Abstract
Urban greenspaces are public spaces, fulfilling multiple city functions, such as improvement of public health. They are also ecosystems which provide biodiversity as part of the green infrastructure. To evaluate greenspaces as ecosystems, seventeen urban greenspaces in Yokohama, Japan, were selected to conduct surveys of flora and construct a vegetation table. The present study investigated the number of woody plant species; their growth form (tree, shrub, or liana); the ratio of evergreen to deciduous plants; and whether plant species were native, exotic, wild, or planted. The greenspaces were compared with the control area, Enkaizan, a suburban greenspace within Yokohama and representative of Satoyama (a traditional landscape model with sustainable living space). The comparison used cluster analysis to match the correlation of identified species in each greenspace and split them into four groups: (1) natural, (2) quasi-natural, (3) quasi-artificial, and (4) artificial. The study found the natural greenspace group to have an intact hierarchical forest structure with trees, shrubs, and lianas; whereas artificial greenspaces missed either tree or shrub layers and had few lianas. The more artificial greenspaces had higher proportions of exotic and evergreen species.
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Acknowledgements
We would especially like to thank Yukito Nakamura for providing endless support and guidance. We would like to thank the following professors and academics for their support and contributions and for providing thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript: Takanori Fukuoka, Nobuo Imai, and Takuto Shitara. We also thank Akiyo Nakamura from the City of Yokohama for providing the vegetation data of Kosuzume Park, Satoru Kawase for providing the vegetation data of Enkaizan, and Masaomi Takei, Nanako Yasuhara, Satoshi Takano, Shota Suzuki, and Nanako Kidoku for assisting with the fieldwork. In addition, we extend our thanks to Atsushi Watanabe, Tomohiro Uchiike, and Ayaka Matsumiya from Taisei Corporation for supporting the vegetation survey. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (Grant number JP19K06114) and collaboration projects with global partner universities, put up by the Research Institute for Agricultural and Life Science, Tokyo University of Agriculture. The experiments performed comply with the current laws of the country in which they were performed (Japan). We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.com) for English language editing.
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Appendix 1. List of plants of the seventeen greenspaces in Yokohama City, Japan
Appendix 1. List of plants of the seventeen greenspaces in Yokohama City, Japan
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Killmann, N., Nishino, F., Suzuki, K. et al. Characteristics of urban greenspaces based on analysis of woody plants in Yokohama City, Japan. Landscape Ecol Eng 18, 221–238 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11355-021-00493-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11355-021-00493-4