Urban Biodiversity
From Research to Practice
Routledge Studies in Urban Ecology Series

Urban biodiversity is an increasingly popular topic among researchers. Worldwide, thousands of research projects are unravelling how urbanisation impacts the biodiversity of cities and towns, as well as its benefits for people and the environment through ecosystem services. Exciting scientific discoveries are made on a daily basis. However, researchers often lack time and opportunity to communicate these findings to the community and those in charge of managing, planning and designing for urban biodiversity. On the other hand, urban practitioners frequently ask researchers for more comprehensible information and actionable tools to guide their actions.

This book is designed to fill this cultural and communicative gap by discussing a selection of topics related to urban biodiversity, as well as its benefits for people and the urban environment. It provides an interdisciplinary overview of scientifically grounded knowledge vital for current and future practitioners in charge of urban biodiversity management, its conservation and integration into urban planning. Topics covered include pests and invasive species, rewilding habitats, the contribution of a diverse urban agriculture to food production, implications for human well-being, and how to engage the public with urban conservation strategies.

For the first time, world-leading researchers from five continents convene to offer a global interdisciplinary perspective on urban biodiversity narrated with a simple but rigorous language. This book synthesizes research at a level suitable for both students and professionals working in nature conservation and urban planning and management.

1. Bringing Urban Biodiversity Research into Practice 2. Soil as a foundation to urban biodiversity 3. Urban biodiversity and ecosystem services 4. Planning for protection: Promoting pest suppressing urban landscapes through habitat management 5. Urban agriculture: an opportunity for biodiversity and food provision in urban landscapes 6. Urban biological invasions: when vertebrates come to town 7. Management of plant diversity in urban green spaces 8. Managing biodiversity through social values and preferences 9. Biodiversity and psychological wellbeing 10. Governance perspectives on urban biodiversity 11. Managing urban green spaces for biodiversity conservation: An African perspective 12. Urban green infrastructures and ecological networks for urban biodiversity conservation 13. Designing nature in cities to safeguard meaningful experiences of biodiversity in an urbanizing world 14. Biodiversity‐friendly designs in cities and towns: towards a global biodiversinesque style 15. Integrating urban biodiversity mapping, citizen science and technology

Alessandro Ossola is a Research Coordinator within the Centre for Smart Green Cities at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia and a former US National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine NRC Associate within the US Environmental Protection Agency in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.

Jari Niemelä is Professor of Urban Ecology and Director of the Helsinki Institue for Sustainability Science, Department of Environmental Sciences, at the University of Helsinki, Finland.