Can you really see ‘green’? Assessing physical and self-reported measurements of urban greenery

The Greener the Better! Avian Communities Across a Neotropical Gradient of Urbanization Density

“…We carried out this study in the city of Xalapa, located in the highlands of central Veracruz, Mexico (19 • 32 37 N, 96 • 54 37 W). The city has a territory of ∼64 km 2 (Falfán et al, 2018) that extends through an elevation range of ∼600 m (∼1,100-1,700 m asl). Given its history, location, and high rainfall (1,100-1,600 mm/year; Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática [INEGI], 2009), Xalapa is a green city with ∼40% of its territory covered by vegetation.…”

“…Afterward, we considered the amount of urban greenery at each sampling site in a 25 m radius to classify them in relation to a gradient of urbanization density. For this, we used a previously published spatial classification of urban vegetation for Xalapa (Falfán et al, 2018) and considered the remaining surface as built cover. Finally, we categorized our sampling sites into four classes: (1) Class I: 0-25% built cover (i.e., mainly greenspaces and few very well vegetated residential areas), (2) Class II: 26-50% built cover (i.e., well vegetated residential areas and urbanized greenspaces), (3) Class III: 51-75% built cover (i.e., residential and/or commercial areas with moderate vegetation cover), and (4) Class IV: 76-100% built cover (i.e., residential and/or commercial areas without or with little vegetation cover) (Figure 2).…”

Nightlife in the city: drivers of the occurrence and vocal activity of a tropical owl

“…We performed this study in Xalapa (Mexico), a smallto-medium-sized city (~ 64 km 2 ) with a population of ~ 500,000 (INEGI 2009). The city comprises an important intra-urban green cover (~ 40%, Falfán et al 2018) distributed across an elevation gradient ranging between 1100 and 1600 m a.s.l. (19°32ʹ37ʺN, 96°54ʹ37ʺW).…”

“…Sampling sites were selected based on their representativeness across the urbanization intensity gradient of Xalapa, as well as security conditions and permission from house owners and municipality authorities to set our acoustic equipment in their properties. Thus, these sites represent different ecological conditions of the urban intensity gradient of the city, defined by the percentage of green cover within a 50 m radius buffer for each sampling site based on the satellite image classification from a previous study (Falfán et al 2018). To ensure the independence of sampling sites, we located them at a minimum distance of 300 m (following Ralph et al 1996).…”

“…To obtain the percentage of green cover around each sampling recording site, we used the satellite image classification of a previous study of Xalapa (Falfán et al 2018) within a 50 m radius buffer from the centroid (i.e., geometric center of a shape) of each sampling site. For ALAN measurements, we recorded the lux levels emitted by street lights and other urban-related sources at five different locations within each surveyed site considering a 50 m radius area, one at the site's centroid and one at each outermost cardinal point (n = 5).…”