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<p>Urban Biodiversity encompasses the diversity of species, habitats, and ecological interactions within urban environments, and contributes to ecological resilience, environmental quality, and human well-being. Rapid urbanization and increasing anthropogenic pressures has caused habitat loss and fragmentation, thereby threatening biodiversity. Despite its importance, the systematic assessment of urban biodiversity remains limited due to the lack of scalable, spatially explicit analytical frameworks. To address this gap, we have developed the Urban Biological Richness Index (UBRI), a modular framework integrating ecological theory, Earth Observation data, and field-based information. Urban biodiversity has been treated not as an isolated ecological entity but as an extension of regional and landscape-level biodiversity systems. The framework adopts a multiscale perspective, where biodiversity has been assessed at regional and landscape scales with a focus on developing city scale spatial framework. At city scale, the UBRI integrates five key dimensions of urban ecology – habitat quality, ecological network, microclimate, relative wildness, and human disturbance. The framework has been applied to Chandigarh, India, where it has captured spatial gradients of biological richness across diverse land use types. Model validation using citizen science database has demonstrated strong predictive performance (AUC = 0.89). Comparison with a MaxEnt-based species distribution model further highlighted UBRI’s ability to resolve fine-scale ecological variation within the urban fabric. Overall, the UBRI framework provides a transferable and data-efficient tool for identifying key conservation areas and connectivity gaps, supporting biodiversity-sensitive urban planning, ecological restoration, and sustainable urban development.</p>

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A conceptual framework for assessing urban biodiversity: components, drivers, and dynamics through earth observation

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年1月30日

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  • Bhoomika Ghale,
  • Ritobina Biswas,
  • Kshama Gupta,
  • Arijit Roy,
  • Harish Chandra Karnatak

摘要

Urban Biodiversity encompasses the diversity of species, habitats, and ecological interactions within urban environments, and contributes to ecological resilience, environmental quality, and human well-being. Rapid urbanization and increasing anthropogenic pressures has caused habitat loss and fragmentation, thereby threatening biodiversity. Despite its importance, the systematic assessment of urban biodiversity remains limited due to the lack of scalable, spatially explicit analytical frameworks. To address this gap, we have developed the Urban Biological Richness Index (UBRI), a modular framework integrating ecological theory, Earth Observation data, and field-based information. Urban biodiversity has been treated not as an isolated ecological entity but as an extension of regional and landscape-level biodiversity systems. The framework adopts a multiscale perspective, where biodiversity has been assessed at regional and landscape scales with a focus on developing city scale spatial framework. At city scale, the UBRI integrates five key dimensions of urban ecology – habitat quality, ecological network, microclimate, relative wildness, and human disturbance. The framework has been applied to Chandigarh, India, where it has captured spatial gradients of biological richness across diverse land use types. Model validation using citizen science database has demonstrated strong predictive performance (AUC = 0.89). Comparison with a MaxEnt-based species distribution model further highlighted UBRI’s ability to resolve fine-scale ecological variation within the urban fabric. Overall, the UBRI framework provides a transferable and data-efficient tool for identifying key conservation areas and connectivity gaps, supporting biodiversity-sensitive urban planning, ecological restoration, and sustainable urban development.