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Written by Sophia Renes and Jenny Nilsson, PhD students at SLU.
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Does the ecological status of urban ponds match citizen perception of ecosystem services provided?
Published: 20 October 2020
Just like larger water bodies, ponds in urban areas can play important roles in the well-being of people and ecosystems in the surrounding areas. The international research consortium 'Urban Algae' has studied the connection between people´s perception of a pond and its ecological status.
Ponds in urban environments can provide ecosystem services such as recreation, stormwater retention or providing microhabitats for animals and plants. The European water framework directive uses ecological status as a measurement of the biological, chemical and physical conditions of a water body. Up to this point, the connection between people's perception of a pond and its ecological status is not well understood.
Urban Algea - combining social science with natural science
In order to address this question the interdisciplinary research consortium, Urban Algae, combines knowledge and methods from social science with natural science to bridge gaps between science, society and management of freshwater ponds. This consortium of early career researchers in the natural and social sciences has almost 100 members forming 30 teams working in 28 different European cities. The Uppsala team is a collaboration between five PhD-students at SLU and Uppsala University.
The project combines physical sampling with a citizen survey. During the summer of 2018, each team sampled two ponds (60 ponds in total) in their urban area. Sampling included water chemistry, biological diversity of phytoplankton and vegetation, and physical conditions, such as whether the banks were natural or man-made. The Uppsala team investigated a pond near Ekeby and the pond which lies between the library and the river at SLU’s Ultuna campus. The citizen survey was filled out by around 2000 respondents in 14 languages, during autumn of 2019, answering a variety of questions about perceived ecosystem services and observable pond characteristics (such as amount of vegetation, water clarity, type of bank) that people associate with these services.
Preliminary results suggest that people have similar views on what kinds of ponds they prefer and possibly that perception of ponds’ ecosystem services are similar throughout Europe. The results are still being analyzed, and the first publications are expected to come out in the coming year or two.