The Brundtland Report defined sustainable development as ‘‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’’ (WCED 1987), which emphasizes the dynamic balance between human development and environmental protection, as well as intra- and intergenerational equity. 

 

Weak Sustainability& Strong Sustainability

    Substitutability between natural and human-made capital underlines the debate on ‘‘weak’’ versus ‘‘strong’’ sustainability, mainly among economists.

    Weak sustainability permits mutual substitutability between natural capital and human-made or manufactured capital to the extent that a system is considered sustainable as long as its total capital increases or remains the same. 

    A third view which is called ‘‘strong sustainability’’ (Daly,1995). Strong sustainability means that economic activities are part of the social domain, and both economic and social actions are constrained by the environment.

    As a landscape designer, we always expect the natural environment can reach maximizing biodiversity. However, to achieve such a balance among three dimensions which is the so-called‘‘win-win-win” situation is not easy, because all capital need commensurate emphasis. So from a multi-scale perspective, for our design, we can use the combination of weak and strong sustainability on small scales and together achieve the strong sustainability at the broad scale. That means we have to consider and decide which part we need to try out best to protect, and which part we need to sacrifice.

 

The relationship between human well-being, ecosystem services, biodiversity and ecological processes

 

Human Well-being

    Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA): Five dimension of human well-being (2005):(1)Basic material for a good life (2)freedom of choice(3)health(4)good social relations (5)security

 

Ecosystem Service

    Levin (2012) ‘Sustainability means many things … [it] includes the stability of financial markets and economic systems, of reliable sources of energy, as well as of biological and cultural diversity. At the core, though, it must mean the preservation of the services that we derive from eco-systems.’

    Ecosystem services have been considered, increasingly, as a crucial bridge between the environment and society, as well as forming a keystone concept in conservation, resource management, and ecological and environmental economics (Costanza et al. 1997; Daily 1997; Perrings 2005; Bra at and de Groot 2012; de Groot et al. 2012).

 

Biodiversity

    In general, increases ecosystem functions such as primary production, soil nutrient retention, and resilience against disturbances and invasions.

 

Ecological

    Human-dominated ecosystems and landscapes, as well as the biosphere, are coupled human–environment systems (CHES) or social–ecological systems(SES)

    Biodiversity and ecosystem functions together determine the natural capital stock and profoundly affect the flows of goods and services from nature to human societies (Costanza and Daly 1992; Costanza et al. 1997; De Groot et al. 2002; Perrings 2005; Wu and Kim 2013).

 

Resilient landscape

    Holling (1973) originally defined resilience as the ability of a system to absorb change and disturbance without changing its basic structure and function or shifting into a qualitatively different state. The word “Resilient “emphasizes persistence, change, and unpredictability, and differs fundamentally from the equilibrium-based ‘‘engineering resilience’’ idea that is characterized by efficiency, constancy, and predictability (Holling, 1996).

    Landscape resilience necessitates the explicit consideration of the composition and spatial arrangement of landscape elements. Cumming et al. (2013) further defined landscape resilience as “the resilience of an entire landscape, viewed as a spatially located complex adaptive system that includes both social and ecological components and their interactions.”

Based on the literatures, resilience are defined as ‘‘the capacity of a system to tolerate disturbance without shifting to a qualitatively different state’’.

    As for the design of Vet Med College, resilient landscapes design if very important for us to concern about. In order to develop a sustainable landscape, all original elements on the site need to be consider and rearranged. The topography, the vegetation, the function space, the animals, as well as the traffic lines, the human activities, the ongoing study and research projects, all of these are design element that we need to make good usage instead of changing them. So the ways I create a resilient landscape for Vet Med College including: 1. Design the path according the original topography, try best to reduce the change of topography, minimize the impact of the land; 2. Try best to preserve the original trees, prairie, and add some “green island” in the middle of the hard path to reduce the impact of nature ecosystem,3 .In order to improve the biodiversity, a wetland was designed so that more animals can be attracted into this habitat; 4. Rearrange the traffic line, separate the human walking line and the vehicle line to reduce the intersection and make both more efficient; 5. Reorganize the function, give people more opportunity to have interaction with animals. Also more open space are designed for the student and faculty users.