Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL

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Nature in Urban Spaces

Urban green spaces such as gardens, parks and forests contribute to the quality of life and well-being of a city's inhabitants. We study various aspects of the relationship between man and nature in urban areas and develop decision-making tools for practical application.

Vielfältig gestalteter Freiraum im Quartier Friesenberg in der Stadt Zürich. Bild: Martin Obrist
Diversely designed open space in the Friesenberg district in the city of Zurich. Image: Martin Obrist

A large proportion of the population now lives in cities and metropolitan areas. For many people, time spent in urban green spaces is often the only contact they have with nature in everyday life. Urban green spaces demonstrably encourage recreation and are, therefore, particularly important for well-being and quality of life in the city.

This leads to the following questions: What demands do people place on urban green spaces? How can open spaces be designed to be useful to people and meet their needs? Is this compatible with the maintenance and support of biodiversity in green spaces? How does the way in which a green space is managed affect biological diversity and people's quality of life?

We explore the relationship between people, their activities and urban green spaces. This involves close collaboration between social scientists, ecologists and practitioners. One focus is on urban gardens. These are valuable to both people and nature. They provide healthy vegetables, are places of meeting and recreation, and offer important habitats for plants and animals.  

Publications

Casanelles‐Abella J., Fontana S., Fournier B., Frey D., Moretti M. (2023) Low resource availability drives feeding niche partitioning between wild bees and honeybees in a European city. Ecol. Appl. 33(1), e2727 (17 pp.). https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2727Institutional Repository DORA

Flaminio S., Cavin J.S., Moretti M. (2023) Is ecology anti-urban? Urban ideas and imaginaries across one hundred years of ecological publications. Environ. Plan. E. 6(2), 923-951. https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486221115949 Institutional Repository DORA

Granjou C., Salomon Cavin J., Boisvert V., Chalmandrier M., Flaminio S., Kull C., Moretti M. (2023) Researching cities, transforming ecology an investigation into urban ecology agendas. Nat. Cult. 18(2), 148-174. https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2023.180202 Institutional Repository DORA

Hahs A.K., Fournier B., Aronson M.F.J., Nilon C.H., Herrera-Montes A., Salisbury A.B., … Moretti M. (2023) Urbanisation generates multiple trait syndromes for terrestrial animal taxa worldwide. Nat. Commun. 14(1), 4751 (14 pp.). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39746-1Institutional Repository DORA

Alós Ortí M., Casanelles-Abella J., Chiron F., Deguines N., Hallikma T., Jaksi P., … Laanisto L. (2022) Negative relationship between woody species density and size of urban green spaces in seven European cities. Urban For. Urban Green. 74, 127650 (9 pp.). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2022.127650Institutional Repository DORA

Casanelles-Abella J., Moretti M. (2022) Challenging the sustainability of urban beekeeping using evidence from Swiss cities. npj Urban Sustain. 2, 3 (5 pp.). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-021-00046-6Institutional Repository DORA

Casanelles‐Abella J., Müller S., Keller A., Aleixo C., Alós Orti M., Chiron F., … Moretti M. (2022) How wild bees find a way in European cities: Pollen metabarcoding unravels multiple feeding strategies and their effects on distribution patterns in four wild bee species. J. Appl. Ecol. 59(2), 457-470. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14063 Institutional Repository DORA

Frey D., Moretti M. (2019) A comprehensive dataset on cultivated and spontaneously growing vascular plants in urban gardens. Data Brief. 25, 103982 (26 pp.). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2019.103982Institutional Repository DORA

Home R., Lewis O., Bauer N., Fliessbach A., Frey D., Lichtsteiner S., … Stolze M. (2019) Effects of garden management practices, by different types of gardeners, on human wellbeing and ecological and soil sustainability in Swiss cities. Urban Ecosyst. 22(1), 189-199. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-018-0806-2 Institutional Repository DORA

Bauer N. (2016) Ökologisch wertvolle Stadtnatur – bedroht, geduldet, akzeptiert oder gewünscht? Ergebnisse der Projekte BiodiverCity und Better Gardens. Natur & Garten. (2), 56-58. Institutional Repository DORA

Sattler T. (2011) BiodiverCity - Fledermausfauna in unseren Städten. Fledermaus-Anz. (91), 4-5. Institutional Repository DORA

Projects

Plants and People in Urban Green Space (PAPPUS)

The PAPPUS project aims to understand how decision makers influence the choice of plant assemblages and their management in different types of urban green spaces, and how their decisions in turn influence ecological and human benefits in a context of climate change and urban intensification.

Integrating biodiversity standards into municipal land-use regulations

Land use is one of the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss. Spatial planning at the municipal level is therefore key to promoting biodiversity in settlement areas and regenerating ecosystems. As part of this project, we shed light on the process of land use planning revision and use case studies to investigate whether and how municipalities integrate biodiversity-friendly standards into building and zoning regulations.

GreenCityNet

We investigate the interactions between ecological and social networks of urban green areas and derive a fully operationalized social-ecological network based on individual, empirically validated social and ecological networks as a basis to evaluate transformation pathways related to biodiversity.x

Opportunities for biodiversity in sustainable cities

Urbanisation is a main driver of biodiversity and ecological change, but how the process affects biodiversity is not well understood. This project on urban ecology monitors the impact of urbanisation and establishes an Urban Living Lab (ULL) for sustainable city development.

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