Urban Forestry & Urban Greening最新文献

As cities grapple with the escalating challenges of urban heat and its impacts on vulnerable populations, particularly older adults, green spaces are increasingly promoted as effective urban cooling solutions. However, despite the extensive literature on people’s access to and preferences for urban green spaces, little is known about the perception and use of these spaces as nature-based climate shelters on hot days, especially by older adults. This study focuses on Barcelona, a Mediterranean city facing rising temperatures, to explore older adults' patterns of use and preferences for urban green spaces on hot days. The research aims to: 1) analyze heat coping behaviors, emphasizing visits to urban green spaces; 2) identify crucial characteristics of green spaces for older adults; and 3) assess variations in behaviors and preferences based on socio-demographic factors. The study leverages survey data from 291 older adult residents, combining face-to-face and online formats. Results indicate that 54 % of older adults use urban green spaces for cooling on hot days, with preferences for morning or evening visits. Factors influencing non-visitation include perceived lack of thermal comfort, noisiness or crowdedness, and proximity issues. Alternative heat coping strategies include staying at home, traveling to cooler areas outside the city, visiting blue spaces, or air-conditioned indoor facilities. Preferred green space characteristics include abundant shade, leafy vegetation, accessibility factors (e.g., walkability), urban furniture (e.g., benches), and water features. Socio-demographic differences reveal higher green space use among younger age groups and residents in certain districts. Mobility limitations and lower education levels influence preferences, with mobility-challenged individuals prioritizing accessibility aspects. Lower-educated respondents are more likely to report barriers to accessing green spaces. These findings highlight the need for tailored urban planning strategies, considering sociodemographic variations, to mitigate heat-related health risks for older adults. By prioritizing green space accessibility, enhancing its quality, promoting its cooling benefits, addressing cooling inequalities and integrating climate considerations in urban green planning, cities facing increasingly pressing heat challenges can create climate-resilient and inclusive green environments that prioritize the well-being of their aging populations.

There is much uncertainty in how climate change will impact the performance of urban trees. Climate niche modelling predicts that many urban tree species may become unsuitable in future climates, but this has rarely been tested in cities. Broad planting of diverse tree species in different cities provides the opportunity to test climate niche predictions. Here we investigated if the climate of origin of 14 urban tree species influenced tree growth, trait expression, and phenotypic plasticity. We determined climate niche limits for all species and measured canopy growth rates of individual trees from 2013 to 2021 in the two largest Australian cities: subtropical Sydney, and temperate Melbourne. Six functional traits including leaf water potential at turgor loss point (TLP), wood density (WD), leaf dry matter content (LDMC), specific leaf area (SLA), carbon isotope composition (δ¹³C) and Huber value (HV) were measured in both cities. Trees planted outside their climate niche limits had lower growth than trees planted inside their climate niche in the temperate but not subtropical city. Species with lower MAP of origin (i.e., drier) had faster canopy growth in both cities. Species with low MAP and high heat moisture index (HMI) at their origin had more negative TLP and greater WD, indicating species from drier environments maintain their high drought tolerance in cities. Trees planted in drier Melbourne had more negative TLP, higher WD and higher LDMC than in Sydney, demonstrating phenotypic plasticity in urban trees. Wetter origin species showed greater phenotypic plasticity in TLP, WD and δ¹³C. Canopy RGR was negatively related with δ¹³C reflecting a strong impact of stomatal behaviour on urban tree growth. Our study provides limited support that species climate niche limits reliably predict urban tree growth, so we caution against solely using climate niche matching and advocate for inclusion of functional traits when selecting urban tree species.

Urban green spaces such as parks, play a vital role in relieving pressure on urban biodiversity. In Southeast Asia, urban park management often prioritises aesthetic appeal over urban biodiversity conservation. Management of wildlife habitat at the stand and landscape scales is necessary to support land-sharing and land-sparing conservation strategies in urban environments. To date, few studies have looked at the occurrence of urban birds in the context of land sharing and sparing strategies. We investigated how resident and migratory birds utilise urban parks based on stand-level habitat characteristics and landscape metrics. We conducted point count surveys at 49 points to estimate site occupancy and detection probability in 40 parks within highly urbanised Klang Valley, Peninsular Malaysia. Out of 90 species recorded, 14 species had more than 50 % site occupancy. The abundance of palm trees, percentage of shrub, and height of ground vegetation and woody trees positively influenced the occupancy of Black-naped Oriole, Javan Myna, House Crow, Oriental Magpie-Robin, and Yellow-vented Bulbul. While the number of woody trees and elevation negatively influenced the occupancy of Asian Glossy Starling, Spotted Dove, Zebra Dove, and Common Myna. Our findings can contribute to the effective management of urban parks, considering both stand and landscape-level characteristics to support urban biodiversity, ultimately benefiting both resident and migratory bird populations. Our research emphasises the significance of implementing both land-sparing and land-sharing strategies in urban park management. By doing so, we can promote greater avian biodiversity, preserve diverse habitats for birds, and establish crucial ecological corridors within urban landscapes.

As urbanization progresses globally, there is a growing concern regarding the diminishing connection between humans and nature. Informal green spaces (IGS) have been identified as a potential solution to this, offering unscripted opportunities for urban residents to engage with nature in a way that is not possible in formally planned parks and gardens. Despite an increasing focus on IGS, we are still developing our understanding of the extent to which people use these spaces to interact with nature. Our work addresses this research gap by employing a spatial analysis method to map IGS within Greater Melbourne, Australia. We used citizen science data to analyse the location and density of human-nature interactions on IGS compared to formal green spaces, as well as comparing different types of IGS and formal green spaces. Our findings revealed no significant difference in the density of citizen science observations between IGS and formal green spaces, once the variance in available area of each land use is accounted for. Notably, railway and utility easements exhibited the highest density of citizen science observations among all types of IGS. This research demonstrates that IGS make an important contribution to urban green space networks and additional thought should be given to how urban planning and land management may further increase the value of these spaces for people interacting with nature.

Native plants in Western Australia have been highly valued in urban environments due to their endemicity, adaptivity to local conditions and their positive impact on local identity. However, the process of urbanisation often leads to the destruction or significant alteration of native landscapes to meet amenity demands and diverse aesthetic preferences, ecological and functional requirements that vary across societies and over time. This paper examines the role of native and non-native plant species in urban areas of Western Australia with particular reference to the needs of bees (both honeybees and Australian native bees). The analysis draws on the perspectives, vision, and practical experiences of landscape practitioners, beekeepers, and ecologists specialising in native bees and plant pollination. The findings suggest that urban biodiversity in Western Australia inherently involves a combination of native and non-native plant species. Consequently, designing plant arrangements that attract a diverse range of pollinators, including both native and non-native bees, necessitates a specific approach. The results showing that all landscape practitioner respondents have used non-native plants in design practices and acknowledged them as a part of urban biodiversity in Western Australia. All ecologist respondents and 31 % of beekeeper respondents agreed on the existence of competition between native and non-native bees. While ecologist respondents emphasised the significance of native plants for native bees, they still hold positive attitude towards the use of non-native plants in urban landscapes. This research provides valuable guidance for designing urban landscapes that support a diverse range of pollinators and contribute to the conservation of biodiversity in Western Australia. Three key guidance for bee botanic garden plant selections are: (1) Promoting interdisciplinary research and collaboration; (2) Maximising site value and ecosystem integration when considering plant selections; and (3) Incorporating diverse plant collections for varied purposes, such as native plant collection, spontaneous gardens, orchards and preserved remnant bush gardens.

Accurate tree inventories are critical for urban forest management but challenging to obtain, as many urban trees are on private property (backyards, etc.) and are excluded from public inventories. Here, we examined the feasibility of tree species identification in a large heterogenous urban area (>850 km²) by using multi-temporal PlanetScope images (3.2 m resolution, multi-spectral) and inventory data from more than 20,000 ground observations within the urban forest of the Greater Chicago area. Our approach achieved an overall classification accuracy of 0.60 and 0.71 for 18 species and ten genera, respectively, but varied from moderate to high for certain species (0.59–0.92) and genera (0.61–0.91). In particular, we identified key host tree species (Fraxinus americana, F. pennsylvanica, and Acer saccharinum) for two damaging invasive insects, emerald ash borer (EAB, Agrilus planipennis) and Asian longhorn beetle (ALB, Anoplophora glabripennis), with over 0.80 accuracies. In addition, we demonstrated that including images from the autumn months (September–November), either for a single-season model or a combined multiple-season model, improved the identification accuracy of temperate deciduous trees. Further, the high classification accuracy of support vector machine (SVM) over random forest (RF) and neural network (NN) approaches suggests that future work might benefit from comparing multiple classification methods to select the approach that maximizes species classification accuracy. Our study demonstrated the potential for applying multi-temporal high-resolution images in urban tree classification, which can be used for urban forest management at a large spatial scale.

This paper presents a socially-engaged arts approach to exploring the variety and specificity of cultural benefits urban park-users associated with its treescape during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the cultural ecosystem services framework, cultural benefits are understood in terms of positive impacts to ‘experiences’ (our relational interactions with the environment), ‘capabilities’ (our knowledge and abilities in relation to environmental interaction) and ‘identities’ (our perceptions of our relationship with the environment). The research captured evidence of a broad range of people’s interactions with the human and non-human world, whilst opening up an inclusive space for respondents to reflect on and share feelings about the significance of these experiences. The methods employed attracted a range of ‘quieter voices’ to participate, particularly more vulnerable park-users. They also attended to the multiple levels at which people connected with treescapes during this time, from less conscious material engagements to more emotionally and culturally driven transactions. This case study research highlights the important role of the park’s treescape in supporting people to feel better during the COVID-19 crisis and their cultural associations and ties to it. However, it also explores feelings of concern for and perceived lack of influence over this valued resource as potentially disbenefiting wellbeing. It identifies experiences of environmental anxiety, emerging from a lack of certainty over and agency within urban green spaces and treescapes and the benefits they can provide. It concludes that management of treescapes and greenspaces should be sensitive to impacts on environmental emotion.

Previous research has shown that biophysical and social characteristics of urban green spaces (UGS) and individual factors may play a role in preferences for restorative environments. However, little is known about the trade-offs between (bio)physical and social characteristics of UGS on different health-related psychological benefits between different population groups. This exploratory study used an image-based discrete choice experiment, in which 298 adolescent pupils, 159 university students, and 142 adults were asked which urban green spaces they would prefer for general recovery, stress reduction, and concentration improvement. Each of the 128 green space scenarios depicted different attributes of varying levels of recreational infrastructure, numbers of trail users, distances between forest vegetation and trail, traffic noise, background scenery, both in winter and in summer. The results indicate that visitor numbers and traffic noise strongly influenced green space preferences for all study groups, but groups differed in terms of their preferences and trade-offs for the psychological benefits. The biophysical environment was less important for adolescent pupils, while recreational infrastructure was less important for the adults. There were group differences in stated preferences for general recovery, stress reduction, and concentration enhancement. Implications for urban green space planning are presented.

Urban green spaces are crucial for improving the quality of life of city residents because they provide numerous health advantages and foster overall wellness. However, previous research has concentrated only on individual goals and overlooked the inherent contradictions that arise when many objectives are considered. This study devised a transdisciplinary framework to link the optimization of plant community characteristics with multiple objectives. In Beijing, we selected 22 urban green spaces and utilized the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm III (NSGA-III) to create a Pareto-optimal model. This model allowed us to reveal the relationships and limitations between plant community characterization factors and three objectives: temperature comfort, landscape aesthetics, and construction costs. Consequently, 91 Pareto-optimal solutions were obtained. The results indicate that a tradeoff exists between the three goals of temperature comfort, landscape aesthetics, and building costs, and this tradeoff is influenced by the interplay between the objectives and plant community characterization factors. We condensed four methodologies for building plant communities, each with distinct objective orientations, while also considering the preferences of decision-makers. The results of this study offer a novel perspective for conducting research in multi-objective scenarios to promote environmental sustainability.

This research explores the relationships between attributes of a green space visit (green space type, duration, activities, company) and 1) health-related benefits (including mental restoration, aesthetic appreciation), and 2) visitor demographics and health status. Exploratory analyses of our online survey show that the type of green space chosen has little relevance for benefits but that what it is used for does. Passive uses of urban green spaces are common across population groups and related to a diversity of benefits. Results showing that longer visits bring more benefits and occur more frequently within populations with higher education and income contentment point to inequities regarding the accessibility of health-related benefits. Lastly, we observe limited nature connectedness amongst respondents, which adds an important consideration to future survey approaches.