The Bird Dawn Chorus Strength of an Urban Soundscape and Its Potential to Assess Urban Green Spaces

Abstract

Green areas in urban environments, such as urban parks and urban gardens, are known to provide benefits called “ecosystem services” to the urban community. Green recreational spaces offer opportunities for physical activity, leading to improved physical and mental health of residents. For this reason, the presence and the quality of such areas has to be considered and promoted in sustainable urban planning, especially in the context of contributing to the achievement sustainable cities. As the biodiversity of an area is an indication of its quality, soundecological indicators have been used to assess the biodiversity in natural areas. Due to the presence of anthropogenic sounds in urban areas, the use of these indicators to determine the quality of urban areas can be questioned. However, the vocal activity of collectively singing birds during the dawn chorus contributes to the urban soundscape, and results in a prominent biophonic component of this soundscape, as can be clearly seen in its yearly pattern. The use of soundecological indicators through the estimation of the Bird Dawn Chorus Strength has the potential to provide a means of assessing the quality of urban green spaces. To demonstrate this potential, a pilot study is presented here on the annual temporal scale of the soundscape of a typical urban green space.