On
the 18th of July, the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol hosted a one day conference for
academics, landscape designers, industrial partners and policy makers to
discuss how to create sustainable urban landscapes for the future. The event
was organised to promote the exchange of ideas and to combine expertise from
all stages of the process to determine how to create spaces that would maximise
biodiversity and environmental benefits whilst remaining somewhere that people
love to use.
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| City Academy Meadow, Bristol |
A
common theme throughout the conference was whether green spaces in cities can
be designed to accommodate the needs of both local wildlife and people.
Professor Nigel Dunnett from the University of Sheffield was one of the
principle designers of the Olympic Park landscape, where he created a stunning
biodiverse pictorial meadow with a long flowering season. His presentation
highlighted the importance of creating a landscape that wildlife will benefit
from, but critically that people will use and love. Professor Dunnett argued
that we take more joy from seeing a beautiful expanse of flowers than a lawn
monoculture and that "beauty in biodiversity is about people in
ecology". Landscape architect Kym
Jones echoed this, describing landscapes that people don't want to use as
"socially unsustainable", no matter how many environmentally-friendly
boxes they tick.
Professor
Dunnett's urban meadows are controversial because he often uses non-native
plant species in his design to increase the flowering period. Professor Jane Memmott of the University of Bristol Urban Pollinators research group presented
data collected at nature reserves, farms and urban green spaces around Bristol
that suggest most pollinators don't really mind whether native or
non-indigenous plant species are used, as long as they produce a lot of
flowers. She reported that whilst pollinators are more numerous in nature
reserves than urban sites, the cities retain a high level of species diversity
that it is important to protect in the future. This called into question the
BREEAM system of measuring sustainability in new developments, which does not
usually allow non-native species to be incorporated into a design.
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| Professor Graham Stone |
The
debate about whether people would accept more biodiverse landscapes continued
by questioning public opinion. Many established parks are attached to
historical expectations of that place; typically well-manicured lawns and
pruned trees. The group agreed that it was time to try and change the public's perception to accept a little wilderness in
parks and gardens as a habitat for local wildlife. Urban meadows begin to look
neglected after flowering, however Professor Graham Stone of the University of
Edinburgh mentioned that it is important to let the plants produce their seeds
to provide birds with an important food source in the autumn. Bristol City
Council have been trialling annual meadows in central reservations around the
approaches to the city, and reported that they had not had any complaints from
local residents about plants looking untidy when dying back at the end of the
season. With sustainable landscaping becoming more popular in UK schools and
communities, it is hoped that the public perception towards ecologically
friendly designs have already begun to change.
Dr.
Sarah Webster presented DEFRA's hopes for sustainable urban developments. The
2010 Making Space for Nature report outlined new guidelines for reducing the
huge pressures on wildlife, which state that new landscapes should enhance the
UK's ecological network by being bigger, better and more connected to existing
habitats. DEFRA is currently trialling "biodiversity offsets", where
companies restore an equivalent area for every habitat that is unavoidably lost
during a development. It is currently undecided whether or not these offsets
will be mandatory if introduced, and it remains difficult to quantify the
importance of a habitat in order to produce a new site of equal value to the
environment. If this scheme goes ahead, careful planning could ensure that
urban landscapes become more connected and form ecological networks within
cities.
One
of the major difficulties facing the landscape industry is how to measure the
economic benefits of sustainability. Howard Wood presented his work with Lyon
Parks Department in France, an ambitious project that saved hundreds of
thousands of Euros over a year using ecologically-friendly design and
maintenance. His team made their own compost from green plant waste and horse
manure, killed weeds using hot water, used bio-control methods to remove pests,
planted annual meadows to reduce mowing and maintenance of lawns, and used wood
chippings as mulch to reduce weeds and improve soil water retention. The group
decided that one of the key aims for the future is to improve the baseline
knowledge of how much money different types of sustainable landscape cost to
create or maintain, and whether they will cost councils and developers less in
contrast to the traditional landscape designs.
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| Prof Nigel Dunnett |
The
day ended with a request from the landscape industry partners for academics to
make new sustainability research more easily accessible and understandable. Kym
Jones mentioned that sustainability is now an integral part of landscape
design, but landscape architects need to have the facts about its importance
and value to be able to sell it to their clients. The overwhelming feeling was
that green lawns alone are not enough; urban meadows promote biodiversity
whilst producing beautiful displays of colour for people to enjoy. Professor
Dunnett summed the day up best for me when he said, "we need to mix
aesthetics and beauty with the science". We are building places for people
and local wildlife, and innovative new approaches should be used to allow
mutual benefit between us and the natural world.
This blog is written by Sarah Jose, Biological Sciences, University of Bristol
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| Sarah Jose |