Research gaps in knowledge of the impact of urban growth on biodiversity

McDonald, Robert I.; Mansur, Andressa V.; Ascensão, Fernando; Colbert, M’Lisa; Crossman, Katie; Elmqvist, Thomas; Gonzalez, Andrew; Güneralp, Burak; Haase, Dagmar; Hamann, Maike; Hillel, Oliver; Huang, Kangning; Kahnt, Belinda; Maddox, David; Pacheco, Andrea; Pereira, Henrique M.; Seto, Karen C.; Simkin, Rohan; Walsh, Brenna; Werner, A.; Ziter, Carly

doi:10.1038/s41893-019-0436-6

Cited by 322 publications

(175 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Today, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and the United Nations projects this percentage to reach 68% by 2050 [ 1 ]. Biodiversity contributes significantly to human wellbeing [ 2 ], and its loss adversely impacts urban dwellers as well as others [ 3 ]. Conversely, urbanites have both local and long-ranging impact on biodiversity, as indicated by their large ecological footprints [ 4 , 5 ] and the telecoupled impacts of cities across long distances [ 6 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity 2011–2020 and the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 come to an end in 2020, the world’s governments are discussing the successor to the Strategic Plan, which is known as the post-2020 global biodiversity framework [ 10 , 11 ]. As stakeholders consult on goals, targets, and indicators for this post-2020 global biodiversity framework, they have called for specific goals related to urban conservation efforts, including urban growth targets or urban biodiversity metrics that measure progress against global targets [ 3 ]. In 2008, the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) agreed on Decision IX/28, which called for parties to support biodiversity efforts by cities [ 12 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Planning for biodiversity can be in the form of any combination of (i) specific biodiversity strategies, habitat plans, and/or ecological health plans and/or (ii) integration of biodiversity into other city plans (e.g., sustainability, stormwater, and green area plans). A recent report summarizing the state of urban biodiversity identified 108 local governments that had released biodiversity plans or strategies, exclusive of biodiversity initiatives integrated into comprehensive plans [ 3 ]. More than one-third (45/108) of these urban biodiversity plans were produced by cities in Europe; cities in North America and Asia produced 23 each [ 3 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A recent report summarizing the state of urban biodiversity identified 108 local governments that had released biodiversity plans or strategies, exclusive of biodiversity initiatives integrated into comprehensive plans [ 3 ]. More than one-third (45/108) of these urban biodiversity plans were produced by cities in Europe; cities in North America and Asia produced 23 each [ 3 ]. Japan and the United Kingdom were responsible for many of these plans [ 13 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Actions, indicators, and outputs in urban biodiversity plans: A multinational analysis of city practice

Pierce

Barton²,

Tan³

et al. 2020

PLoS ONE

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Urban biodiversity offers important benefits to residents and may be crucial to reaching global biodiversity conservation targets, but little research has been conducted on how cities actually plan for biodiversity. In this study, we conducted a mixed methods content analysis of biodiversity plans by 39 cities around the world to determine whether they measured their actions, how they did so (via quantitative indicators and qualitative outputs), and what topics these actions and measures covered. We based our analytical framework on the Singapore Index on Cities' Biodiversity (also known as the City Biodiversity Index), a widely applied 23-indicator index that helps cities track their progress in biodiversity planning. The Singapore Index groups its indicators into the following three core components: native biodiversity, ecosystem services, and governance and management. For actions and measures not classifiable by the Singapore Index, we inductively derived additional categories. Across all plans, we identified 2,231 actions, 346 indicators, and 444 outputs. We found that all of the plans included actions, while 82% included measures (67% included indicators and 72% included outputs). Only 29% of actions were associated with a measure. Overall, the plans covered all of the categories in the Singapore Index, particularly within the core components of native biodiversity and governance and management, though some plans had a narrower focus. The 20 additional urban biodiversity topics that were not covered by the Singapore Index framework included socioeconomic considerations, data collection, genetic diversity, urban agriculture and forestry, green infrastructure, human-wildlife conflicts, indigenous concerns, and citizen science. Indicators were the most common measures for native biodiversity and ecosystem service topics, while outputs were the most common measures for governance and management. Our results may inform the revision and development of urban biodiversity indicators in the post-2020 framework and of other initiatives that guide cities in contributing to local and global biodiversity goals.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Actions, indicators, and outputs in urban biodiversity plans: A multinational analysis of city practice

Pierce

Barton²,

Tan³

et al. 2020

PLoS ONE

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“…More than half of the world's population is now living in cities and the share of urban population is rising further (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division [UN DESA], 2018). Combined with increasing population globally, urbanization will likely induce an increase in built-up land, with expected impacts on biodiversity (McDonald et al, 2020), the urban climate (Chapman et al, 2017), food security (Abu Hatab et al, 2019) or carbon pools, for instance due to forest loss for land clearing (Seto et al, 2012). Thus, it is imperative to discuss how we want to "grow the world's cities" Fuller, 2013, p. 1161).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synergies or Trade-Offs? Optimizing a Virtual Urban Region to Foster Plant Species Richness, Climate Regulation, and Compactness Under Varying Landscape Composition

Schwarz

Hoffmann

Knapp

et al. 2020

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Ongoing urbanization forces us to reflect on how we can cater for multiple targets when building cities. In this study, we investigate whether compactness as a common urban development strategy, climate regulation as an example for an ecosystem service, and vascular plant species richness as a measure of biodiversity form a synergistic relationship or whether trade-offs exist. We use a genetic algorithm to optimize the spatial allocation of three types of land cover blocks in a stylized urban region. These blocks are categorized as high-, low-density, or park blocks, depending on the proportion of green and built-up cells within each block. We systematically vary landscape composition at the block level, but keep city size constant. Our most important finding is that the relationships of target functions can shift between tradeoff and synergy, and this is shaped by landscape composition. For example, we found a trade-off between species richness and urban compactness in landscapes with large proportions of high-density areas and parks, while they have a synergistic relationship in low-density landscapes. Such dependencies of trade-offs and synergies on landscape composition need to be explored further, which may help address the wickedness of urban planning problems.

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Evidence shortfalls in the recommendations and guidance underpinning ecological mitigation for infrastructure developments

Hunter

Ermgassen

Downey

et al. 2021

Ecol Sol and Evidence

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1. In the United Kingdom and European Union, legal protection of species from the impacts of infrastructure development depends upon a number of ecological mitigation and compensation (EMC) measures to moderate the conflict between development and conservation. However, the scientific evidence supporting their effectiveness has not yet been comprehensively assessed.2. This study compiled the measures used in practice, identified and explored the guidance that informed them and, using the Conservation Evidence database, evaluated the empirical evidence for their effectiveness.3. In a sample of 50 U.K. housing applications, we identified the recommendation of 446 measures in total, comprising 65 different mitigation measures relating to eight taxa. Although most (56%) measures were justified by citing published guidance, exploration of the literature underpinning this guidance revealed that empirical evaluations of EMC measure effectiveness accounted for less than 10% of referenced texts. Citation network analysis also identified circular referencing across bat, amphibian and reptile EMC guidance. Comparison with Conservation Evidence synopses showed that over half of measures recommended in ecological reports had not been empirically evaluated, with only 13 measures assessed as beneficial.4. As such, most EMC measures recommended in practice are not evidence based.The limited reference to empirical evidence in published guidance, as well as the circular referencing, suggests potential 'evidence complacency' , in which evidence is not sought to inform recommendations. In addition, limited evidence availability indicates a thematic gap between conservation research and mitigation practice.More broadly, absence of evidence on the effectiveness of EMC measures calls into question the ability of current practice to compensate for the impact of development on protected species, thus highlighting the need to strengthen requirements for impact avoidance. Given the recent political drive to invest in infrastructureThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Research gaps in knowledge of the impact of urban growth on biodiversity

Cited by 322 publications

References 60 publications

Actions, indicators, and outputs in urban biodiversity plans: A multinational analysis of city practice

Actions, indicators, and outputs in urban biodiversity plans: A multinational analysis of city practice

Synergies or Trade-Offs? Optimizing a Virtual Urban Region to Foster Plant Species Richness, Climate Regulation, and Compactness Under Varying Landscape Composition

Evidence shortfalls in the recommendations and guidance underpinning ecological mitigation for infrastructure developments

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