Urban Biodiversity

Biodiversity in Cities

Understand the importance of biodiversity to cities in terms of economic, environmental, and public health benefits. Describe methods for prioritizing species or ecosystems for protection and make the case for ecosystem protection even in the absence of detailed biological information.

Habitat Quality

Understand the roles that habitat size, connectivity, diversity and complexity play in supporting citywide and regional biodiversity. Recognize how these determinants of habitat quality manifest in urban design and planning.

Valuation of Nature

Articulate the benefits of biodiversity in terms of public health, economic well-being and civic life. Formulate strategies for quantifying and communicating these benefits to government and public stakeholders.

Data

Understand the principles of data strategy and indicator development; data acquisition, sharing, safety and governance; and interpretation and communication of data insights.

Section 1: Biodiversity in the Urban Context

We explore why biodiversity is important to cities, and how cities can contribute to protecting biodiversity regionally and globally. We examine biodiversity through an urban lens and develop a specifically urban approach to protecting biodiversity and supporting healthy ecosystems. We also explore concepts useful to the prioritization of species for conservation while motivating a species-agnostic, whole-ecosystem approach.

Section 2: Habitat Functions

We examine the traditional concept of habitat, discuss how habitat functions to support healthy populations of living things, and develop a habitat concept designed to inform urban practitioners who lack high-quality biological information on local biodiversity.

Section 3: Determinants of Habitat Quality

Articulate the benefits of biodiversity in terms of public health, economic well-being and civic life. Formulate strategies for quantifying and communicating these benefits to government and public stakeholders.

• Size: We examine the importance of habitat size from theoretical and practical perspectives.
• Complexity: We explore how to recognize the many manifestations of habitat complexity, analyzing how complexity relates to vegetation management and the design and use of greenspaces.
• Diversity: We look at the importance of a city protecting a diversity of habitats, both for protecting more types of living things and for maintaining complex urban ecosystems. We focus on ecological stressors and the fragility of non-diverse landscapes.
• Connectivity: We examine the theoretical argument for landscape-scale habitat connectivity and explore case studies in which cities promote connectivity by protecting animal movement and building migration corridors.

Section 4: Valuation of Ecosystems

We explore strategies for quantifying the value of biodiversity and green spaces in terms of public health, economic well-being, and improvements to civic life. We examine case studies of green space valuation and develop a general framework for data-informed valuation.

Section 5: Data Strategy for Urban Biodiversity

We develop general concepts for using data in urban biodiversity strategy, focusing in depth on the Singapore Index on Cities’ Biodiversity. We explore indicator development, data research, data sharing and acquisition, data safety and governance, data interpretation, and communication of data insights.