How do cities shape the planet, and how can we shape cities for a sustainable future? This book explores how urbanization drives global environmental change and how cities function as dynamic ecosystems within the Earth system. Connecting urban ecology, Earth system science and socio-environmental thinking, it provides the knowledge and perspective to understand cities not just as challenges but as critical spaces for innovation and change. From air and water systems to energy flows, biodiversity, and climate impacts, it offers clear frameworks, real-world case studies, and tools for analyzing urban ecosystems and their impacts across scales. Written in accessible language, the book is for both physical and social scientists working in urban ecology, urban planning and sustainability. It will equip advanced students, researchers and professionals with the knowledge and tools to reimagine cities as critical hubs of resilience and sustainable innovation.

‘As urban areas expand to house the majority of humanity, we urgently need frameworks that treat urbanization not as a backdrop to environmental change but as an active force reshaping Earth’s physical and biogeochemical systems. Churkina’s volume provides a rigorous, integrative account of how urban ecosystems alter energy balances, water cycles, carbon and nitrogen dynamics, and climate feedbacks from local to global scales. Churkina draws on decades of research to show how cities function as hotspots of elemental cycling - with more reservoirs, more fluxes, and more complex interactions than standard ecology or environmental texts capture - while remaining grounded in real-world case studies and clearly defined concepts. This is an essential and long overdue text for advanced students, researchers, and practitioners working at the intersection of urban science, Earth system science, and sustainability. I expect this to become a standard reference in the field.’

Karen C. Seto - Yale University

‘By building and operating its own environment within the natural environment, humanity has become a geological force on Earth. Churkina’s wonderful book explains in an amazingly digestible way how settlements, infrastructures, and factories have become a crucial part of the planetary metabolism. Understanding and transforming urbanization dynamics towards sustainability is arguably the biggest challenge of the twenty-first century: here comes your must-read!’

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber - International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

‘Cities are no longer peripheral to Earth system science – they are central to it. Churkina’s new book bridges urban ecology, biogeochemistry, and Earth system science in a coherent framework accessible to physical and social scientists alike, filling a critical gap the field has long needed addressed. Its combination of conceptual frameworks, quantitative tools, and real-world case studies makes it an integrative foundation for students, instructors, and researchers working at the urban–Earth system interface.’

Lucy R. Hutyra - Boston University