Does demolition improve biodiversity? Linking urban green space and socioeconomic characteristics to avian richness in a shrinking city

Walker, Cassondra; Flynn, K. Colton; Ovando-Montejo, Gustavo A.; Ellis, Emily A.; Frazier, Amy E.

doi:10.1007/s11252-017-0671-4

Cited by 13 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…This is not related only to the plant biodiversity, but also to the diversity of animals. For example, Walker et al (2017) suggest that demolition activities, which are connected with the introduction of green spaces in cities do not increase avian species richness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of the differences in the composition of ruderal flora between conventional tram tracks and managed green tram tracks in the urban ecosystem of the city of Bratislava

et al. 2022

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Green infrastructure (GI) brings many benefits to urban ecosystems. Green tram tracks can be considered to be a part of GI. The presented study is focused on the comparison of the species’ frequency and composition between conventional tram tracks and green tram tracks in Bratislava, Slovakia, Central Europe. This comparison also provides an insight into the changes of the flora of tram tracks over time, as we compare the results of the older research with recent research on green tram tracks. The results revealed significant differences in the composition of flora between conventional tram tracks and green tram tracks. In particular, the total number of species has decreased over time, as green tram tracks host fewer spontaneously growing taxa than conventional ones. The frequency of occurrence of archaeophytes and neophytes has decreased on the strict rail yard while on the tracksides it has increased. Green tram tracks deliver positive features to ecosystems, but may also have negative aspects because they present a pool of alien, potentially invasive plants.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of the differences in the composition of ruderal flora between conventional tram tracks and managed green tram tracks in the urban ecosystem of the city of Bratislava

et al. 2022

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“…However, they do not necessarily have more large-sized green areas (>25 ha) than growing cities (Kabisch & Haase, 2013). Moreover, despite being "green," vacant spaces do not necessarily provide ecosystem services, as this depends on management regimes (Gardiner et al, 2014;Walker et al, 2017). From a resident's perspective, while a greener urban environment could present benefits, there may also be concerns about dangers-actual or perceived-from unmanaged spaces (Gulachenski et al, 2016;Nassauer & Raskin, 2014).…”

Section: Scope Of the Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Multifunctional Green Infrastructure in Shrinking Cities: How Does Urban Shrinkage Affect Green Space Planning?

Lewis

Sousa

Pinho

2022

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Despite global urbanization, not all cities have increasing populations. While not homogenous, shrinking cities arguably have different opportunities and challenges for green space than growing cities. This article reports a structured content analysis to investigate how urban green space planning evolved in two case study cities: Buffalo (New York, US) and Porto (Portugal). These cities both underwent shrinkage and suburbanization but with very different green space planning histories. The concept of green infrastructure is used as a lens to analyze green space planning change, specifically focused on multifunctionality. The aim of investigating how objectives and priorities for planning green spaces change during a period of urban shrinkage, and particularly what functions these cities have assigned to green space, showed that, over time, green spaces were expected to produce more ecological functions in both cities, and, particularly in Buffalo, contribute to the economic and demographic outcomes of the city. Overall trends in green space planning appear to have played a role but we find shrinking cities may leverage green space to meet unique needs. These findings contribute to the literature by addressing how shrinkage affects not only vacant areas but also overall green space planning, as well as suggesting that general green space planning studies should consider demographic change as a relevant context factor.

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“…connectivity and to avoid areas where active urban demolition projects have taken place [35]. Since green space coverage is greatest in wealthier areas of Buffalo, the biases in sample selection create a similar set of outcomes, i.e., that bird communities are under sampled in lower income portions of the city.…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

“…35. Median household income was positively related to the total number of checklists (β = 0.071, SE = 0.022, CI = 0.028, 0.114, Fig 2).…”

mentioning

confidence: 91%

Evaluating the use of semi-structured crowdsourced data to quantify inequitable access to urban biodiversity: A case study with eBird

Grade

Chan²,

Gajbhiye³

et al. 2022

PLoS ONE

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Credibly estimating social-ecological relationships requires data with broad coverage and fine geographic resolutions that are not typically available from standard ecological surveys. Open and unstructured data from crowdsourced platforms offer an opportunity for collecting large quantities of user-submitted ecological data. However, the representativeness of the areas sampled by these data portals is not well known. We investigate how data availability in eBird, one of the largest and most popular crowdsourced science platforms, correlates with race and income of census tracts in two cities: Boston, MA and Phoenix, AZ. We find that checklist submissions vary greatly across census tracts, with similar patterns within both metropolitan regions. In particular, census tracts with high income and high proportions of white residents are most likely to be represented in the data in both cities, which indicates selection bias in eBird coverage. Our results illustrate the non-representativeness of eBird data, and they also raise deeper questions about the validity of statistical inferences regarding disparities that can be drawn from such datasets. We discuss these challenges and illustrate how sample selection problems in unstructured or semi-structured crowdsourced data can lead to spurious conclusions regarding the relationships between race, income, and access to urban bird biodiversity. While crowdsourced data are indispensable and complementary to more traditional approaches for collecting ecological data, we conclude that unstructured or semi-structured data may not be well-suited for all lines of inquiry, particularly those requiring consistent data coverage, and should thus be handled with appropriate care.

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Does demolition improve biodiversity? Linking urban green space and socioeconomic characteristics to avian richness in a shrinking city

Cited by 13 publications

References 81 publications

Comparison of the differences in the composition of ruderal flora between conventional tram tracks and managed green tram tracks in the urban ecosystem of the city of Bratislava

Comparison of the differences in the composition of ruderal flora between conventional tram tracks and managed green tram tracks in the urban ecosystem of the city of Bratislava

Multifunctional Green Infrastructure in Shrinking Cities: How Does Urban Shrinkage Affect Green Space Planning?

Evaluating the use of semi-structured crowdsourced data to quantify inequitable access to urban biodiversity: A case study with eBird

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