Mapping Pollinator Habitat at UBC from LiDAR

Abstract

Pollination is an essential ecosystem service for crop production, where species such as insects and birds help to transfer pollen for plants to reproduce. Many of the pollinators are fully dependent on the plants and trees as their food sources and habitat. From a perspective of an urban planner, we must be able to recognize the values brought by pollinators to our ecosystems. Thus, we are attempting to discover the relationship between species and their habitats as much as possible. Nevertheless, assessing and quantifying habitat for species is a particular difficult task when we are dealing with a complex structured urban landscape. This study has two main objectives: the first one is to delineate and assess the biodiversity hotspots as pollinators habitat to determine which to prioritize for planting design management, and the second one is to determine the difference in tree crown delineation using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) point cloud and Orthophoto interpretation. As a result, we found that each delineation method has different limitations and advantages. With the implementation of habitat overlay analysis, the mean patch size of biodiversity hotspots is around 2100 m^2, indicating that most green spaces in urban landscapes tend to be more fragmented rather than shrinking in size.

MGEM Student: Jia Yi Song
Community Partner: UBC Campus + Community Planning

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Song, Jia Yi, 2021, “Pollinators Habitat Capability Analysis of the University of British Columbia (UBC) Vancouver Campus”, https://doi.org/10.5683/SP2/1AKN18, Scholars Portal Dataverse, V1