Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services of Urban Parks: The Multidisciplinary Approach of the URBioPark Project

The multiple functions of urban green areas secure the supply of ecosystem services to the population. The quality of these services is also directly related to the quality of the soil’s abiotic and biotic factors. In urban green areas, the attention is often focused on vegetation, and soils are seldom considered. This work examines, for the first time, the environmental quality and the footprint of biodiversity status of vegetation and soils in urban parks. The research aims to assess how the multifunctionality of soil and the biodiversity of urban green spaces influence the provision of ecosystem services and the impact on human health. In the framework of the URBioPark project, four urban parks were selected in Brescia (Italy), where we applied a combined novel multidisciplinary approach to environmental assessment. This work describes the studied areas, the methodology, and the type of analyses/measurements applied to the four parks. We consider biodiversity and functions to identify the correlation between functional biodiversity and specific environmental factors. Some preliminary results regarding the soils (i.e. physical and chemical properties, QBS, soil enzyme activities,) and vegetation (leaf area index, biodiversity index, plant fitness in terms of photosynthetic efficiency, nutrient status and accumulation of toxic metal ions) are presented. The results highlight the importance of urban parks’ quality and functionality. The output will provide the scientific foundation to produce a good practice manual and include soil biodiversity among the factors considered in current urban planning.