Equally green? Understanding the distribution of urban green infrastructure across student demographics in four public school districts in North Carolina,USA

Green infrastructure (GI) provides a suite of ecosystem services that are widely recognized as critical to health, well-being, and sustainability on an urbanizing planet. However, the distribution of GI across urban landscapes is frequently uneven, resulting in unequal delivery of these services to low-income residents or those belonging to underserved racial/ethnic identities. While GI distribution has been identified as unequal across municipalities, we investigated whether this was true in public schoolyards within and among urban school districts. We examined schoolyards in four metropolitan areas of diverse socio-economic and demographic compositions in North Carolina, USA to determine if they provided equal exposure to GI, then compared whether this was true of the broader urban landscape. We first classified the land cover of elementary schoolyards and their neighborhoods, then used bivariate and multivariate approaches to analyze the relationships between GI (i.e. tree canopy cover and total GI) and the socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity of the schools and surrounding neighborhoods, respectively. We found that the extent of tree canopy cover and total GI in schoolyards was unrelated to the socioeconomic status and the race/ethnicity of students across the four school districts. In contrast, neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status and larger populations of underserved race/ethnicity residents had less tree canopy cover and total GI. Although total GI was more evenly distributed in schoolyards, the extent of tree canopy cover and total GI in schoolyards was lower than that in the neighborhoods. This suggests opportunities for school districts to expand GI in schoolyards, leveraging their potential to increase ecosystem services to all children, from increased educational opportunities to improved mental, physical, and environmental well-being.     

Urban land use types contribute to grassland conservation: The example of Berlin

Urbanisation is an important driver of biodiversity loss, also contributing to habitat loss and fragmentation of grasslands at the urban-rural interface. While urban green spaces are known to include many grassland habitats, it is uncertain to what extent urban land use types harbour grasslands of special conservation interest and whether patch characteristics and connectivity of these differ from grasslands on agricultural land. By relating the city-wide biotope mapping to the land use mapping of Berlin, Germany, we assessed (1) to which specific urban land use types the major grassland biotope types belong, (2) differences in patch characteristics and connectivity, and (3) the conservation value of grassland patches at a typological level by means of their legal protection status. Grasslands cover 5% of Berlin's surface, and 43% of that area is assigned to legally protected grassland types. The majority of legally protected grassland (71%) lies on urban land opposed to 29% on agricultural land. Airports and historic parks, which only cover 2% of land in Berlin, contain one-third of all protected dry grasslands. Wet grassland is more confined to agricultural land. In airports and agricultural areas, grassland patches are larger but of a more complex shape than those in historic parks. In airports, grassland patches show greater connectivity as they are situated in grassland-dominated surroundings. Grassland in historic parks appears to be more vulnerable due to smaller patch sizes and higher fragmentation. The example of Berlin demonstrates that the urban green infrastructure can clearly contribute to grassland conservation and may thus partially compensate for the decline of traditional grasslands in cultural landscapes. It will be important to involve residents and landowners in urban grassland conservation and management because most grassland of special conservation interest (57%) was found outside of conservation areas.     

Knoxville’s urban wilderness: Moving toward sustainable multifunctional management

The Knoxville Urban Wilderness (KUW) in Eastern Tennessee is part of a larger global trend of acquiring vacant lands within urban landscapes for their natural habitat and recreation value. At 688 ha, the KUW is one of the largest urban wilderness areas in the United States, consisting of loosely-connected land parcels with multiple stakeholders including state, county, and city governments and private foundations. Here we use the KUW as a case study to address critical questions of management that arise for most urban wilderness projects globally: What should these areas be managed for, and how should they be managed? How can multiple stakeholders be efficiently organized to pool their resources most effectively. The KUW is currently used mainly for recreation and its potential for biodiversity conservation and education and ecosystem services is largely unutilized. As a way to promote and manage this unused potential, we began the first ecological inventory, compiling existing data and conducting biodiversity and invasive plant surveys with citizen scientists. We found that the KUW harbors a significant number of plant (250) and bird (193) species, with many other taxa also identified. We also found widespread infestation of invasive plants for which we provide management suggestions. A preliminary visitor survey shows that most visitors (about two-thirds) are from the immediate vicinity, mainly for walking (74.4%) or biking (19.9%). The vast majority (93.7%) of visitors do not want more vegetation management or removal and 98.3% of visitors would like to see the KUW expanded in area.     

Inequity in nature’s contributions to people in Ōtautahi/ Christchurch: A low-density post-earthquake city

Nature’s contributions to people (NCP) include the regulating, material, and non-material benefits of urban vegetation that improve well-being. It is increasingly important to plan cities that provide multiple types of NCP equitably to all residents of the city. However, due to historical legacies and planning policies, it is common for the most socially and economically vulnerable urban residents to suffer reduced access to the benefits of urban ecosystems. Previous studies of urban NCP have drawn attention to inequity in one or several types of NCP, but few have analysed a broad range. Here we analysed inequity in nine diverse forms of urban NCP across an index of economic and social vulnerability designed specifically to characterise vulnerability to environmental pressures. Furthermore, we used spatial analysis to map co-variance in vulnerability and a composite indicator of urban NCP, thus highlighting priority regions for future investments in green infrastructure. We applied this approach to the city of Christchurch/ Ōtautahi in Aotearoa/ New Zealand, which provides a valuable case study due to its multicultural population and recent history of widespread damage and regeneration following the 2011 earthquake. Overall, the distribution of urban NCP is inequitable to the disadvantage of more vulnerable residents. Residents of more vulnerable neighbourhoods experienced reduced provision of carbon stock, runoff retention, air quality enhancement, shade, educational green space, public outdoor space accessibility, private green space, and bird biodiversity contributions. Conversely, more vulnerable neighbourhoods had greater provision of erosion mitigation (although negligible in magnitude). The wide range of indicators used and assessed in response to vulnerability, coupled with an assessment of the type of vegetation cover (i.e. grass, tall trees) provides greater insights into how inequities in urban NCP can be addressed in future redevelopment.     

Barriers to the effective planning and management of residential encroachment within urban forest edges: A Southern Ontario,Canada case study

Studies document degradation and loss of publicly owned urban woodland area following adjacent residential development due to residential encroachment. Residential encroachment is the negative impacts of housing land uses within both rural and urban green infrastructure networks. Prevailing planning, design and management approaches in Southern Ontario municipalities in Canada indicate planning and management tools have been developed to remove and impede encroachment impacts; however, many are infrequently implemented. This lack of implementation contributes to a high prevalence and spatial area of encroachment within Southern Ontario municipal woodland edges with adjacent housing. Long interviews were conducted with the planners, landscape architects, woodland managers and bylaw enforcement staff of six Southern Ontario municipalities to determine the barriers to implementation of municipal encroachment tools. Results indicate key barriers to policy implementation that reflect a lack of awareness of, and priority placed on addressing, residential encroachment impacts, and impacts following the point of development in general. Barriers include: (1) insufficient community and municipal access to information regarding residential encroachment and their significance relative to other development impacts; (2) lack of clarity of goals by municipalities and between departments; (3) insufficient municipal leadership and commitment to limiting encroachment; (4) lack of sufficient means within municipal departments to prevent and address encroachment; and (5) ineffectual dynamics of enforcement. Recommendations for overcoming barriers to the development and implementation of effective approaches for addressing encroachment are provided.