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Human ecology is an
interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...
and transdisciplinary study of the relationship between
human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...
s and their
natural Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans ar ...
,
social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...
, and
built environment The term built environment refers to human-made conditions and is often used in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, public health, sociology, and anthropology, among others. These curated spaces provide the setting for human ...
s. The philosophy and study of human ecology has a diffuse history with advancements in
ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...
,
geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...
,
sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...
,
psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...
,
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
,
zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, an ...
,
epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evi ...
,
public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...
, and home economics, among others.


Historical development

The roots of ecology as a broader discipline can be traced to the
Greeks The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, ot ...
and a lengthy list of developments in natural history science. Ecology also has notably developed in other cultures. Traditional knowledge, as it is called, includes the human propensity for intuitive knowledge, intelligent relations, understanding, and for passing on information about the natural world and the human experience. The term ecology was coined by
Ernst Haeckel Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new s ...
in 1866 and defined by direct reference to ''the economy of nature''. Like other contemporary researchers of his time, Haeckel adopted his
terminology Terminology is a group of specialized words and respective meanings in a particular field, and also the study of such terms and their use; the latter meaning is also known as terminology science. A ''term'' is a word, compound word, or multi-wo ...
from
Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...
where human ecological connections were more evident. In his 1749 publication, ''Specimen academicum de oeconomia naturae'', Linnaeus developed a science that included the ''economy and polis of nature''. Polis stems from its Greek roots for a political community (originally based on the city-states), sharing its roots with the word police in reference to the promotion of growth and maintenance of good social order in a community. Linnaeus was also the first to write about the close affinity between humans and
primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians ( monkeys and apes, the latter includin ...
s. Linnaeus presented early ideas found in modern aspects to human ecology, including the
balance of nature The balance of nature, also known as ecological balance, is a theory that proposes that ecological systems are usually in a stable equilibrium or homeostasis, which is to say that a small change (the size of a particular population, for example) w ...
while highlighting the importance of ecological functions (
ecosystem services Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and healthy ecosystems. Such ecosystems include, for example, agroecosystems, forest ecosystem, grassland ecosystems, and aquatic ecosystems. ...
or
natural capital Natural capital is the world's stock of natural resources, which includes geology, soils, air, water and all living organisms. Some natural capital assets provide people with free goods and services, often called ecosystem services. All of t ...
in modern terms): "In exchange for performing its function satisfactorily, nature provided a species with the necessaries of life" The work of Linnaeus influenced
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...
and other scientists of his time who used Linnaeus' terminology (i.e., the ''economy and polis of nature'') with direct implications on matters of human affairs, ecology, and
economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...
. Ecology is not just biological, but a human science as well. An early and influential social scientist in the history of human ecology was
Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, psychologist, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his hypothesis of social Darwinism. Spencer originated the expression " survival of the f ...
. Spencer was influenced by and reciprocated his influence onto the works of Charles Darwin. Herbert Spencer coined the phrase "
survival of the fittest "Survival of the fittest" is a phrase that originated from Darwinian evolutionary theory as a way of describing the mechanism of natural selection. The biological concept of fitness is defined as reproductive success. In Darwinian terms, ...
", he was an early founder of sociology where he developed the idea of society as an organism, and he created an early precedent for the socio-ecological approach that was the subsequent aim and link between sociology and human ecology. The history of human ecology has strong roots in geography and sociology departments of the late 19th century. In this context a major historical development or landmark that stimulated research into the ecological relations between humans and their urban environments was founded in
George Perkins Marsh George Perkins Marsh (March 15, 1801July 23, 1882), an American diplomat and philologist, is considered by some to be America's first environmentalist and by recognizing the irreversible impact of man's actions on the earth, a precursor to the ...
's book '' Man and Nature; or, physical geography as modified by human action'', which was published in 1864. Marsh was interested in the active agency of human-nature interactions (an early precursor to
urban ecology Urban ecology is the scientific study of the relation of living organisms with each other and their surroundings in an urban environment. An urban environment refers to environments dominated by high-density residential and commercial building ...
or human niche construction) in frequent reference to the ''economy of nature''. In 1894, an influential sociologist at the University of Chicago named Albion W. Small collaborated with sociologist George E. Vincent and published a "'laboratory guide' to studying people in their 'every-day occupations.'" This was a guidebook that trained students of sociology how they could study
society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soc ...
in a way that a natural historian would study birds. Their publication "explicitly included the relation of the social world to the material environment." The first English-language use of the term "ecology" is credited to American chemist and founder of the field of home economics,
Ellen Swallow Richards Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (December 3, 1842 – March 30, 1911) was an American industrial and safety engineer, environmental chemist, and university faculty member in the United States during the 19th century. Her pioneering work i ...
. Richards first introduced the term as " oekology" in 1892, and subsequently developed the term "human ecology". The term "human ecology" first appeared in Ellen Swallow Richards' 1907 ''Sanitation in Daily Life'', where it was defined as "the study of the surroundings of human beings in the effects they produce on the lives of men". Richard's use of the term recognized humans as part of rather than separate from nature. The term made its first formal appearance in the field of sociology in the 1921 book "Introduction to the Science of Sociology", published by Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess (also from the sociology department at the University of Chicago). Their student, Roderick D. McKenzie helped solidify human ecology as a sub-discipline within the Chicago school. These authors emphasized the difference between human ecology and ecology in general by highlighting
cultural evolution Cultural evolution is an evolutionary theory of social change. It follows from the definition of culture as "information capable of affecting individuals' behavior that they acquire from other members of their species through teaching, imitation ...
in human societies. Human ecology has a fragmented academic history with developments spread throughout a range of disciplines, including: home economics, geography, anthropology, sociology, zoology, and psychology. Some authors have argued that geography is human ecology. Much historical debate has hinged on the placement of humanity as part or as separate from nature. In light of the branching debate of what constitutes human ecology, recent interdisciplinary researchers have sought a unifying scientific field they have titled coupled human and natural systems that "builds on but moves beyond previous work (e.g., human ecology, ecological anthropology, environmental geography)." Other fields or branches related to the historical development of human ecology as a discipline include
cultural ecology Cultural ecology is the study of human adaptations to social and physical environments. Human adaptation refers to both biological and cultural processes that enable a population to survive and reproduce within a given or changing environment. Thi ...
,
urban ecology Urban ecology is the scientific study of the relation of living organisms with each other and their surroundings in an urban environment. An urban environment refers to environments dominated by high-density residential and commercial building ...
, environmental sociology, and anthropological ecology. Even though the term ‘human ecology' was popularized in the 1920s and 1930s, studies in this field had been conducted since the early nineteenth century in England and France. In 1969, College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, was founded as a school of human ecology. Since its first enrolled class of 32 students, the college has grown into a small liberal arts institution with about 350 students and 35 full-time faculty. Every graduate receives a degree in human ecology, an interdisciplinary major which each student designs to fit their own interests and needs. Biological ecologists have traditionally been reluctant to study human ecology, gravitating instead to the allure of wild nature. Human ecology has a history of focusing attention on humans' impact on the biotic world.
Paul Sears Paul Bigelow Sears (December 17, 1891 – April 30, 1990) was an American ecologist and writer. He was born in Bucyrus, Ohio. Sears attended Ohio Wesleyan University (B.Sc. in Zoology, 1913; B.A. in Economics, 1914), the University of Nebraska at ...
was an early proponent of applying human ecology, addressing topics aimed at the population explosion of humanity, global resource limits, pollution, and published a comprehensive account on human ecology as a discipline in 1954. He saw the vast "explosion" of problems humans were creating for the environment and reminded us that "what is important is the work to be done rather than the label." "When we as a profession learn to diagnose the total landscape, not only as the basis of our culture, but as an expression of it, and to share our special knowledge as widely as we can, we need not fear that our work will be ignored or that our efforts will be unappreciated." Recently, the Ecological Society of America has added a Section on Human Ecology, indicating the increasing openness of biological ecologists to engage with human dominated systems and the acknowledgement that most contemporary ecosystems have been influenced by human actio


Overview

Human ecology has been defined as a type of analysis applied to the relations in human beings that was traditionally applied to plants and animals in ecology. Toward this aim, human ecologists (which can include
sociologists This is a list of sociologists. It is intended to cover those who have made substantive contributions to social theory and research, including any sociological subfield. Scientists in other fields and philosophers are not included, unless at lea ...
) integrate diverse perspectives from a broad spectrum of disciplines covering "wider points of view". In its 1972 premier edition, the editors of '' Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal'' gave an introductory statement on the scope of topics in human ecology. Their statement provides a broad overview on the interdisciplinary nature of the topic: * Genetic, physiological, and social adaptation to the environment and to environmental change; * The role of social, cultural, and psychological factors in the maintenance or disruption of ecosystems; * Effects of population density on health, social organization, or environmental quality; * New adaptive problems in urban environments; * Interrelations of technological and environmental changes; * The development of unifying principles in the study of biological and cultural adaptation; * The genesis of maladaptions in human biological and cultural evolution; * The relation of food quality and quantity to physical and intellectual performance and to demographic change; * The application of computers, remote sensing devices, and other new tools and techniques Forty years later in the same journal, Daniel G. Bates (2012) notes lines of continuity in the discipline and the way it has changed:
Today there is greater emphasis on the problems facing individuals and how actors deal with them with the consequence that there is much more attention to decision-making at the individual level as people strategize and optimize risk, costs and benefits within specific contexts. Rather than attempting to formulate a cultural ecology or even a specifically "human ecology" model, researchers more often draw on demographic, economic and evolutionary theory as well as upon models derived from field ecology.
While theoretical discussions continue, research published in ''
Human Ecology Review Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
'' suggests that recent discourse has shifted toward applying principles of human ecology. Some of these applications focus instead on addressing problems that cross disciplinary boundaries or transcend those boundaries altogether. Scholarship has increasingly tended away from Gerald L. Young's idea of a "unified theory" of human ecological knowledge—that human ecology may emerge as its own discipline—and more toward the pluralism best espoused by Paul Shepard: that human ecology is healthiest when "running out in all directions". But human ecology is neither anti-discipline nor anti-theory, rather it is the ongoing attempt to formulate, synthesize, and apply theory to bridge the widening schism between man and nature. This new human ecology emphasizes complexity over
reductionism Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical po ...
, focuses on changes over stable states, and expands ecological concepts beyond plants and animals to include people.


Application to epidemiology and public health

The application of ecological concepts to epidemiology has similar roots to those of other disciplinary applications, with Carl Linnaeus having played a seminal role. However, the term appears to have come into common use in the medical and public health literature in the mid-twentieth century. This was strengthened in 1971 by the publication of ''Epidemiology as Medical Ecology'', and again in 1987 by the publication of a textbook on ''Public Health and Human Ecology''. An "ecosystem health" perspective has emerged as a thematic movement, integrating research and practice from such fields as environmental management, public health, biodiversity, and economic development. Drawing in turn from the application of concepts such as the social-ecological model of health, human ecology has converged with the mainstream of global public health literature.


Connection to home economics

In addition to its links to other disciplines, human ecology has a strong historical linkage to the field of home economics through the work of
Ellen Swallow Richards Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (December 3, 1842 – March 30, 1911) was an American industrial and safety engineer, environmental chemist, and university faculty member in the United States during the 19th century. Her pioneering work i ...
, among others. However, as early as the 1960s, a number of universities began to rename home economics departments, schools, and colleges as human ecology programs. In part, this name change was a response to perceived difficulties with the term home economics in a modernizing society, and reflects a recognition of human ecology as one of the initial choices for the discipline which was to become home economics. Current human ecology programs include the University of Wisconsin School of Human Ecology, the Cornell University College of Human Ecology, and the University of Alberta's Department of Human Ecology, among others.


Niche of the Anthropocene

Changes to the Earth by human activities have been so great that a new geological epoch named the Anthropocene has been proposed. The human niche or ecological ''polis'' of human society, as it was known historically, has created entirely new arrangements of ecosystems as we convert matter into technology. Human ecology has created anthropogenic biomes (called
anthrome Anthropogenic biomes, also known as anthromes, human biomes or intensive land-use biome, describe the terrestrial biosphere (biomes) in its contemporary, human-altered form using global ecosystem units defined by global patterns of sustained direct ...
s). The habitats within these anthromes reach out through our road networks to create what has been called technoecosystems containing
technosols A Technosol in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources is a Reference Soil Group that combines soils whose properties and pedogenesis are dominated by their technical origin. They contain either a significant amount of artefacts (something in t ...
. Technodiversity exists within these technoecosystems. In direct parallel to the concept of the ecosphere, human civilization has also created a technosphere. The way that the human species engineers or constructs technodiversity into the environment threads back into the processes of cultural and biological evolution, including the human economy.


Ecosystem services

The ecosystems of planet Earth are coupled to human environments. Ecosystems regulate the global geophysical cycles of energy, climate, soil nutrients, and water that in turn support and grow
natural capital Natural capital is the world's stock of natural resources, which includes geology, soils, air, water and all living organisms. Some natural capital assets provide people with free goods and services, often called ecosystem services. All of t ...
(including the environmental, physiological, cognitive, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of life). Ultimately, every manufactured product in human environments comes from natural systems. Ecosystems are considered common-pool resources because ecosystems do not exclude beneficiaries and they can be depleted or degraded. For example, green space within communities provides sustainable health services that reduce mortality and regulate the spread of vector-borne disease. Research shows that people who are more engaged with and who have regular access to natural areas benefit from lower rates of diabetes, heart disease and psychological disorders. These ecological health services are regularly depleted through urban development projects that do not factor in the common-pool value of ecosystems. The ecological commons delivers a diverse supply of community services that sustains the well-being of human society. The
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is a major assessment of the human impact on the environment, called for by the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2000, launched in 2001 and published in 2005 with more than $14 million of g ...
, an international UN initiative involving more than 1,360 experts worldwide, identifies four main
ecosystem service Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and healthy ecosystems. Such ecosystems include, for example, agroecosystems, forest ecosystem, grassland ecosystems, and aquatic ecosystems. ...
types having 30 sub-categories stemming from natural capital. The ecological commons includes provisioning (e.g., food, raw materials, medicine, water supplies), regulating (e.g., climate, water, soil retention, flood retention), cultural (e.g., science and education, artistic, spiritual), and supporting (e.g., soil formation, nutrient cycling, water cycling) services.


Sixth mass extinction

Global assessments of biodiversity indicate that the current epoch, the Holocene (or Anthropocene) is a sixth mass extinction. Species loss is accelerating at 100–1000 times faster than average background rates in the fossil record. The field of
conservation biology Conservation biology is the study of the conservation of nature and of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is an in ...
involves ecologists that are researching, confronting, and searching for solutions to sustain the planet's ecosystems for future generations.
"Human activities are associated directly or indirectly with nearly every aspect of the current extinction spasm."
Nature is a resilient system. Ecosystems regenerate, withstand, and are forever adapting to fluctuating environments.
Ecological resilience In ecology, resilience is the capacity of an ecosystem to respond to a perturbation or disturbance by resisting damage and recovering quickly. Such perturbations and disturbances can include stochastic events such as fires, flooding, windst ...
is an important conceptual framework in conservation management and it is defined as the preservation of biological relations in ecosystems that persevere and regenerate in response to disturbance over time. However, persistent, systematic, large and non-random disturbance caused by the niche-constructing behavior of human beings, including habitat conversion and land development, has pushed many of the Earth's ecosystems to the extent of their resilience thresholds. Three planetary thresholds have already been crossed, including
biodiversity loss Biodiversity loss includes the worldwide extinction of different species, as well as the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological diversity. The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, de ...
,
climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
, and
nitrogen cycle The nitrogen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which nitrogen is converted into multiple chemical forms as it circulates among atmospheric, terrestrial, and marine ecosystems. The conversion of nitrogen can be carried out through both biolo ...
s. These biophysical systems are ecologically interrelated and are naturally resilient, but human civilization has transitioned the planet to an Anthropocene epoch and the ecological state of the Earth is deteriorating rapidly, to the detriment of humanity. The world's fisheries and oceans, for example, are facing dire challenges as the threat of global collapse appears imminent, with serious ramifications for the well-being of humanity. While the Anthropocene is yet to be classified as an official epoch, current evidence suggest that "an epoch-scale boundary has been crossed within the last two centuries." The ecology of the planet is further threatened by global warming, but investments in nature conservation can provide a regulatory feedback to store and regulate carbon and other greenhouse gases.


Ecological footprint

In 1992, William Rees developed the
ecological footprint The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounti ...
concept. The ecological footprint and its close analog the water footprint has become a popular way of accounting for the level of impact that human society is imparting on the Earth's ecosystems. All indications are that the human enterprise is unsustainable as the footprint of society is placing too much stress on the ecology of the planet. The WWF 2008 living planet report and other researchers report that human civilization has exceeded the bio-regenerative capacity of the planet. This means that the footprint of human consumption is extracting more natural resources than can be replenished by ecosystems around the world.


Ecological economics

Ecological economics is an economic science that extends its methods of valuation onto nature in an effort to address the inequity between market growth and biodiversity loss. Natural capital is the stock of materials or information stored in biodiversity that generates services that can enhance the welfare of communities. Population losses are the more sensitive indicator of natural capital than are species extinction in the accounting of ecosystem services. The prospect for recovery in the economic crisis of nature is grim. Populations, such as local ponds and patches of forest are being cleared away and lost at rates that exceed species extinctions. The mainstream growth-based economic system adopted by governments worldwide does not include a price or markets for natural capital. This type of economic system places further
ecological debt Ecological debt refers to the supposed accumulation of debt of the Global North to Global South countries, due to the net sum of historical environmental injustice, especially through resource exploitation, habitat degradation, and pollution by w ...
onto future generations. Human societies are increasingly being placed under stress as the ecological commons is diminished through an accounting system that has incorrectly assumed "... that nature is a fixed, indestructible capital asset." The current wave of threats, including massive extinction rates and concurrent loss of natural capital to the detriment of human society, is happening rapidly. This is called a biodiversity crisis, because 50% of the worlds species are predicted to go extinct within the next 50 years. Conventional monetary analyses are unable to detect or deal with these sorts of ecological problems. Multiple global ecological economic initiatives are being promoted to solve this problem. For example, governments of the G8 met in 2007 and set forth The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) initiative:
In a global study we will initiate the process of analyzing the global economic benefit of biological diversity, the costs of the
loss of biodiversity Biodiversity loss includes the worldwide extinction of different species, as well as the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological diversity. The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, de ...
and the failure to take protective measures versus the costs of effective conservation.
The work of Kenneth E. Boulding is notable for building on the integration between ecology and its economic origins. Boulding drew parallels between ecology and economics, most generally in that they are both studies of individuals as members of a system, and indicated that the "household of man" and the "household of nature" could somehow be integrated to create a perspective of greater value.


Interdisciplinary approaches

Human ecology expands functionalism from ecology to the human mind. People's perception of a complex world is a function of their ability to be able to comprehend beyond the immediate, both in time and in space. This concept manifested in the popular slogan promoting sustainability: "think global, act local." Moreover, people's conception of community stems from not only their physical location but their mental and emotional connections and varies from "community as place, community as way of life, or community of collective action." In the early years, human ecology was still deeply enmeshed in its respective disciplines: geography, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and economics. Scholars through the 1970s until present have called for a greater integration between all of the scattered disciplines that has each established formal ecological research.


In art

While some of the early writers considered how art fit into a human ecology, it was Sears who posed the idea that in the long run human ecology will in fact look more like art. Bill Carpenter (1986) calls human ecology the "possibility of an aesthetic science", renewing dialogue about how art fits into a human ecological perspective. According to Carpenter, human ecology as an aesthetic science counters the disciplinary fragmentation of knowledge by examining human consciousness.


In education

While the reputation of human ecology in institutions of higher learning is growing, there is no human ecology at the primary or secondary education levels, with one notable exception, Syosset High School, in Long Island, New York. Educational theorist Sir Kenneth Robinson has called for diversification of education to promote creativity in academic and non-academic (i.e., educate their "whole being") activities to implement a "new conception of human ecology".


Bioregionalism and urban ecology

In the late 1960s, ecological concepts started to become integrated into the applied fields, namely
architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...
,
landscape architecture Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...
, and
planning Planning is the process of thinking regarding the activities required to achieve a desired goal. Planning is based on foresight, the fundamental capacity for mental time travel. The evolution of forethought, the capacity to think ahead, is c ...
.
Ian McHarg Ian L. McHarg (20 November 1920 – 5 March 2001) was a Scottish landscape architect and writer on regional planning using natural systems. McHarg was one of the most influential persons in the environmental movement who brought environmental con ...
called for a future when all planning would be "human ecological planning" by default, always bound up in humans' relationships with their environments. He emphasized local, place-based planning that takes into consideration all the "layers" of information from
geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other Astronomical object, astronomical objects, the features or rock (geology), rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology ...
to
botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...
to zoology to
cultural history Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing t ...
. Proponents of the
new urbanism New Urbanism is an urban design movement which promotes environmentally friendly habits by creating walkable neighbourhoods containing a wide range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually in ...
movement, like James Howard Kunstler and Andres Duany, have embraced the term human ecology as a way to describe the problem of—and prescribe the solutions for—the landscapes and lifestyles of an automobile oriented society. Duany has called the human ecology movement to be "the agenda for the years ahead." While McHargian planning is still widely respected, the landscape urbanism movement seeks a new understanding between human and environment relations. Among these theorists is Frederich Steiner, who published ''Human Ecology: Following Nature's Lead'' in 2002 which focuses on the relationships among landscape, culture, and planning. The work highlights the beauty of scientific inquiry by revealing those purely human dimensions which underlie our concepts of ecology. While Steiner discusses specific ecological settings, such as cityscapes and waterscapes, and the relationships between socio-cultural and environmental regions, he also takes a diverse approach to ecology—considering even the unique synthesis between ecology and
political geography Political geography is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures. Conventionally, for the purposes of analysis, po ...
. Deiter Steiner's 2003 ''Human Ecology: Fragments of Anti-fragmentary'' view of the world is an important expose of recent trends in human ecology. Part literature review, the book is divided into four sections: "human ecology", "the implicit and the explicit", "structuration", and "the regional dimension".Steiner, D. and M. Nauser (eds.). 1993. ''Human Ecology: Fragments of Anti-fragmentary Views of the World.'' London and New York: Routledge. Human Ecology Forum 108 ''Human Ecology Review'', 2008; Vol. 15, No. 1, Much of the work stresses the need for transciplinarity, antidualism, and wholeness of perspective.


Key journals

* '' Ecology and Society'' * '' Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal'' *
Human Ecology Review
'


See also

*
Agroecology Agroecology (US: a-grō-ē-ˈkä-lə-jē) is an academic discipline that studies ecological processes applied to agricultural production systems. Bringing ecological principles to bear can suggest new management approaches in agroecosystems. Th ...
*
Collaborative intelligence Collaborative intelligence characterizes multi-agent, distributed systems where each agent, human or machine, is autonomously contributing to a problem solving network. Collaborative autonomy of organisms in their ecosystems makes evolution possi ...
* College of the Atlantic *
Contact zone In a 1991 keynote address to the Modern Language Association titled "Arts of the Contact Zone", Mary Louise Pratt introduced the concept of "the contact zone." She articulated, "I use this term to refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash a ...
* Environmental communication * Environmental economics *
Environmental racism Environmental racism or ecological apartheid is a form of institutional racism leading to landfills, incinerators, and hazardous waste disposal being disproportionally placed in communities of colour. Internationally, it is also associated with ...
*
Ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...
, espc. Ecology#Human ecology * Environmental Psychology * Environmental sociology * Ecological Systems Theory *
Ecosemiotics Ecosemiotics is a branch of semiotics in its intersection with human ecology, ecological anthropology and ecocriticism. It studies sign processes in culture, which relate to other living beings, communities, and landscapes. Ecosemiotics also deals w ...
* Family and Consumer Science *
Green economy A green economy is an economy that aims at reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without degrading the environment. It is closely related with ecological economics, but has a more politi ...
* Home economics *
Human behavioral ecology Human behavioral ecology (HBE) or human evolutionary ecology applies the principles of evolutionary theory and optimization to the study of human behavioral and cultural diversity. HBE examines the adaptive design of traits, behaviors, and ...
*
Human ecosystem Human ecosystems are human-dominated ecosystems of the anthropocene era that are viewed as complex cybernetic systems by conceptual models that are increasingly used by ecological anthropologists and other scholars to examine the ecological aspe ...
* Industrial ecology * Integrated landscape management * Otium * Political ecology *
Rural sociology Rural sociology is a field of sociology traditionally associated with the study of social structure and conflict in rural areas. It is an active academic field in much of the world, originating in the United States in the 1910s with close ti ...
*
Sociobiology Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to examine and explain social behavior in terms of evolution. It draws from disciplines including psychology, ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, and population genetics. Within ...
*
Social Ecology Social ecology may refer to: * Social ecology (academic field), the study of relationships between people and their environment, often the interdependence of people, collectives and institutions * Social ecology (Bookchin), a theory about the relat ...
* Spome *
Urie Bronfenbrenner Urie Bronfenbrenner (April 29, 1917 – September 25, 2005) was a Russian-born American psychologist who is most known for his ecological systems theory.Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979).The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University ...
* Ernest Burgess * John Paul Goode * Robert E. Park *
Louis Wirth Louis Wirth (August 28, 1897 – May 3, 1952) was an American sociologist and member of the Chicago school of sociology. His interests included city life, minority group behavior, and mass media, and he is recognised as one of the leading urban ...
*
Rights of nature Rights of nature or Earth rights is a legal and jurisprudential theory that describes inherent rights as associated with ecosystems and species, similar to the concept of fundamental human rights. The rights of nature concept challenges twentie ...
* Anthropogenic metabolism * Anthroposphere *
Collective consciousness Collective consciousness, collective conscience, or collective conscious (french: conscience collective) is the set of shared beliefs, ideas, and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society.''Collins Dictionary of Sociolog ...
* Scale (analytical tool) * Ecological civilization


References


Further reading

*Cohen, J. 1995. ''How Many People Can the Earth Support?'' New York: Norton and Co. *Dyball, R. and Newell, B. 2015 ''Understanding Human Ecology: A Systems Approach to Sustainability'' London, England: Routledge. *Henderson, Kirsten, and Michel Loreau.
An ecological theory of changing human population dynamics
" People and Nature 1.1 (2019): 31-43. *Eisenberg, E. 1998. ''The Ecology of Eden''. New York: Knopf. *Hansson, L.O. and B. Jungen (eds.). 1992. ''Human Responsibility and Global Change''. Göteborg, Sweden: University of Göteborg. *Hens, L., R.J. Borden, S. Suzuki and G. Caravello (eds.). 1998. ''Research in Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Overview.'' Brussels, Belgium: Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) Press. *Marten, G.G. 2001. ''Human Ecology: Basic Concepts for Sustainable Development.'' Sterling, VA: Earthscan. *McDonnell, M.J. and S.T. Pickett. 1993. ''Humans as Components of Ecosystems: The Ecology of Subtle Human Effects and Populated Areas.'' New York: Springer-Verlag. *Miller, J.R., R.M. Lerner, L.B. Schiamberg and P.M. Anderson. 2003. ''Encyclopedia of Human Ecology.'' Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. *Polunin, N. and J.H. Burnett. 1990. ''Maintenance of the Biosphere. (Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Environmental Future — ICEF).'' Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press. *Quinn, J.A. 1950. ''Human Ecology.'' New York: Prentice-Hall. *Sargent, F. (ed.). 1974. ''Human Ecology.'' New York: American Elsevier. *Suzuki, S., R.J. Borden and L. Hens (eds.). 1991. ''Human Ecology — Coming of Age: An International Overview.'' Brussels, Belgium: Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) Press. *Tengstrom, E. 1985. ''Human Ecology — A New Discipline?: A Short Tentative Description of the Institutional and Intellectual History of Human Ecology.'' Göteborg, Sweden: Humanekologiska Skrifter. *Theodorson, G.A. 1961. . Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson and Co. *Wyrostkiewicz, M. 2013
"Human Ecology. An Outline of the Concept and the Relationship between Man and Nature"
Lublin, Poland: Wydawnictwo KUL *Young, G.L. (ed.). 1989. ''Origins of Human Ecology.'' Stroudsburg, PA: Hutchinson Ross.


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Human Ecology Environmental studies
Ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...