Dynamics of Ecosystem Services from Linked Urban Forests and Streams: Towards Next-Generation Landscape Indicators

要全面核算城市地区森林产生生态系统服务的方式，就需要了解它们与水生系统的联系。城市森林碎片化，加上不断扩大的不透水表面，以多种方式影响溪流和水生栖息地，产生长期影响。为了应对这一挑战，我的探索基金研究计划将开发新的方法来综合监测城市环境中的陆地和水生系统。这项拟议的研究综合了我帮助开创的近20年来使用景观指标评估水生系统的方法。在这里，我将扩展到城乡梯度，并与紧密集成的团队一起利用新的开源数据。HQP通力合作，有助于解决--在某些情况下，跨越--多个跨学科目标。 目标1：创建城市系统生态系统服务的“下一代”景观指标，其中包括：(A)长期变化和(B)时间滞后。为了实现这一点，我们使用合作开发的地理空间信息来评估城市森林和溪流的历史动态。首先，我们使用跨越三十年的长期卫星图像来绘制绿地的潮起潮落。然后，我们使用这些相同的绿地地图来评估景观指标与温哥华城市和农村溪流水化学长期趋势之间的经验关系。 目标2：将空间异质性纳入景观指标。城市生态系统固有的空间异质性使其在地图绘制上具有挑战性。因此，我们在多个尺度上对卫星图像与地面验证信息(来自航空摄影和实地工作)进行评估和比较，以评估城市森林和湿地的空间变化特征。我们的目标是捕捉从绿色到蓝色再到灰色的整个“绿色基础设施”的异质性范围，包括森林、河岸地带、湿地和工程湿地。我们使用我们对城市生态系统中空间异质性的强化表示来更好地评估城市绿地，并构建城市河流状况的“下一代”景观指标。 目标3：推算和评估各大洲的指标。在确定了温哥华空间异质性的作用后，我们采用了我们的方法进行外推和扩展。为了实现这一目标，我们开发了通过社交媒体跟踪土地使用的新方法，使我们的遥感分析方法适用于印度和中国的快速城市化地点，然后在热带景观中沿着城乡梯度测试我们的关键发现。 在培训跨学科科学家方面，我的研究计划将为科学提供更好的方法来跟踪和理解景观变化，并改善关于森林和湿地在快速城市化景观中所起作用的证据基础。

A full accounting of the ways forests produce ecosystem services in urban areas requires understanding their links to aquatic systems. Fragmentation of urban forests, alongside expanding impervious surfaces, impacts streams and aquatic habitats in numerous ways, with long-lasting impacts. To address this challenge, my Discovery Grant research program will develop new ways to synthetically monitor both terrestrial and aquatic systems in urban settings. The proposed research synthesizes nearly two decades of approaches I helped pioneer using landscape indicators to assess aquatic systems. Here, I expand to urban-rural gradients and leverage new open source data working with a tightly-integrated team. Working together, HQP contribute to tackling - and in some cases span across - multiple transdisciplinary objectives. OBJECTIVE 1: Create “next generation” landscape indicators of ecosystem services in urban systems that incorporate: (a) long-term change and (b) temporal lags. To achieve this, we use collaboratively developed geospatial information to assess historical dynamics in urban forests and streams. First, we use long-term satellite imagery spanning three decades to map the ebb and flow of greenspace. Then, we use these same greenspace maps to evaluate empirical relationships between landscape indicators and long-term trends in water chemistry of urban and rural streams in Vancouver. OBJECTIVE 2: Integrate spatial heterogeneity into landscape indicators. The inherent spatial heterogeneity of urban ecosystems makes them challenging to map. Thus, we evaluate and compare satellite imagery at multiple scales with ground verification information (derived from aerial photography and field work) to assess the spatially variable features of urban forests and wetlands. Our aim is to capture the range of heterogeneity across the entire spectrum of “green-infrastructure” from green-to-blue-to-grey infrastructure, which includes forests, riparian zones, wetlands, and engineered wetlands. We use our strengthened representation of spatial heterogeneity in urban ecosystems to better evaluate urban greenspace and build “next-generation” landscape indicators of urban stream status. OBJECTIVE 3: Extrapolate and evaluate indicators across continents. Upon ascertaining the role of spatial heterogeneity in Vancouver, we adapt our methods for extrapolation and expansion. To achieve this, we develop novel ways to track land use with social media, adapt our remote sensing analysis methods to rapidly urbanizing locations in India and China, and then test our key findings along urban-rural gradients in tropical landscapes. In training inter-disciplinary scientists, my research program will provide science with better ways to track and understand landscape change and improve the evidence base regarding the role of forests and wetlands in rapidly urbanizing landscapes.