“Cities around the world are designed for cars, but we need to flip that and think of cities not only as places to move materials and people efficiently”

Awarded the 14th BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology, Steward Pickett reflects in this interview on how cities have become a crucial laboratory for understanding contemporary ecological dynamics. He explains how his pioneering work in urban ecology has revealed that biological, social, and spatial processes are deeply interconnected, and that studying these links is key to designing more resilient and sustainable cities. His vision highlights the importance of integrating science, policy, and citizen participation to address the environmental challenges of the 21st century.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation Biology has gone in this fourteenth edition to the ecologists Lenore Fahrig, Simon Levin and Steward Pickett for incorporating the spatial dimension into ecosystem research, in the sense of landscape and its multiple scales,

Awarded the 14th BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology, Steward Pickett reflects in this interview on how cities have become a crucial laboratory for understanding contemporary ecological dynamics. He explains how his pioneering work in urban ecology has revealed that biological, social, and spatial processes are deeply interconnected, and that studying these links is key to designing more resilient and sustainable cities. His vision highlights the importance of integrating science, policy, and citizen participation to address the environmental challenges of the 21st century.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation Biology has gone in this fourteenth edition to the ecologists Lenore Fahrig, Simon Levin and Steward Pickett for incorporating the spatial dimension into ecosystem research, in the sense of landscape and its multiple scales, and bringing it to bear in the management of “coupled human-natural systems,” in the words of the citation.