1st Edition

Urban Biodiversity From Research to Practice

Edited By Alessandro Ossola, Jari Niemelä Copyright 2018
    274 Pages 55 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    274 Pages 55 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Urban biodiversity is an increasingly popular topic among researchers. Worldwide, thousands of research projects are unravelling how urbanisation impacts the biodiversity of cities and towns, as well as its benefits for people and the environment through ecosystem services. Exciting scientific discoveries are made on a daily basis. However, researchers often lack time and opportunity to communicate these findings to the community and those in charge of managing, planning and designing for urban biodiversity. On the other hand, urban practitioners frequently ask researchers for more comprehensible information and actionable tools to guide their actions.

    This book is designed to fill this cultural and communicative gap by discussing a selection of topics related to urban biodiversity, as well as its benefits for people and the urban environment. It provides an interdisciplinary overview of scientifically grounded knowledge vital for current and future practitioners in charge of urban biodiversity management, its conservation and integration into urban planning. Topics covered include pests and invasive species, rewilding habitats, the contribution of a diverse urban agriculture to food production, implications for human well-being, and how to engage the public with urban conservation strategies.

    For the first time, world-leading researchers from five continents convene to offer a global interdisciplinary perspective on urban biodiversity narrated with a simple but rigorous language. This book synthesizes research at a level suitable for both students and professionals working in nature conservation and urban planning and management.

    1. Bringing Urban Biodiversity Research into Practice

    Alessandro Ossola, Ulrike M. Irlich and Jari Niemelä

    2. Soil as a foundation to urban biodiversity

    Katalin Szlavecz, Ian Yesilonis and Richard Pouyat

    3. Urban biodiversity and ecosystem services

    Johannes Langemeyer and Erik GómezBaggethun

    4. Planning for protection: Promoting pest suppressing urban landscapes through habitat management

    Dieter F. Hochuli and Caragh G. Threlfall

    5. Urban agriculture: an opportunity for biodiversity and food provision in urban landscapes

    Brenda B. Lin and Monika H. Egerer

    6. Urban biological invasions: when vertebrates come to town

    Lucas A. Wauters and Adriano Martinoli

    7. Management of plant diversity in urban green spaces

    Myla F.J. Aronson, Max R. Piana, J. Scott MacIvor and Clara C. Pregitzer

    8. Managing biodiversity through social values and preferences

    Kate E. Lee and Dave Kendal

    9. Biodiversity and psychological well-being

    Kalevi Korpela, Tytti Pasanen and Eleanor Ratcliffe

    10. Governance perspectives on urban biodiversity

    Sara Borgström

    11. Managing urban green spaces for biodiversity conservation: an African perspective

    Sarel S. Cilliers, Stefan J. Siebert, Marié J. Du Toit and Elandrie Davoren

    12. Urban green infrastructures and ecological networks for urban biodiversity conservation

    Emily S. Minor, Elsa C. Anderson, J. Amy Belaire, Megan Garfinkel and Alexis Dyan Smith

    13. Designing nature in cities to safeguard meaningful experiences of biodiversity in an urbanizing world

    Assaf Shwartz

    14. Biodiversity‐friendly designs in cities and towns: towards a global biodiversinesque style

    Maria Ignatieva

    15. Integrating urban biodiversity mapping, citizen science and technology

    Cynnamon Dobbs, Angela Hernández, Francisco de la Barrera, Marcelo D. Miranda and Sonia Reyes Paecke

    Biography

    Alessandro Ossola is a Research Coordinator within the Centre for Smart Green Cities at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia and a former US National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine NRC Associate within the US Environmental Protection Agency in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.

    Jari Niemelä is Professor of Urban Ecology and Director of the Helsinki Institue for Sustainability Science, Department of Environmental Sciences, at the University of Helsinki, Finland.