Cooling and Conservation
This transformative living lab project at UBC Vancouver uses campus green spaces to study how urban nature can cool neighbourhoods and support wildlife in a warming climate. By combining automated microclimate and acoustic monitoring with community engagement, it will generate practical guidance to design resilient, biodiversity‑rich urban landscapes on campus and across Metro Vancouver.
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Project Team
Faculty lead: Matthew Mitchell, Assistant Professor, Department of Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry & Environmental Stewardship
Staff lead: Emma Luker, Engagement and Sustainability Planner, Campus + Community Planning
Co-lead: Claire McPhee, Climate Resilience & Biodiversity Applied Research Coordinator, SEEDS Sustainability Program, Campus + Community Planning
UBC Collaborators:
- UBC Collaborators: SEEDS Sustainability Program, Urban Forests Research Hub
Community Partner:
- University Neighbourhoods Association
Peer Research Networks:
- BC Biodiversity Network
- Data4Nature
Climate change and conservation challenges in today’s cities
Cities are facing the dual and interlinked challenges of effectively addressing rapidly rising urban temperatures alongside the need to conserve urban biodiversity. Nature-based solutions – using urban ecosystems to address both issues – are a promising approach. Yet, actionable knowledge linking urban green space characteristics to their ability to provide cooling and support urban species is currently lacking. This is certainly true for the UBC Vancouver campus, an ecologically important area supporting threatened bat species and located on a key migratory bird pathway, but where previous urban heat research has been primarily human centred.
Linking campus greenspaces to cooling and biodiversity
The Cooling and Conservation project aims to address this gap on the UBC campus by:
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Piloting an innovative automated data collection approach and pipeline to collect green space microclimate and acoustic wildlife use data;
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Using this data to inform campus green space design by linking landscape characteristics to cooling effects and wildlife activity; and
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Engaging the UBC community and external partners in applied nature-based solutions research, community science, and knowledge sharing.
Overall, this project aims to inform urban planning practices and nature-based solutions initiatives that effectively create resilient urban landscapes to support human and beyond-human residents at UBC and across Metro Vancouver. Project deliverables and outcomes will include:
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A replicable framework to support long-term monitoring of campus wildlife-heat relationships, contributing to a campus biodiversity baseline;
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A practitioner’s summary to support planning and operations staff in designing and maintaining landscapes that support human and wildlife wellbeing;
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Knowledge sharing events and activities that inform and inspire the UBC community, other municipalities, and research networks.
Embracing the Campus as a Living Lab
This project exemplifies the core characteristics of Campus as a Living Lab, integrating innovation and research excellent to advance relevant and impactful urban conservation and climate solutions, all while centering student engagement. The project demonstrates innovation by combining automated technologies to link wildlife activity to green space form and function, while a rigorous study design ensures research excellence. In alignment with numerous UBC strategic priorities, this project brings together the interconnected concepts of restorative and resilient landscapes, climate mitigation and adaptation, campus biodiversity enhancement, community wellbeing, and student experiential learning. By focusing on actionable outcomes as well as strong campus and regional partnerships, the project directly contributes to climate-resilience planning and operations on UBC’s Vancouver campus and beyond.
Related Publications
