Global and EU policies highlight the importance of biodiversity-inclusive urban planning, aimed at mitigating adverse impacts and promoting native biodiversity, ecological connectivity, integrity, and the human connection to nature. Private urban green spaces (PrUGSs), such as residential yrads and gardens, constitute a pivotal but overlooked element of urban green infrastructure. They can support biodiversity and human-nature interconnectedness. The project BioStep aims to explore the role of PrUGSs in maintaining biodiversity and deep human-nature connections in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The project BioStep focuses on PrUGSs that are in active use and attached to a building / buildings, and therefore excludes abandoned plots, brownfields and ruderals, despite they can be important habitats for several species.
The project employs an interdisciplinary approach with mixed-method research design. The project conducts spatial analyses of PrUGSs, multi-taxa field inventories, and surveys and interviews with residents. The project provides a comprehensive understanding about biodiversity in different PrUGSs, and human-nature connections in the urban landscape. Our main hypothesis is that PrUGSs are an imperative part of urban green infrastructure, contributing to biodiversity, the survival of species, and fostering human-nature interconnectedness.
More specifically, the BioStep project will address the following three main research questions:
- Do different PrUGSs induce biodiversity, connectivity, and human-nature interconnectedness in neighbourhoods with different socio-economic status?
- What is the role of residential PrUGSs in supporting biodiversity, and how does it differ from other UGIs and land use types, considering four taxonomic groups: birds, butterflies, hymenopterans, and vascular plants?
- What kind of human-nature interconnectedness do residential PrUGSs support and how are these manifested among residents living in areas with different housing types and socio-economic status, in terms of people’s knowledge and appreciation of biodiversity?
The project is expected to yield the following research results and scientific impact with the potential for breakthroughs:
- Generating an integrative, cross-scale approach for monitoring changes in UGIs to better capture the biodiversity values of small-scale and private green spaces for biodiversity assessment. The project will offer novel scientific information on the role of PrUGSs for spatial connectivity and environmental justice.
- Developing methods for collaborative and feasible biodiversity monitoring in small-scale private green spaces using smart, nested sampling and integrated survey methods. To the best of our knowledge, this kind of integrated data collection and analyses are still largely absent from urban biodiversity studies. The project will provide scientific evidence on the biodiversity values of PrUGSs, and their root causes, as a baseline to be considered for future detailed urban planning.
- Producing new knowledge on the connection between biodiversity and people living in different housing types and socio-economic areas, and how this relationship relates to perceived well-being and stewardship towards nature.
Open yard survey for residents of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area
The survey provides valuable information about residents’ relationship with the yards and gardens. We are interested in what the yards are like, what residents do in their yards and gardens, how they maintain them, and what kinds of nature observations are made there. In addition, we will examine how residents connect with the nature in their yards and how neighborhood yards influence the experience of the living environment.
