14 Regions and land mosaics
people care about and care for the region. The combined threads of culture and
ecology run deeply in both space and time.
The ecoregion concept, in contrast, specifically highlights biological distribu-
tions over a large area. Theecoregionis a large unit of land and water typically
characterized and delineated by climate, geology, topography, and associations
of plants and animals. Hence it divides the land surface up biophysically rather
than by political boundaries. This is the basic framework currently used by The
Nature Conservancy to protect biodiversity (Groveset al.2002,Anderson 2003,
Magnusson2004). It also has been used for planning by the US Environmental
Protection Agency (Omernik1987), USDA Forest Service (Bailey1995, 1998), and
World Wildlife Fund (Olsonet al.2001). In general, ecoregions are unfamiliar
and difficult for policymakers and the public. Normally urban regions are much
smaller than an ecoregion, though the location of an urban region may have
considerable impact on processes across an ecoregion.Internal structure and external effects
All the regions discussed share the same basic type of internal struc-
ture. Many landscapes, e.g., from suburban to forested and industrial to crop-
land, are present, and their spatial arrangement is a key to understanding and
planning a region (Forman1995). The Greater Yellowstone Region in the Rocky
Mountains is a good example (Keiter and Boyce 1991 , Hansen and Rotella2001,
Hansen2002). Cattle ranchlands, river floodplains, pine forests, spruce-fir forests,
alpine tundra zones, and built areas are well intermixed. In addition, many pro-
cesses tie these landscapes together: fast-moving wildfires, streams of tourists,
moving livestock, horseback riders, streamflows and floodwaters, tree harvesting
and logging trucks, grizzlies, elk migration, bison herds, hikers, local economic
activities, rafters and fishermen, vehicles on road networks, and more. The linked
landscapes work as a region, and are occasionally planned as a region.
Aregion is larger and inherently more stable than a landscape within it
(Forman1995). Therefore planning a region as a sustainable environment or
place provides a higher probability of achieving success.
The suburban landscape sandwiched between city and, for instance, crop-
land/woodland surroundings plays a huge role in how the urban region works.
Suburbia is source, sink, and filter. As asource,which gives off objects, subur-
bia provides commuters, manufactured goods, and suburban species to the city.
Suburbs also provide recreationists, commercial products, and suburban species
totheouter cropland/woodland areas. As asink, which soaks up objects, the sub-
urban landscape absorbs air pollutants, water pollution, and non-native species
from the city. Also suburbia absorbs food products, dispersing woodland and
cropland species, and farmland dust and chemicals from the outer zone.