Ecology

Goal:

Trees, landscapes and other natural assets provide vital ecosystem services to help UBC’s neighbourhoods adapt to a changing climate. Anchored by UBC’s Campus Vision 2050 commitment to understand and incorporate Musqueam values into planning, climate adaptive planting practices support a network of resilient, connected green public spaces, courtyards, and corridors integrated with neighbourhood buildings. Neighbourhood urban ecosystems are well designed to provide welcoming and restorative places for the community to come together and build connections.

Targets

  • Create quantifiable targets related to ecology, to support mitigation and adaptation.
    • Supported through work over the next one to two years, including the Integrated Rainwater Management Plan, emerging Biodiversity Strategy, and amended and future Neighbourhood Plans.
    • Targets will contribute to the overall campus target set in the draft updated Land Use Plan that commits to campus-wide net gain in tree canopy cover by 2050, compared to the current coverage of 36%

Ecology

Highlights of Progress to Date

  • Musqueam and UBC co-developed an emerging framework to enhance Musqueam values on campus, which includes the following strategies:
    • Planting of this Place: Increase native, ethnobotanical and informal planting;
    • Reveal & Respect Water: Identify lost streams and reveal rainwater systems; and
    • Indigenous Ways of Knowing: Create learning landscapes that highlight traditional and experiential knowledge.
  • REAP includes biodiversity requirements, including mandatory bird friendly building design, light pollution reduction, and climate resilient plantings.
  • Research partnerships have supported development of existing policy development for ecology and biodiversity, facilitated by the SEEDS program.
  • The UNA has five community gardens where residents can grow their own food and flowers, connecting with the UNA community and the natural world. The UNA has a garden partnership with SEEDS and other UBC academic research projects.
  • The UNA transitioned leaf blowers for public landscaping from April to September to electric in early 2023.

Action Highlights

🟩 high impact mitigation   🟦 high impact adaptation

Selected key actions are summarized below. To see the full detailed list of actions, please refer to the NCAP action matrix located in the Documents and Resources page.

  • Continue co-development of UBC-Musqueam Plant List to identify plants of cultural importance to Musqueam.
    • This work will continue to evolve alongside UBC and Musqueam’s relationship.
  • Support nature-based solutions to climate action at the neighbourhood scale through updates to UBC’s amended and future Neighbourhood Plans.
    • Potential updates include planting and soils guidelines, tree retention and planting locations to optimize shade and flood regulation.
  • Identify opportunities to increase biodiversity and ecosystem services at site scale through future REAP updates.
  • Continue supporting the UNA on sustainable landscape practices (e.g. operations, low carbon, energy efficient equipment, climate resilient replanting guidelines).
  • Develop baseline data with academic partners related to ecosystem services supporting climate action (e.g. shade, urban heat island effect mitigation).
  • Include future climate projections and localized climate impacts to natural systems in the Biodiversity Strategy.🟦
  • Set performance targets relating to neighbourhood shade coverage.🟦
  • Begin implementing the Integrated Rainwater Management Plan (IRMP), focusing on adaptive, green infrastructure that responds to seasonal variability and future climate conditions.🟦
  • Showcase different approaches to climate resilient plantings incorporating Musqueam and other Indigenous knowledge.
  • Expand and enhance ecosystem services (e.g. shade, flood regulation, carbon sequestration).🟦

Actions in this scope area will also help deliver the following co-benefits:

  • Affordability: reducing the costs associated with taking climate action
  • Community Connection: supporting opportunities for community interaction and connection
  • Health & Wellbeing: improving health and wellbeing conditions for community members
  • Access for All: making it easier for everyone to access spaces, information, processes, or programs
  • Academic Connection: providing opportunity for research connections with UBC’s academic community

Actions You Can Take

Equity Considerations

  • Targets should aim to improve equity throughout neighbourhoods to provide similar levels of ecosystem services for all residents.
  • Consider what habitats are provided by planting guidelines and what species would be supported.
  • Consider how to support a diverse set of needs and preferences in neighbourhood landscapes (e.g. place making, cultural, sense of belonging).

📓 Learn More!

Climate Resilient Plantings

A resilient landscape can withstand the effects of climate change and benefit the entire ecosystem. Guidelines to support climate resilient plantings should include and consider the following:

  • Plants suitable for future climate conditions;
  • Planting guidelines to enhance ecosystem services;
  • Consider planting palettes and composition to select complementary plants that will support each other and an increase in biodiversity while supporting the region’s ecological character; and
  • Opportunities for a variety of aesthetic and functional needs, including manicured and wilder landscapes.

📓 Learn More!

Ecosystem Services for Climate Action

Ecosystem services describes the benefits ecosystems provide to human health, survival, and quality of life. Four different groups of services have been defined, and of these, regulating ecosystem services are most relevant to NCAP. Regulating ecosystem services are natural processes that moderate natural phenomena (e.g. water purification, pollination, climate regulation).1

NCAP is focused on the opportunities that regulating ecosystem services can provide for climate action – both to reduce emissions and to adapt to future climate conditions. Climate action taken through neighbourhood ecosystems also bring the co-benefits that ecological spaces on campus provide. UBC’s focus through NCAP implementation will be to explore and establish targets (where feasible) that support the following ecosystem services:

  • Trees providing shade;
  • Natural systems reducing neighbourhood temperatures to mitigate the urban heat island effect;
  • Mitigating damage from extreme weather events;
  • Carbon sequestration;
  • Regulation of water flow; and
  • Erosion prevention and maintenance of soil fertility

 

 

1 Source: earth.org/what-are-ecosystem-services/

Explore More
Campus Vision 2050: Restorative and Resilient Landscapes
Learn more about how the Vision supports biodiversity and ecological resilience for the campus.
/vision/restorative-and-resilient-landscapes
Campus Vision 2050: Climate Mitigation and Adaptation
The vision supports an accelerated path to net-zero emissions on campus. Learn more about the key strategies to support this.
/vision/climate-mitigation-adaptation
Community Gardens
The UNA has five community gardens where residents can grow their own food and flowers,
https://www.myuna.ca/gardens/