Flight of the bumblebee - Improving urban green for ecosystem services in Helsinki
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School of Arts, Design and Architecture |
Master's thesis
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Authors
Date
2022
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Master’s Programme in Urban Studies and Planning
Language
en
Pages
91
Series
Abstract
The thesis discusses the impacts of the urban built environment on the movement of bumblebees regarding green connectivity and develops an agent-based modeling framework for the improvement of urban ecosystem services. This data-driven framework serves as an urban planning tool to explore the interaction between ecological research and urban planning. Helsinki is chosen as an example city for the research. The urban ecosystem is complex since manmade elements are intertwined with natural elements. Modeling, simulation, and systems thinking interpret the complexity of the urban ecosystem in terms of a digital landscape model to introduce a new perspective on complex urban planning methodologies. The project attempts to address the necessity of the challenge of urban complexity by introducing a data-driven planning tool for ecosystem services. The goal of this planning tool is to use digital technologies to incorporate built environments like buildings, motorways, and green vegetation in urban spatial analysis and methodology. Secondly, this tool aims at building a common ground for decision-makers, ecologists, and general participants through real-time data visualization of agent simulation results when dealing with the complexity of the urban ecosystem. Thirdly, the responsive system envisions the future application as an open platform by integrating various input factors regarding urban impacts caused by changing urban environments, which is universally applicable across multiple scales and different urban contexts. The thesis aims to design an agent-based model, a simulation based on an abstraction of bumblebees’ foraging behavior. The movement simulation is a simplified model of the foraging process resulting from wandering repulsion and attractive tendencies. The agent simulation process includes two steps: the first is the initial simulation result to imitate foraging behavior in the urban environment; the second optimizes the bumblebees' flight networks by inputting new attraction and distraction points to inform the simulation. This process is set up in an iterative feedback loop to improve the connectivity of the existing flight tracks. The simulation result points out the problems of exiting green networks fragmented by motorways and the exclusion of courtyard greens blocked by enclosed buildings. Moreover, the simulation process serves as an urban planning tool as the simulation result is applicable both on the urban scale by informing a more connective green network and on the node scale by a proposal of a toolkit regarding various spatial characteristics.Description
Supervisor
Fricker, PiaThesis advisor
Čerpnjak, TinaKotze, Johan
Keywords
urban green connectivity, bumblebee-friendly city, systems thinking, responsive landscape, agent-based modeling, ecosystem services, urban planning tool