Lessons from Landscape Architecture: Biodiversity Metrics

Registration Information:

To register for this course - please reserve your seat for the "Regenerative Ecosystems Summit" located in the Greenbuild agenda.

Registering for the session holds your seat in the class until 5 minutes prior to the scheduled start time. At that time your seat in the session can no longer be guaranteed.

If a workshop or session is full, you will not be able to add it to your agenda; however, if you have the appropriate pass you will be able to enter the session on a first-come first-served basis 5 minutes prior to the scheduled start of the event so long as capacity has not been reached

Greenbuild staff at the entrance of the session have the ability to stop permitting entrance to the session when the room hits the set capacity.

Description:

The concept of landscape performance, though generally slower to gain traction than building performance, has grown exponentially within the landscape architecture discipline in recent years. Landscape architects and other designers of outdoor environments at all scales are more frequently evaluating and communicating the environmental, social, and economic impacts of their work for many reasons, including the pursuit of certification systems like SITES v2 and more generally "making the case" for the value of landscape solutions and exemplary design. However, new challenges have arisen in terms of how biodiversity is evaluated for built landscapes, especially urban landscapes, because of the rising recognition of the critical need to rapidly conserve and restore biodiversity as well as new policy and general interest around Nature-Based Solutions. This presentation provides a glimpse into the ways in which designers are not only designing for biodiversity, but more importantly, how they are measuring the impacts of their projects. The current state of biodiversity metrics is reviewed, starting with basic methods using tools like iNaturalist and citizen science to measure pollinator and bird biodiversity all the way up to more robust science-driven methodologies. The presentation will also explore the new UK Biodiversity Metric 4.0 - what it is, what the requirements are, and how it would affect designers' and clients' ability to measure and design for biodiversity if something similar came into effect outside of the UK. This session is intended to serve as an overview for those interested in how a non-expert (designer, client, or citizen) can consider and implement biodiversity metrics - including when and how to call in an expert.