Projects
Photo: Farmers on 57th
How can we design nature-based solutions that address climate challenges and improve social equity in urban neighborhoods?
Cities worldwide are increasingly turning to nature-based solutions (NBS) to address extreme weather and sustainability challenges. While promising, recent history demonstrates that NBS can also lead to issues like green gentrification. Our research highlights how urban greening efforts can exacerbate inequities when driven by private markets. To avoid these pitfalls, it's crucial to prioritize community needs in climate adaptation strategies. Through this Partnership Development Grant, we are collaborating with Vancouver communities to explore how climate vulnerability varies within the same city. Our project unites multiple researchers and partners from various sectors to co-create tailored, systems-level solutions that integrate NBS into community-driven climate adaptation efforts.
How can cities create green spaces that reflect and respect the diverse cultural values of all communities?
Cities are relying on urban green (and blue) spaces to enhance climate resilience and livability. Although these are essential interventions, they are often informed by dominant values and practices—like the ecosystem services framework—that emphasize extractive relationships with the natural world. What's more, they often overlook the role that grassroots and local stewards play in tending to and improving green spaces in the city as well as the multiple worldviews that guide this care work. Adopting a highly collaborative and multidisciplinary methodology, this project seeks to increase recognition for the myriad ways in which urban greening and stewardship takes place in cities, the diversity of actors involved, and the range of values enacted through this work. Working in Vancouver, CA, New York, US, Medellín, CO, and Temuco, CL, we center co-creation and environmental justice in our approach, placing relationship building and counter-hegemonic thinking at the core of our research practice.
How can we manage urban forests in a way that benefits all residents without causing displacement or exclusion?
Cities are showing an increased appreciation for the myriad ecological and social benefits that urban forests provide. However, the distribution and experience of these benefits among urban residents are often unequal. Attempts to increase urban forest access—such as urban forest renewal projects, public parks, or community gardens—have been linked to the displacement of economically marginalized residents. This phenomenon, known as green gentrification, occurs when improvements to urban green spaces trigger an influx of wealth, raising the cost of living and forcing vulnerable residents to relocate. Additionally, changes to green spaces without local guidance can create a sense of exclusion among residents.
How can we better understand and value the diversity of urban natural assets using a data-driven approach?
Canadian municipalities are facing the dual challenges of declining infrastructure quality and threatened ecosystems. UBC and Rogers Canada collaborated for three years to make substantive contributions to sustainability and natural asset management. The goal of this project was to understand and value the diversity of natural assets on campus and in Vancouver through a data-driven approach, by identifying ways to monitor both the social and ecological factors that influence this system and explore use cases in practice.