Beyond burial: researching and managing cemeteries as urban green spaces, with examples from Canada

Abstract

Cemeteries existing within cities are often omitted from the “green space” narrative despite their high levels of vegetation. Given the relatively small areas of green space in many cities, it is important to appropriately manage these landscapes to ensure that residents can access green spaces and enjoy the many benefits they offer. The purpose of our paper is to demonstrate that cemeteries should be managed and researched as urban green spaces that provide ecosystem services. We compared and contrasted cemeteries with urban parks and used their similarities and differences, as well as a review of existing cemetery and other green-space literature, to discuss how cemeteries can provide a wide variety of ecosystem services. We found that cemeteries and parks both have high levels of vegetation, similar perceived safety issues, and some common rules and regulations, while differing in their consideration as public spaces, effect on real-estate values, historical–cultural value, and funding and management goals. Despite the differences, we believe that the vegetation (particularly trees), monuments, other infrastructure, and atmosphere within cemeteries make them well-suited to providing ecosystem services such as recreation, human health and restoration, stormwater management, microclimate regulation, aesthetics, and so on. Cemeteries can also potentially provide ecosystem “disservices” such as allergens, invasive/dangerous/poisonous species, and the degradation of groundwater quality. However, we believe that the potential for ecosystem services far outweighs the potential for ecosystem disservices in urban cemeteries, and as such we believe they should be studied and managed as green spaces with functions beyond those of interment and mourning. Given the general superiority of trees over other vegetation in providing a diversity of ecosystem services, we urge cemetery managers to consider options for increases and improvements in cemetery tree populations.

Qualitative Exploration of Perception and Use of Cultural Ecosystem Services from Tree-Based Urban Green Space in the City of Zagreb (Croatia)

“…This same work highlights a scarcity of studies qualitatively addressing CES (but see [24]) and often the investigated UGS type is not specified. Furthermore, these studies frequently include parks [10,[25][26][27][28] and forests [29], rather than other types of UGS (but see [30][31][32]). However, there is a need to explore how CES are related to different types of UGS [29].…”

Characterization and Justification of Trees on an Inner-City Golf Course in Halifax, Canada: An Investigation into the Ecological Integrity of Institutional Greenspace

“…Furthermore, it was discovered that golf courses usually had more big trees and higher concentrations of dead wood, an important component to forest ecosystem dynamics. Other institutional greens spaces, cemeteries for example, have been found to deliver significant regulating ecosystem services, such as filtration of air and stormwater pollutants and increasing pollination through the provision of insect habitat, in addition to a litany of social services [14].…”

“…Recognizing the significant ecological value trees bring to the "golfscape" and the larger urban ecosystem, this study focused exclusively on golf course trees. It seeks to contribute to the growing canon of literature [14][15][16][17] pointing to the ecosystem services rendered from institutional greenspaces in urban settings with the aim of encouraging improvement in the existing management regimes on golf courses. It also endeavors to fill a gap in the existing literature investigating the role of trees in enhancing ecological integrity of golf courses in the Canadian context.…”

To Care or Not to Care? Which Factors Influence the Distribution of Early-Flowering Geophytes at the Vienna Central Cemetery (Austria)

“…About 250 years ago, they were mainly characterized Sustainability 2021, 13, 4657 2 of 15 by mausoleums, grave slabs, and gravestones [6]. These characteristics often determine the historical and cultural value of a cemetery [14]. Today, they often have a park-like character with lots of trees, open lawns, and flowering hedges [6,7].…”

“…Besides their actual function as burial sites and, recently, also as recreation places [14,22], cemeteries as well provide valuable ecosystem services [12,23] like groundwater formation through their large-unsealed areas [19] or urban climate regulation and removal of pollutants or dust through fresh air supply via wind corridors [8]. This service provisioning is quite substantial as in large cities there are usually several cemeteries, which together take up a substantial part of the total urban area (e.g., 30 cemeteries covering 1.3% of the urban area in Munich or 52 cemeteries covering 1.2% of the urban area in Vienna; [19,24]).…”