Urban biodiversity and sustainable development

Abstract

The development process often fails to address adequately the needs of resident wildlife populations. This tends to destroy valuable habitat and results in the death or displacement of resident species. The habitat lost is often replaced, post-development, with landscaped areas that are less suitable for supporting local biodiversity. This paper uses Birmingham Eastside, UK, as a case study to highlight the problems associated with urban biodiversity and development providing ecologically informed principles for sustainable development. A biodiversity audit of the area is used to demonstrate the ecological function of different open-space types showing that highly designed and heavily managed open spaces are less effective than derelict land for enhancing biodiversity. Achieving ecologically successful sustainable development requires strategic management of land at the area scale using habitat replication techniques to allow continuity of habitat during the development process. Management practices that allow natural processes, such as succession, to operate can be used to maximise biodiversity effectively. Moreover, the built environment can be engineered to accommodate habitat structures thus avoiding valuable land-take at ground level, although further work is required to refine the efficacy of existing techniques and to develop new ways in which habitat can be incorporated into built spaces.