constructions have the potential to influence the nature of groundwater (Department of Agriculture 2013). Besides, agricultural operations may also contribute to the groundwater contamination, which is why the quantity of water resources and their susceptibility should be taken into account. The pesticide and fertilizer use must be forbidden in order to preserve both soil and water quality. To maintain long-term water availability, it is essential to properly examine groundwater before zoning and land use planning.

Apart from the groundwater monitoring requirements, it is worth emphasizing that such land use as junkyards in the city poses a high risk to groundwater. After identifying the potential threats of the land use, it is indispensable to consider zoning regulations and appropriate policy to eliminate the problem (Laconte & Haimes 1978). For this purpose, all junkyards and auto salvage yards may become an essence of the development of the recycling industry. Eventually, such a sensitive policy will preserve open space and support economic development.

It is very important to conserve water for irrigation. In fact, land disposal of wastewater in Greater Adelaide needs a serious consideration and improvement. As it was mentioned before, land acquisition consumes groundwater, which should have been released to the surface. Therefore, it is highly recommended to place industrial wastewater on the large territories where water is in short supply. Thus, plentiful dry land will be ameliorated and available for agriculture. Otherwise, releasing processes would be rather problematic (Calder 1998).

Additionally, land use management aims at preserving the natural habitat and restoring the damaging areas with the help of careful planning. The protection of urban biodiversity consists of all the strategies mentioned above including the preservation of open spaces, soil and water protection. It is necessary to clarify that fertile soil, clean water, and protected conserved land give species variations, which are essential for planet’s ecosystem. Grey Box Grassy Woodlands ecosystem in Greater Adelaide is currently the most vulnerable (Department of Agriculture 2013). Despite the fact that this area is one of the main contributors to providing oxygen to the region, it suffers greatly from urban activities. The careless attitude towards the natural habitat has put serious stress on the diversity of species, which will be reflected on the human livelihood.

To reduce a harmful impact on the natural habitat and to conserve biodiversity, the land use managers are to elaborate a recovery plan, which will be composed of the long-term activities aimed at maximizing open space in Greater Adelaide. It is reasonable to place the buildings on the area, which is less rich in various species while leaving the rest of the land preserved as open space. This will be beneficial in terms of preservation of biodiversity and reduction of other environmental impacts. In addition, constructed wetlands may be useful in habitat restoration and maintaining biodiversity. Indeed, constructed wetlands serve as the biofilters, as they remove pollutants from the water. To enhance the natural habitat, flowers and trees valuable for the wildlife should be planted (Hill & Aspinall 2000). It is important to outline that the education of the residents plays a significant role in the maintenance of biodiversity. For example, the natural trail should be made through open space for local people to observe the wildlife. Consequently, such urban development will be sensitive to the wildlife and, after all, for the human livelihood.

Conclusion

All in all, land use management is a central issue in planning the structure and land use patterns in the metropolitan setting. A serious consideration of the land use strategies is helpful in accomplishing the interconnected and interdependent goals, namely, preserving the environment and producing the profit. People became more aware that the human livelihood and prosperity are conditioned by the quality of soil and water, and the variety of plant and animal life in the natural habitat or an ecosystem. It is essential to understand that the development of a new area is heavily dependent on the geological peculiarities, climate, soil, and water conditions. For this reason, the land use managers regulate the distribution of the residential, commercial, agricultural areas, and open spaces in order to lessen the negative impact on the environment and assure public health.