cE3c Advanced Course – Urban Ecology: the green within the city

We highlight the Advanced Course – Urban Ecology: the green within the city with application deadline until January 15, 2021. This course will be ONLINE.

More details on this course (including program, fees and procedures for application) can be found here.

&nbsp

How green spaces can help to cool down cities

Using high spatial resolution information, we aimed at understanding how green spaces, even with small dimensions, can help to cool down their surroundings, mitigating the urban heat island effect. The land-cover type and urban morphology proved to strongly influence the cooling island effect of these spaces, with trees having a stronger effect than grasses.

More info

How trees can help us deal with air pollution in cities

Since air pollution impacts on the health and well-being of urban dwellers, we used lichen functional diversity to measure both air quality within parks and also the background air pollution in Lisbon. Using the same indicators, we suggested that the highest gains in air quality can come from focusing on the smallest and low-density vegetation parks: increasing the area and vegetation density in those parks will provide the highest benefits.

More info

Evaluating citizens needs for cities green areas

Using a public participatory mapping in Lisbon, citizens were called to map their choices, allowing us to integrate people’s preferences and local knowledge regarding the uses of greens spaces. Using this we could communicate with local authorities the movements of peoples searching for parks, showing that people living in areas with less parks are more willing to travel searching for green areas. We also show each park saturation, which occurs mainly in the historical districts of the city.

More info

Supporting stakeholders on the use of urban ecosystems to comply with SDGs

Stakeholders support was done by joining in a think piece, written for the United Nations Environmental Programme, supporting the restoration of cities ecosystems to achieve the SDG 11. Support to stakeholders is also given to municipalities, by collaborating with municipalities in the restoration of urban ecosystems, such as the sand dunes in Almada, that aim at protecting cities from coastal storms.

More info

European Local Climate Change Adaptation state of the art

Within the ClimAdaPT.Local project, we supported 26 Portuguese Municipalities in the development of their Climate Change Adaptation Strategies. This article updated the European society, focusing on scientists and policy and decision makers, about the situation on climate change adaptation strategies, producing a large database. It also triggered reflections about policy and funding schemes to design and implement climate actions.

More info

Quantifying the benefits humans obtain from nature in cities

Using multiple metrics of ecosystem services, we evaluated an urban park (Parque da Paz, Almada, Portugal) with very high spatial resolution, mapping which type of habitats provide which types of ecosystem services. We also quantify the trade-offs that occur among ecosystem services, because we cannot obtain the maximum level of all services using a single habitat.

More info

The benefits we obtain from urban ecosystem depend on vegetation structure and management

Sampling lichens with very high spatial resolution within a park (Parque da Paz, Almada, Portugal) we showed the importance of vegetation structure and management for the provision for two important support & regulation ecosystem services, air quality and microclimate regulation. The areas with more complex vegetation, such as more diverse trees, more shrubs and climbers, and lower management intensity, provided the most of these services.

More info

Air pollution evaluation in tropical cities

By looking at lichens species that grow in city trees, we provided a view of the air quality in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul region. In seven medium-size cities of this tropical region the main driver of air quality was found to be associated to the amount of urban areas around the parks.

More info