The Living Pavilion updates

The initial program for The Living Pavilion (1-17 May) has now been released! Amongst 40,000 plants endemic to the Kulin Nation, The Living Pavilion’s temporary event space and living lab will host a range of thought-provoking and inspiring speakers, research activities, performances, workshops and more.

CAUL Hub is co-producing this event as a key research and knowledge brokering activity – and as such will be conducting research in a range of topics, such as urban greening, biodiversity place making and social science; and presenting our research through the CAULHub Talk series.

The space will be open to all members of the public - to wander through and experience the dynamic landscape and enjoy the free programmed events and performances. You can download the full program here and register for events here. For more news and updates from The Living Pavilion team, check out the most recent newsletter.

Image: The Living Pavilion site design, featuring a stencil of Bouverie Creek designed by graphic designer Dixon Patten.

Ecological Connectivity in The City of Melbourne

The CAUL Hub has collaborated with the City of Melbourne to measure ecological connectivity across the municipality. Using GIS and existing data, we have developed a framework to generate a connectivity index.

The tool can be applied to scenarios that either remove or add habitat (such as road development or adding habitat corridors) by calculating consequent connectivity for a series of animal groups, including amongst others, amphibians, insect pollinators and woodland birds.

If applied more broadly, this framework enables benchmarking with other cities locally and around the world.

You can learn more about the framework in this two-page brochure or read the full research report here.

Image: Red-rumped parrot.
Credit: Rodger Scott

Nature-based solutions workshop

The CAUL Hub co-hosted a workshop with international collaborator NATURVATION at RMIT University. The workshop was led by Harriet Bulkeley, Leader of the NATURVATION program, as well as Judy Bush and Cathy Oke from the CAUL Hub. It provided the opportunity for over 30 Australian researchers, practitioners and policy makers to come together to discuss nature-based solutions in local urban development, and how these projects could contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

During the workshop, participants heard about local opportunities from CAUL Hub researchers Sarah Bekessy and Judy Bush, and industry partner Greening the Pipeline. They also contributed to a review of the EU-funded NATURVATION project’s Urban Nature Index and Business Model tools. 

Image: Judy Bush presenting at the workshop. Credit: @naturvation via twitter

Air quality monitoring at Liverpool Girls' High School

Building upon earlier air quality research in Liverpool, CAUL Hub has helped establish an air quality monitoring site at Liverpool Girls High School, in Sydney’s south-west. The site was installed in late February, and is a collaboration between CAUL Hub, Australia’s Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH).

The site will help measure air quality in the area and also provide the opportunity for the high school students to design and run their own air quality citizen science projects in their community. 

 

Image: Part of the Randwick air quality team. L-R: Kate Sneesby, Lachlan Spicer, Clare Murphy, Alex Kuhar, Jenny Xu and Imogen Wadlow

Media

One million trees 

The Greening the West alliance have now planted one million trees in Melbourne's west - helping to transform the landscape and improve liveability for residents and biodiversity.  In part due to the lower tree canopy in the area, some parts of Melbourne’s west are hotter and more exposed, with the urban heat island effect combining with heatwaves to create dangerous conditions for people’s health.

In this article for Pursuit, co-author Judy Bush says that the Greening the West initiative shows the massive potential for change at scale - and reminds us there are are a million more ways we can get people to connect with nature in their cities. Judy also spoke about this topic on a recent radio segment with ABC. 

 

Image: Trees in Berlin. Credit: Judy Bush

Media

The small patch of bush over your back fence might by key to a species' survival 

Sarah Bekessy co-wrote this article in The Conversation, based off the findings of a newly published global study by CAUL Hub and Threatened Species Recovery Hub researchers. This study analysed the relationship between conservation value of vegetation patches and their size and isolation in landscapes across Europe, Australia, North America and Africa. Their findings showed that small and isolated patches of habitat, often removed in urban areas to make way for housing developments, freeway extensions and power lines, are critical to the long-term survival of many rare and endangered species.

Read the full study here.

Image credit: Georgia Garrard

Media

More trees are the answer to cool down our cities 

After the extreme heat of our most recent Summer, Marco Amati and co-author Lauren Rickards propose that more trees in our cities could help combat extreme heat.

According to the authors, designing new housing that leaves trees in the ground and the existing ecosystem in place, augmented with new strategically placed plantings, will help future proof new development sites against extreme heat by reducing the amount of heat the site itself produces. 

Image: Trees in Lincoln Square. Credit: CAUL Hub

Media

Living ‘liveable’: this is what residents have to say about life on the urban fringe

Recent studies show that Melbourne and Sydney’s fast-growing outer suburbs lag behind other parts of the cities in terms of liveability. 'Living Liveable' is a short documentary produced by RMIT and funded by its Urban Futures Enabling Platform, showcasing the lived experiences of residents in Melbourne’s outer suburbs. The documentary producers included researchers involved in the CAUL Hub (Billie Giles-Corti, Cecily Maller and Leila Farahani), and follows publication of the CAUL Hub-funded Creating Liveable Cities in Australia Report.