Functional Urban Wetlands in Dysfunctional Cities

This paper reviews the theoretical background of urban wetlands through existing scientific literature studies, emphasizing Argentina. Questions were elaborated to contribute knowledge from a landscape ecology perspective, providing a more functional view and allowing a better assessment of the need to plan and include wetlands in the processes of conservation and connectivity at basin scales, simultaneously with the socio-ecological and biocultural contexts in which they develop. We also construct an operational concept of urban wetlands with approaches that value pond systems for their contribution to the dynamics of the global system.

Urban wetlands play a fundamental role in urban areas as they contribute to their inhabitants by providing numerous ecosystem services. However, they are only sometimes valued as such from conservationist perspectives and by urban planners. Current urbanization processes produce changes in hydrological functions, water pollution, loss of habitat and biodiversity, and invasions of exotic species, as well as in the urban and rural biocultural heritage.

The complexity of the urban wetlands landscape requires new approaches based on adaptability and resilience. From the Ramsar Convention to the present, wetland science has improved our ability to understand the value of ecological functions based on data and new operational concepts. The scientific literature in this regard still needs to be more extensive. The integration of landscape ecology in understanding the processes that regulate urban wetlands provides a function-based approach and a scale of analysis that will allow greater detail of the functional value of their diversities.