Working to protect city’s biodiversity

BY REBECCA POOLE

THE city’s biodiversity is under threat due to climate change but the Lincoln Climate Action Plan (CAP) is already making improvements to protect and preserve it for future generations. Biodiversity is the different kinds of life that you can find in any one area. This can range from animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms – all species and organisms that work together to maintain and support life on Earth.

“The reason it is badged in with the Climate Action Plan is because biodiversity is a crucial part of the ‘Climate Adaptation and Resilience’ section in terms of two different areas,” explained Kate Bell, Climate Change Manager from City of Lincoln Council.

“Firstly, there’s the need for green space to act as flood protection and water storage, which in a city like Lincoln, a lot of it was designed around capturing water because of its low-lying areas.”

Large commons have been maintained in the city, where many other urban areas built over their commons or cut them back to a smaller size. The West Common, South Common, and Cowpaddle play an important part in absorbing excess water, whilst protecting densely populated areas which are at risk of flooding.

“The other side of it, which is obviously not what their purpose was, but what we’re going to be doing is ‘Carbon Capture’.You can absorb carbon, not just through trees which is what everybody associates with carbon storage, but wetland areas.

“Peat is particularly good at capturing it, and we have some peat areas to the east of the South Common, which we call the ‘Cowpaddle’. It’s not high-quality peat, but there’s an opportunity to restore the peat in that area.”

Anti-social behaviour causes problems for the city’s biodiversity, but through environmentally-focused projects native wildlife such as greater crested newts, foxes, and deer can all thrive.

“Biodiversity is not necessarily being threatened in the city, because so much has gone into preserving those green spaces, but I suppose there is the difficulty of managing those sites.

“Greetwell Hollow is an amazing green space and you feel like you’re in open countryside. The actual face of the cliff is an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest), but the challenges are dealing with anti-social behaviour in an urban area.”

The Brayford Pool is a focal point in Lincoln and acts as an important waterway for surface water run-off and is part of a network to reduce the severity of flooding in the centre of the city. However, as the Brayford Pool does not have much biodiversity, projects have been underway to install Biohavens (pictured) which are floating rafts that provide a habitat for wildlife above and below the surface.

“The first strip of Biohavens goes along parallel to Brayford Wharf East which went in around four or five years ago, and then they extended them last year in front of The Royal William up to Wagamama’s.

“When the Biohavens bloomed it was such a dry summer and we had that extreme hot weather, everything was scorched and the grass was brown, but because of the constant flow of water the planting just bloomed and it looked absolutely amazing all summer.”

Additional planting has recently happened this year, which not only provides habitats for pollinators and other insects such as dragonflies and damselflies, but it is hoped they will maximise opportunities for people to get involved with too.”

Kate also encourages people to download apps for their phones which can identify trees and log species, to help map tree coverage in the local area.

“With the change in climate, in urban areas you get an urban heat island effect, so because of the concrete the heat builds up quicker than it would out in the countryside. Breaking that up with large areas of tree coverage and grassland areas, helps to keep the city cooler, and in the height of the summer when you need the shade the value of that is quite significant.” The city’s average tree coverage is considerably higher than surrounding rural areas, but through the Climate Action Plan mass tree planting, and, peat and wetland conservation is underway to improve water and carbon capture and storage.

“For us a lot of this “greening the city centre” is about awareness raising, because whenever we do a survey on climate change or the environment people automatically jump to the assumption that we’re losing green space and we haven’t got any green spaces in the city, but sometimes it’s about highlighting what we have got and the value of that.

“By increasing the understanding of spaces, it is hoped that people will feel ownership and protection of that space.”

The app details are available by visiting Woodland Trust’s website, where people are also able to calculate local tree canopy cover www.woodlandtrust.org.uk