4个原因，城市景观是气候弹性的关键

Outdoor landscapes are a vital component of our cities. Whether it’s outside a home, a store, an office, or a manufacturing plant, the landscape is a property’s primary interface with the community and the environment. Properly designed and managed using sustainable landscape strategies, these outdoor areas can help communities weather droughts, mitigate floods, sequester carbon, improve human well-being and more.

We can buildsustainable landscapes, by which I mean景观与当地的气候和生态的平衡that积极促进流域健康。键分子of sustainable landscapes include:

• 建立健康的土壤
• 保留植被
• 利用气候适宜植物
• Conserving water and other resources

这可能包括清除病重等策略f, building rain gardens or installing permeable pavement or rain tanks.

To achieve sustainability, we need to make some changes

以加州，我的家乡，作为一个例子。加州有出了名的变化多端的降水模式，这是气候变化增加。我们看到更长，更热的干旱，更猛烈的风暴;和更多dramatic fluctuationsbetween these two extremes. This means that our cities are facing increasing threats of water shortage on one hand, and flooding on the other.

我们目前的城市景观，通过大草坪和铺筑区标记，不要做太多来缓解这些问题。事实上，在许多情况下，他们会加剧他们。渴草皮需要大量的灌溉，特别是在夏季高峰时的干热，和水是供应短。一半以上在加利福尼亚州城市用水（PDF）去园林灌溉和部分，是在夏季高。路面的辽阔 - 停车场尤其是 - 离开雨水无处可去，但血本无归，有权处理猛烈的暴风雨，导致洪水和污染的能力有限。

有一个更好的选择

我们可以把我们的城市景观到资产气候适应能力，而不是风险的来源。例如，下面看看在圣莫尼卡，加利福尼亚（左可持续景观，右侧传统景观）两个住宅码的这一侧由端为例。九年同时监控景观表明，可持续的景观使用83％更少的水，造成56％的绿化少浪费，并要求68％较少的维护比更传统的美化。

可持续景观可提供multitude of benefits (PDF), but I’ll focus on four themes here:干旱;洪水;碳;和社区。

可持续的景观是有弹性的干旱

There are two key ways that sustainable landscapes can make urban communities more resilient to drought: using less water, and capturing water to use later.

Replacing grass withclimate appropriate plants（和正常灌溉的植物）可以用70％-80％降低景观的用水需求。在过去的加州旱灾，我们看到整个国家的家庭这样做，趋势显著足以被clear on Google Maps.This was a big part of why California’s urban communities were able to meet, and in fact exceed, the emergency抗旱任务of reducing water use by 20 percent.

可持续的风景，也可以用来捕捉水抱它 - 在土壤，地下水，雨水收集系统 - 以备将来使用。建立健康的土壤可以让水不采取了由植物渗透到景观，甚至下到地下含水层，而不是流失和丢失血本无归。同样，雨水桶和坦克可以捕捉屋面径流，然后可以在需要时可以应用放回景观。研究表明，应用这些横跨南加州和旧金山湾区方法能increase local water supplies (PDF)每个每年20十亿加仑的水大体量使用的洛杉矶市每年。

Sustainable landscapes help reduce flooding and water pollution

As the climate warms, California is experiencing more precipitation in the form of rain (versus snow), and these rain events are growing in intensity. Our urban areas, particularly those in southern California, will need to better prepare for these storms, and in particular improve flood management. As discussed above, sustainable landscapes are great at capturing and holding water; this is also useful formitigating local flooding。If water can run into rain gardens and soak into the soil, that means less water pooling on streets, parking lots and sidewalks. Beyond designing existing green spaces to hold flood waters, reducing the amount of paved area and replacing it with permeable paving or more green space can greatly contribute to local flood reduction.

These strategies also help prevent water pollution in our oceans and stream, because sustainable landscapes can absorb and purify the "first flush" of a rain event, which contains the most polluted water (carrying all the grime and contaminants from our city streets).

Sustainable landscapes sequester carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions

水，能源和土地使用管理都交织在一起，深刻地连接到气候。健康有机质丰富的污物，可持续景观的重要组成部分，可以sequester carbonfrom the atmosphere, providing climate mitigation. Sustainable landscape practices also can reduce energy use (and associated greenhouse gas emissions) because they require less mowing, blowing and green waste hauling than typical grass-dominated landscapes. There is also theenergy embedded in water (PDF)to consider — less irrigation (through climate appropriate plants and capturing water for reuse onsite) means less water that needs to be collected, treated and transported to a landscape.

Sustainable landscapes improve community well-being

最后，可持续的景观提供了以人为尺度的利益，社区的利益，超越帮助他们抵御干旱和洪水。从草和路面到那些美丽的原生植物为主的室外区域，并扩大了自然空间切换improves our well-being。For example, research shows the employees who have access to在自己的工作岗位上可持续的景观更快乐，更有效率。此外，可持续的景观实践（尤其是替换为雨水花园铺面）可以帮助作战urban heat island effect, a public health threat growing worse with climate change.

过渡到可持续的景观在世界各地的城市需要创新和协作

实现抵御干旱和洪水，减少碳排放和促进社会福祉的挑战（和机会）是一个面临cities around the globe。这些都是必要的和紧密相连的问题，以及城市景观趴在它们之间所有的重要纽带。

随着城市化进程迅速增加，以及气候变化的影响，每年表现更加突出，呼吁采取行动变得更为迫切。应对这一挑战，多层面将采取的努力和多元化的城市利益相关者的合作，从居民，企业，科学家，城市政府和实地改变制造商。在Pacific Institute，一个非营利性组织，致力于水和气候，我们已经工作了超过30年的关于推进创新的解决方案water-smart cities， 包含sustainable urban landscapes。