How do Nature-based Solutions influence urban ecosystem integrity? Monitoring and assessing urban ecosystem services delivery on a university campus and across a medium-sized tropical city

• Grant number: 24/23888-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2025
• End date: December 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology - Ecosystems Ecology
• Principal Investigator: João Carlos de Castro Pena
• Grantee: Tomás Gabriel Canelada Jovchelevich
• Host Institution: Centro de Estudos Ambientais (CEA). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Rio Claro. Rio Claro , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 23/17971-0 - Ecological approaches to assess patterns of biodiversity and ecosystem services delivery in urban landscapes, AP.JP

Abstract

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are defined as "actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits". In a complex socioecological system such as urban landscapes, NbS comprises some of the most effective solutions to allow the expansion, management, and planning of cities to be more sustainable. They can be implemented at different scales and contexts (whole neighborhoods or in a green space), which will determine their influences on the urban ecosystem. In Rio Claro (São Paulo, Brazil), the Araucaria - an initiative from a group of students and researchers from Unesp - is a project that aims at reaching some of the 17 SDG by 2030 by implementing NbS on a university campus. Due to its innovation, Araucaria won first place in the Challenge Campus 2030 that occurred in 2021. After one year of project implementation, several undergraduate students are currently engaged in the application of the Araucaria-related NbS projects, and dozens of trees were already planted over the last months across the Unesp campus in Rio Claro. The goal of this study is to assess the influences of the implementation of Nature-based Solutions on the delivery of urban ecosystem services (UES) and to compare the data collected on a university campus with information from a tropical urban settlement that suffers from a poorly managed green infrastructure. Analyses will also consider assessing the influences of landscape characteristics and local environmental conditions of this urban landscape on the UES delivery. We will define 15 sites across the university campus and a 1km² grid across the urban perimeter of Rio Claro and select 15 sites in the intersections of the grid to collect data on UES delivery across the urban landscape. This approach guarantees that sites in different urban contexts (such as streets and green spaces), will be selected. Each of the 30 sites will have 5 replicates distant 10m from each other (50m transect) to measure nutrient cycling, water infiltration, temperature, moisture, suspended particulate matter, and carbon stock. We will also assess people's perception of how green each site is as a measure of human wellbeing. All these 30 sites will be visited three times during the spring-summer season (between September and November). We will compare the data collected in sites across the university. We will also assess how local (e.g. temperature and moisture) and landscape characteristics (e.g. amount of green cover) influence UES described by data on nutrient cycling, water infiltration, carbon stock, and human wellbeing. We expect that UES delivery in Unesp to be more efficient when compared with delivery across the urban perimeter of Rio Claro, especially due to the lower green cover in the city. Furthermore, landscape characteristics and local environmental conditions would also determine microclimate conditions and UES delivery, being better/higher in regions with higher proportions of green cover. We also expect that human wellbeing to be higher in sites across the university campus, highlighting its importance as a green space for the Rio Claro human population.