Flying Foxes' losing Battle against overwhelming heat.

Research Proposal

Urban Wildlife’s losing battle against overwhelming heat

Abstract

In the last 15 years, more than 150,000 Flying Foxes (Pteropus sp.) have died due to extreme heat events with over 100,000 dying during a heatwave in Queensland in 2014 (Merone,2020). This is largely due to climate change and habitat loss (Welbergen, 2008). Flying Foxes are referred to as the canary in the coal mine to the effects of climate change and are a precursor of the same fate befalling other wildlife species and even humans. Current conservation approaches in cities tend to take a defensive approach through focusing on remnant vegetation. However, these approaches are vulnerable to further urban development (Apfelback, 2019).

This study aims to identify and patch up the weaknesses of current urban landscape design policies through identifying the survival needs of flying foxes, the current solutions that are viable and cater to the needs of flying foxes and whether these are implemented in current urban park design policies. Giving the driving research question: To what degree can urban landscape design strategies in urban parks minimise flying fox mortality rate during extreme heat events in Brisbane, Queensland?

Methodology:

The study will begin with secondary descriptive research with a literature review and specialist interviews to identify the needs of flying foxes and current and possible solutions to ensure the survival of flying foxes to climate change.

Following this is an evaluative review of current urban park design policies in Brisbane, Queensland to identify whether current policies are effective in helping flying foxes or if they can be amended to better suit flying foxes.

With the data from the secondary descriptive and evaluative research, new or amended policies will then be tested in a projective research phase where the experimental designs will be presented to relevant stakeholders for their input on the viability and efficacy of the revised policies.

Aims and Objectives

With the ever-changing climate of the Earth due to global warming, Australia is experiencing increased temperatures, more extreme weather events, etc. These negatively affects humans but even more so to wildlife due to their inability to adapt as well. This highlights the need to start revising urban landscape design strategies and policies from defensive strategies to offensive ones. Currently, Brisbane, Queensland is one of the cities in Australia that is heavily plagued by extreme heat events and the flying foxes have been the largest victims in the recent years. The aim of this research is to identify the weaknesses in the current urban landscape design strategies in Brisbane and propose revisions to inform a framework of design principles that can be used to design park spaces that help to lower morbidity and mortality rate of wildlife due to global warming and during extreme heat events.

The specific research objectives include:

1) Reviewing and evaluating the extent of how much urban landscape design strategies in Queensland help the survival of Flying Foxes from increased temperatures and during EHEs

2) Gather information to inform a framework of design strategies that can be used to design more habitable spaces for flying foxes during EHEs by identifying and fulfilling their needs

Through the evaluation of the urban landscape design policies in Queensland alongside input from experts in the field of flying fox conservation, this study aims to propose revised design strategies and park standards that highlights the needs of flying foxes and how these strategies are adaptive to landscape design. This study might also be used for different species of wildlife as well in the future.

Scopes

Due to the wide range of wildlife species that are affected by global warming and extreme heat events, this study focuses on one of the more noticeably affected species, the Flying Foxes (Pteropus sp.). This study also takes part in Brisbane, Queensland, where mass die-offs of Flying Foxes are recent and well documented.

Research Question

To what degree can urban landscape design strategies in urban parks minimise flying fox mortality rate during extreme heat events in Brisbane, Queensland?

Background/Literature Review

Introduction

Climate change is a growing issue that shows little to no slowing down soon with global temperatures expected to rise between 1.5°C and 5.8°C by the end of the century (Oxford, 2001). This change in temperature brings with it extreme weather events such as heat waves, coastal storms, and hailstorms which in turn has an impact on both human health (A.Patz, 2005) and the wellbeing of the biodiversity (McKechnie A. E., 2009). However, wildlife is more susceptible to these extreme weather events compared to humans due to their lack of adaptive methods and technology (Mukande, 2021). One of the more dramatic phenomena caused by climate change in the Australian context is the flying-fox (Pteropus sp.) mass mortality events (MME) in 2014 (J, 2016) and 2018 (Mao, 2019), both occurring in Queensland where over 130,000 flying foxes died. These flying foxes have a threatened conservation status (Species Profile and Threats Database, n.d.) and mass die-offs have both serious ecological impacts (Marty, 1991) and public health implications (Merone, 2020). In recent years, design strategies such as have been developed with the intentions of lowering temperatures in urban areas through vegetated buildings (Tauhid, 2018), cool natural stone pavements (Rosso, 2016), tree plantings, etc (Aboelata, 2020). However, these strategies are mostly human oriented and aimed towards overall temperature instead of dealing with extreme weather events, leaving the wildlife out to dry. This paper will highlight the need to explore the efficacy of these strategies for flying foxes through analysis of studies relating to the effects extreme heat events have on both the human population and flying fox population. The criteria for literature used for this review will include peer reviewed journal articles and government statistics published within the last 25 years (1997-2022). The review will begin with climate change predictions and extreme weather events in Australia, followed by their impacts on humans and wildlife, before focusing in on the flying foxes’ struggle with extreme heat events, urban design strategies to mitigate climate change and finally ending with an analysis of the gaps in the research and a discussion of the key areas of future research.

Climate Change and Urban Heat Island

One of the more dramatic impacts of climate change is rising global temperatures which in turn causes Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, melting polar ice, rising sea levels and increased frequency of extreme weather events (Desonie, 2007). Some examples of these events include Extreme Heat Events (EHE), cold snaps, hailstorms, drought, hurricanes, and heavy rainfall (Kirch, 2005). The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect is a phenomenon where structures in urban environments such as cities absorb heat during the day and releases it into the surroundings at night, causing urban areas to be hotter compared to the surrounding environment (Mills, 2021). Research has been conducted and it is observed that the UHI effect is exacerbated during EHEs in the USA (Bou-Zeid, 2013), China (Xu, 2015) and UK (Shepherd, 2010). Similar research has also been conducted in Australia showing that the UHI is exacerbated during EHEs in Melbourne and Adelaide, highlighting the need for urban design strategies to help ameliorate the heat (Rogers, 2018).

Extreme Heat Events (EHEs) and their impacts

Extreme heat events occur when there is a significant increase in temperature for a period and are the most significant natural hazard in Australia, killing more people than the sum of all other natural hazards since 1900 (Coates, 2014). A study observing the synergistic relationship between urban heat island and extreme heat events showed that EHEs not only increase the surrounding temperature, but they also widen the difference between urban and rural temperatures, resulting in heat stress being larger than the sum of its parts, EHEs and UHI (Li, 2013). EHEs have many different impacts on people, including illness, mass mortality (Mathes, 2017), drought (Kirch, 2005), loss of crops (Edmar, 2013), etc. However, they also have greater impacts on the environment and wildlife. There have been studies showing the increasing likelihood of mass avian mortality events during EHEs in dry climates (McKechnie A. , 2009), long lasting debilitating effects such as lowered thermal tolerance in wildlife (Dayananda, 2017), reduced cognitive and motor performances in avian communities (Danner, 2020), increased pest activity on street trees resulting in poor health (Dale, 2014), etc. EHEs will only be more intense, frequent, and longer in the 21st century (Meehl, 2004), creating a cause for concern for us to find solutions to dealing with them.

Flying Foxes’ (Pteropus sp.) struggle with heat

An expected 5 billion humans are predicted to live in urban areas by 2030, along with that, the global urban footprint is expected to expand by 163% from 727,000km² to 1,527,000km². This places pressure on the surrounding natural environment, threatening biodiversity and ecosystems (Magle, 2019). A recent study in Queensland, Australia has shown that Spectacled flying foxes (Pteropus conspicillatus) more commonly roost near humans and camps in urban environments are more consistently occupied compared to non-urban camps. Over the time of the study, it was also observed that the number of non-urban camps declined while urban camps increased (Tait, 2014). Tait finds that the shift of flying fox camps are not due to habitat loss from urbanization but may be from moving to urban areas with higher amounts of fruiting events (Banack, 2002) or disturbance from extreme weather events such as droughts (Tidemann, 2003), fires (Jenkins, 2007) and cyclones (LA, 2008).

Bats as a species are highly vulnerable to hyperthermia and heat stress due to their inability to engage in evaporative cooling when the ambient temperature is greater than that of their body (S, 2017). Mass die-offs of bats due to EHEs are well documented in Australia (Welbergen, 2008) and several other locations across the Pacific Island nations (O'Shea, 2016). “Welbergen notes that 19 Australian EHEs since 1994 have killed more than 30,000 bats” (Merone, 2020). The Spectacled Flying Fox is now listed as threatened under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (1999) (Species Profile and Threats Database, n.d.). These mass mortality events have detrimental impacts to both public health and ecological systems. Australian bats are carriers of the fatal Hendra and Nipah viruses which usually transmit through bites and scratches (Beverly, 2014) and large numbers of sick and dead bats from EHEs can increase virus transmission when the public try to help them or remove corpses. Northern Queensland’s 2018 mass mortality event posed significant challenges to their health services and local council which included transmission of zoonotic diseases and environmental health issues from mass decomposition and their clean-up efforts (Merone, 2020). This event highlights the urgency for us to find mitigative methods for EHEs to prevent mass die offs.

Urban Landscape Design Strategies for a Cooler City

Global warming has been an ongoing issue and there have been numerous studies on strategies to help mitigate the UHI effect. One common strategy is the introduction of parks and green spaces to urban areas. A study has shown that the presence of urban green spaces lowers the average temperature of the local area by 1°C compared to urban areas without green spaces (Bowler, 2010). These green spaces also help to contribute to wildlife habitats and ecosystems (Behdad, 2019). Another common strategy is the use of green infrastructure. The introduction of vertical greenery and green roofs help to lower the heat absorbed by structures and reduce nocturnal UHI intensity by 3-4°C (He, 2022). However, these strategies only focus on lowering overall temperature and UHI intensity instead of specifically EHEs.

Strategies for reducing Flying Fox mortalities during EHEs

Strategies for helping the bats out have 2 categories: Camp Scale interventions and Individual Scale interventions. Camp scale interventions include manual (Ratnayake, 2019) and automated (Parry-Jones, 2019) misting of roost vegetation through ground based and canopy mounted sprinklers that were meant for irrigation. However, misting comes with the risk of increasing the humidity of the area that may exacerbate heat stress (Ratnayake, 2019). Individual scale interventions include removal from camp for treatment, sedation, intensive cooling, rehydration therapy, etc (Mo, 2021), which are all manpower intensive and require human-bat interaction, increasing disease transmission. These examples highlight the need for us to develop alternate methods to reduce mass wildlife die offs during EHEs.

Conclusion

It is without a doubt that global temperatures are rising, causing longer and more severe EHEs while intensifying the UHI. These 2 phenomena work together to exacerbate temperatures in urban areas which are increasingly becoming the home for flying foxes. EHEs has and will cause mass mortality events for not only flying foxes but other wildlife as well such as Western Australia’s endangered Black Carnaby’s Cockatoo (Saunders, 2011) , Magpies (Blackburn, 2022), etc. Mass dieoffs of flying foxes have huge repercussions to the ecology and especially to public health. There have been numerous studies on how urban landscape design strategies help to lower the UHI and how the change impacts humans, however there is little records or research on how this affects fauna. Going forward, there is a need for us to find the most effective solutions to reduce the effects of EHEs on wildlife. As some of the more recent flying fox mass mortality events due to EHEs occur in the urban areas of Queensland most notably capital city, Brisbane with an excess of over 20 permanent camps (Brisbane City Council: Flying Foxes, n.d.) and due to flying fox die-offs being one of the most dramatic, easily observed and well documented phenomena of wildlife die offs, using Brisbane as the area of study and flying foxes as the target species can help us gain insight into this issue. Giving the driving research question: To what degree can urban landscape design strategies in urban parks minimise flying fox mortality rate during extreme heat events in Brisbane, Queensland?

MethodologyandMethods

Thisstudyproposestheusageofacombinationofstrategiesthatarebrokendowninthefollowing steps:

1)SecondaryDescriptiveresearchoftheneedsofthesurvivalofflyingfoxesfacingincreased temperaturesandextremeheateventsfrominterviewswithspecialistsandliterature review.

2)EvaluativeresearchofurbanlandscapedesignpoliciesinBrisbane,Queenslandthatare relevantandrelatedtofulfillingtheflyingfoxesneed.

3)Projectiveandexperimentalresearchthroughredesigningparkstandardstoshowwhat flyingfoxesneedandhowitsadaptedtoparkdesignbasedontheaboveprinciples.

•ResearchoftheneedsofFlyingFoxesrelatedtotemperature

•InterviewswithIndustryProfessionalsandLiteratureReview

2.Evaluative

•ComparisonofUrbanLandscapeDesignDesignpoliciesin BrisbanerelatedtowildlifeandFlyingFoxestoneedsofflying foxesfromPhase1.

•BrisbaneCityCouncilandQueensland

3.Projective/

•RedesigningParkStandardstosuitFlyingFoxneeds

•AdaptingthestandardstoParkDesign

Figure1.MethodologyFlowChart

1.Secondary Descriptive

Experimental

1a)SelectionofInterviewees

Theselectionofspecialistsandorganisationstointerviewcomesdowntothefollowingfactors

1)statusandreputationoftheorganisationthey’refromwithinthecommunity

2)theirpositionintheorganisation

3)relevanceoftheorganisationtotheBrisbane,Queenslandcontext

4)theorganisation’swillingnesstotakepartinthisstudy

i)BatConservation&RescueQLDINC.(Website:https://bats.org.au/)

TheBatConservation&RescueQLDINC.isanon-profitvolunteerorganisationthataimsto educatethepublicabouttheimportanceofbats,providerescue,rehabilitationandconservationof batsandtheirhabitats.

Theircorevalues/servicesarethefollowing:

Figure2.BatConservation&RescueQLDINC.Services 3outof4oftheseserviceswillhelptoinformthestudy’sobjectives.

Theorganisationisalsosponsoredandpartneredwithseveralgovernmentalinstitutions, including,theLogan,Redland,Brisbane,andMoretonBayCityCouncils.Theyarealsopartnered withseveralwildlifepreservationandrescueorganisations.

Theirwebsiteisfullofinformationontheissuesflyingfoxesfaceandsomepossible solutionstotheseproblems.TheorganisationalsoplacesagreateremphasistotheBrisbaneregion duetotherelativelylargernumberofflyingfoxcampscomparedtootherregions.

Althoughtheorganisationswebsitelackstheinformationofthecoremembersthatcouldbe interviewed,theotherinformationontheirwebsiteandtheirvalues/servicestellsusthattheyare qualifiedandwouldbewillingtotakepartinthisstudy.

ii) Australasian Bat Society (Website: https://www.ausbats.org.au/)

The Australasian Bat Society is a non-profit organisation that strives to promote the conservation of bats and their habitats through the advancement of quality science and the extensive experience of their members. The society’s wide range of members include research scientists, natural resource managers, ecological consultants, educators, students, wildlife carers, etc.

The society however is based in New South Wales and has a wide range of focus areas including Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, Melanesia and Wallacea.

The society has a special department called the Flying Fox Expert Group. The group consists of flying fox specialists representing research, advocacy, government, industry, education, and carer networks.

Potential interviewee candidates include but are not limited to:

1) the current president, Justin Walbergen, who works as an associate professor at Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment and leads the Lab of Animal Ecology

2) Current Second Vice President, Lindy Lumsden, a principal research scientist who has helped graduate research students and co-supervised over 20 projects on bats

3) Flying Fox Expert Group Co-Convener, John Martin, a research scientist at the Institute of Science and Learning, Taronga Conservation Society Australia. John’s research is directed towards understanding the ecology of wildlife in human dominated landscapes.

The organisation has qualified professionals that are most likely willing to help in this study with interviews and information.

Figure 3. Australasian Bat Society Principles

1b)LiteratureReview

Areviewofliteraturerelatedtoflyingfoxesandtheirneedswillbetaken.Reliablesources ofliteratureincludepeerreviewedarticles,journals,governmentandorganisations’online repositories.Theliteraturereviewwillfocusonflyingfoxsurvivalneedsandhabitatsalongwith potentialareasandroostsitesthatcouldserveaspotentialsitesfortheexperimentaldesignphase ofthisstudy.

2)BrisbaneUrbanLandscapeDesignPolicyReview

EvaluativeresearchofBrisbaneandQueensland’surbanlandscapedesignpolicywillbe donetodeterminetheircurrentstrategies(ifany)inhelpingtheflyingfoxes’survival.Thecurrent policieswillbecomparedtotheneedsoftheflyingfoxesthatarediscoveredduringtheLiterature ReviewsandSpecialistInterviews.Thiswillhelptodeterminetheamendmentsoradditionofdesign policiesthatwillleadtoamoreflyingfoxinclusivelandscapedesign.

Doesthispolicysuit theneedsofflying foxes?

Canthispolicybe amendedtosuitthe needsofflying foxes?

Figure4.EvaluativeResearchFlowChart

Data

Data collected through the policy evaluation, interviews, and literature review can be classified into qualitative or quantitative data. The following table sorts the data by their criteria, source, and significance.

Quantitative Criteria

Number of roosting sites located in urban parks

Source(s) of Data

Literature Review Specialist Interview

Questions/Significance

Is it viable to revise urban park design policies for flying foxes?

Should revised policies be for parks with only a certain number of roosting sites or all parks?

Population sizes of urban park roosting sites

Literature Review Specialist Interview

Should revised policies only apply to parks with a certain population size or all parks?

Temperature threshold for flying fox survival

Literature Review Specialist Interview

How much do we have to lower the temperature to ensure the flying foxes survival?

Number of days of elevated heat during Extreme Heat Events

Qualitative Criteria

What are the needs of flying foxes

What are current solutions to increasing temperatures

What are current solutions to extreme heat events

Literature Review

Should long term or short-term strategies be used during heat waves?

Source(s) of Data

Literature Review Specialist Interview

Specialist Interview

Questions/Significance

What do we need to fulfil to ensure the survival of flying foxes?

What are the current long-term solutions for helping flying foxes?

Specialist Interview

What are the current shortterm solutions for helping flying foxes?

Do current solutions come with a risk to flying foxes

Literature Review Specialist Interview

Do current solutions pose a risk to flying foxes? (E.g., sprinklers increasing the humidity which leads to heat stress)

Do current solutions help flying foxes at the expense of the surrounding environment

Literature Review Specialist Interview

Are current solutions viable cost-wise Specialist Interview

Are there any untested solutions Specialist Interview

What extent should flying foxes be helped to Specialist Interview

Which current landscape design policies help flying foxes

Are there current sites where these design policies have been implemented and shown efficacy

Policy Evaluation

Do current solutions pose a threat to other wildlife or biodiversity?

Are these solutions able to be mass-implemented?

Are there possible solutions that can be tested to add new policies?

Is it a good idea to help flying foxes this much or is it better to let nature take its course?

How much are current policies actively helping flying foxes?

Policy Evaluation

3) Projective Research & Experimental Design

Can these sites be used as benchmarks for the experimental design phase?

From the previous 2 phases, the needs of flying foxes, solutions for increasing temperature, and amended/added policies will have been identified. Following this, the new policies will be used in projective research where they are applied to experimental designs which will then be framed as a case study. The experimental designs will include small to large sized, and sparsely populated to densely populated parks to determine whether some policies are better suited to which archetypes. The products of this phase will then be presented to Brisbane City Council and relevant industry professionals for their input to determine if the amendments to the policies are viable and effective in helping the flying foxes. Ideally, the viable policies will then be proposed to amend the current policies. In the case of feedback to the proposed experimental designs being unviable or ineffective, the study will then either reach the conclusion that there is a need to search for new design strategies.

Figure 5. Projective Research Phase Flow Chart

Feedbackfrom relevantstake holders

Conclusion

This study aims to take an offensive stance towards Wildlife Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) utilising Flying Foxes as a target species due to their easier noticeable reactions to climate change and contribution to the environment. The outcomes of this study can help to inform a framework for assessing and redesigning urban environmental planning policies that can be applied to other species of wildlife (e.g., Western Australia’s Black Carnaby’s Cockatoo).

If this study proves redesigning urban park design policies to be ineffective, it will highlight the urgent need to search for alternative studies and methods to help protect our ecosystems’ biodiversity from the ever-worsening effects of climate change.

The results of this study will help to show the extent of urban landscape design strategies in helping to minimise the amount of flying fox casualties during extreme heat events.

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