Uma proposta conceitual de indicadores de biodiversidade urbana

Abstract

With the emergence of the concept of sustainable development and its developments, one of the major challenges that persists is how to evaluate the effects of socioeconomic activities on the environment, as well as the progress made towards sustainability. Among the instruments developed and improved since the 1970s, sustainability indicators first emerged as environmental indicators, developed into indicators for assessing the dimensions of sustainable development independently, until it reaches the sustainability indicators when it articulates the different dimensions of sustainability. Urban biodiversity indicators are one variation of sustainability indicators, focusing on the assessment of the increasing losses of biodiversity with degradation of ecosystems and their consequences, as well as the benefits of their conservation. In this sense, this study aimed to propose a conceptual structure of urban biodiversity indicators, aiming at their monitoring and evaluation. The research proposes a conceptual structure of urban biodiversity indicators, as a basis for the sustainability assessment. For this, the adopted method bases on the systematic review of literature and content analysis, using a mixed method to characterize quantitatively and qualitatively the inferences of the use of urban biodiversity indicators in the sustainability evaluation of cities. From the analysis of how authors describe the proposals for urban sustainability evaluation present in the literature, it was possible to identify nine main thematic trends that encompass urban sustainability. The categorization of urban sustainability indicators, according to the possibilities of use, demonstrated a greater thematic trend on ecosystem services, suggesting that the clusters prioritize mostly the instrumental value of biodiversity. Given these discussions, the proposed conceptual structure considered the PSIR model - Pressure, State, Impact, and Response. From the results, it concludes that approaches are predominant such as urban ecology, the existence of urban green areas challenges for urban landscaping, urban parks, city, and society relationship and interference of urban expansion in the environment. This predominance is because of the approximation of the theme of urban sustainability and biodiversity, and it justifies by being the most cited among the publications analyzed. These data show that there is a concern to discuss the relationship between urbanization and population growth and about how these elements interfere in the functional process of natural ecosystems. Through this research, it was possible to identify the major tools of urban sustainability evaluation proposed in the literature. The categorization of urban sustainability indicators, undertaken here, also allowed establishing a theoretical and methodological path to insert biodiversity indicators in the evaluation processes.