Relation Between Green Walls And Insect Biodiversity

Grant Proposal: Hydrologic and Energy Saving

Impact Statement

Question:

Discuss about the Grant Proposal for Hydrologic and Energy Saving.

Relation existing between Green Walls and insect’s biodiversity

While green walls and roofs are commonly found in the urban settings, and have always been appreciated for the hydrologic and energy saving benefits they offer, it is a less acknowledged fact that green walls actively contribute to the conservation of plant as well as animal biodiversity. Since the benefits of green roofs in supporting the generalist species especially insects is poorly documented, this project aims to discover the relation existing between green walls and insects biodiversity. A5. Impact Statement: 75 words

Urban biodiversity is almost non-existent in today’s world, and yet the creation of green infrastructure can help in conserving nine thousand insects, such as Hemiptera, Coleopteran and Diptera. The abundance and richness of the species of insects requires to be highly maintained, and yet it becomes challenging in a polluted, urbanized set-up. In such a situation, the research project will help in enlightening ways the incorporation of vegetative technologies and vegetated facades in the urban planning of Sydney can help in maximizing biodiversity gains, by supporting generalist species, especially insects.

Yes
Strategic Area	Strategic Goal
Living in a changing environment	Identify vulnerabilities and boundaries to the adaptability of changing natural and human systems – This research will help in overcoming the problems associated with environmental change of an urban set-up, so as to improve the biodiversity in Australia and improve insect’s sustainability.
Living in a changing environment	Manage risk and capture opportunities for sustainable natural and human systems- this research will help in enlightening ways in which the green infrastructure can be used to ensure insect diversity.

Project Title: Relation existing between Green Walls and insects’ biodiversity

The concept of urban biodiversity has emerged to be an important concept that seeks to conserve the loss of specialist and any other kind of species that is sensitive to urbanization. This is exactly the reason behind the increasing popularity of the green walls in and around the cities. In fact, Sydney in Australia alone boasts of a large number of moss walls and vertical gardens. However, while the green walls have been widely appreciated for their aesthetic as well as economic and environmental benefits, few people are aware of the role this green infrastructure plays in increasing the sustainability of insects. This project will help in demonstrating the relationship existing between green walls and insect’s biodiversity.

Green roofs and walls form an integral feature of the urban infrastructure which usually consist of plants and mosses, growing in light-weight growth medium laid over drainage and waterproofing layers (Madre et al. 2015). The most popularly known benefits of green roofs include its ability to retain water, increase the energy efficiency of the buildings, as well as cooler microclimates. However, the lesser known fact in this regard is that green roofs and walls also provide habitat to a rich variety of species, especially the insects. The ecological benefits are least promoted, and deserves special mention here. A large number of studies have confirmed the presence of insects on the green roofs and walls, and all the studies indicated that the bees, spiders, moths, butterflies, and soil-dwelling anthropods, were most commonly found here (Rupprecht et al. 2015). Thus, the habitat creation for insects thereby enriching insect biodiversity has been recently cited as one of the most important benefits of green roofs and walls. Although research evidence suggests that insects are usually more abundant in evergreen foliage rather than the deciduous foliage, the insect’s species richness is an important quality characterizing the green walls and roofs. At the same time, research data also suggests that if the vegetation is composed of monoculture, or it was composed of a polyculture, insect richness might be different in each of the cases (Williams et al. 2014). Thus, although vegetation diversity can affect insect biodiversity differently, the green roofs and walls do help in increasing insect species richness. The vegetated facades are well-capacitated to shelter anthropods, and help in creating enhancing insect’s biodiversity. There is no gain stating that the vertical greening system can be deemed to be an effective mimicry of natural vertical habitats just like cliffs that are covered with climbing plants or vegetated waterfalls, thereby helping to create potential analogue habitats for organisms . Hence, insect biodiversity is one of the major benefits of green walls and roofs.

The Importance of Green Walls in Improving Insect Biodiversity

Due to the high pressure of modernization, urban places in Australia is suffering from loss of greeneries that has resulted in risks biodiversity depletion. There are more than 2000 species of insects in Australia, which are highly dependent upon the balance of ecosystem.

The use of green walls is believed to help the issue related to loss of greenery is in the urban areas of Australia. However, due to lack of awareness among the australians about the significance of the green walls and also the high amount of cost that are involved in the construction work, very few people are interested in net construction. As the insect diversity are suffering from loss in the Australian ecosystem, currently it is high time to ensure that the ecological balance is being restored by improving the total amount of greeneries in the urban areas. The Exclusive relationship between the green walls and insect biodiversity will be explained in the following section.

In order to establish relationship between the green walls and insect biodiversity researchers will follow quantitative and qualitative form of research method. Researchers will collect data mainly from the secondary sources, which will help them to gather information related to the significance of green walls in the context of improving the level of greenery in urban areas. The researchers will also attempts to use the hypothesis form of Research Design, which is highly essential in the context of establishing relationship between ecological balance of insect biodiversity and green walls.

The researchers will at the beginning study the importance of existing green walls and collect data about the insects that are found in the areas around the green walls. The researchers will conduct this study at least upon 50 green walls that are already constructed in urban and suburban areas of Australia. Regions of green walls having high volume of insect biodiversity will mainly be focused upon. The researchers also need to identify the insect species that are discovered in the areas around green wall, which will help them to understand the major types of insects that will be benefited with construction of more number of Green walls.

It will be also important for the researcher to focus upon the biological life cycle of each of the insects. This will help them to understand the significance of green wall and the plants that are used, which can have a major contribution of on the biological life cycle of insects. The study also need to focus up on the planet diversity or the type of plants that are mainly associated with the green walls. The study also need to focus upon green walls that are constructed in golf courses, urban part and residential Gardens.

Methodology

After the data are being collected from various sources related to the green walls and insect biodiversity, the researchers will use statistical tools in the form of quantitative data analysis method. This will help them to properly evaluate and establish hypothesis of relationship between green walls and insect biodiversity.

The process of Data Collection that will be used is highly visible in context of the research work. As the popularity of green walls in the urban areas of Australia especially in golf parks and residential parts are going high, it will be highly feasible for the researchers to collect relevant data from the given sources.

It will also be easily possible to collect the data about the insect biodiversity that are available in the urban areas in Australia. This will help in understanding the importance of relationship between the Biodiversity in green walls and insect biological life cycle. Hence, the research work will attempt to establish effective relationship between the existing green walls and insect biodiversity. As data about the insect biodiversity will be collected it will help in the feasibility to understand the significance of the greeneries that is helping to maintain the insect biodiversity.

Research Design of the project will help to make it more feasible due to the fact that it will be easily possible to collect the data and establish the relationship. Research will be conducted within a period of 7 weeks. In the first week the research will decide upon the green walls in the Australian urban areas from where they are willing to collect relevant information. The next to week the researchers will focus upon collecting important information related to the green walls and insect biodiversity. In the following week, the researchers will use the data for identifying the insect biodiversity.

The result of the research work is expected to identify all the major type of insect species that are growing in the urban areas of Australia due to the construction of green walls in residential parks and golf parks. Research work will also highlight upon the biological life cycle of the insects and thereby help to understand the evolution process that the insects have adopted in order to survive in the urban areas. It will thereby help to understand the change process that have undergone in the biological life cycle of the insects as they are adopting in the urban lifestyle.

The result of the research work is expected to raise the awareness of the eco friendly people in Australia about the significance of constructing green walls. This is because the expected result of the research work will highlight upon the growth of insect biodiversity that is mainly possible due to rise in the number of Green walls.

Data Collection

As a project work will help in raising the level of awareness within the common people about the importance of clean walls, it will help in the process of economic and urban social development. This will be more important in the context of the current days due to the fact that the activity of modern human beings imposing a great pressure upon the environmental ecosystem.

The green walls are also believed to be economically sustainable due to the fact that it can also act as Natural air conditioner, thereby reducing the cost of energy consumption in domestic households. As the total number of species are increased due to the insect biodiversity, it is also possible to maintain the environmental balance in the urban areas (Prodanovic et al. 2017).

After successful evaluation and conclusion of the research work, it will easily be possible to understand the evolutionary adaptation that occurred within the lifestyle of insects. This will help in the process of reducing the environmental degradation in the form of air pollution. As scientists will be able to understand the change in the biological life cycle of insects, it will possible for them to suggest future steps to enhance the construction of green walls. This will help in the process of raising the Awareness of the people about taking initiative of constructing more number of Green walls in urban areas.

It is highly important for the researchers to consider the ethical factors associated with the research work. As they are dealing with the subject of biological diversity, it is important for the researchers to ensure that they do not cause any harm to the biological lifecycle and local ecosystem for the sake of the research work.

The researchers will also need to identify the risks that are associated due to the investigation work. For this research work, investigators need to follow significant procedures to ensure that no insects are being harmed while they are conducting study about their biological life cycle. This is the essential step for bio security that is a part of the research ethics (Hinchliffe et al. 2013).

Reference List:

Hinchliffe, S., Allen, J., Lavau, S., Bingham, N. and Carter, S., 2013. Biosecurity and the topologies of infected life: from borderlines to borderlands. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 38(4), pp.531-543.

Madre, F., Clergeau, P., Machon, N. and Vergnes, A., 2015. Building biodiversity: Vegetated façades as habitats for spider and beetle assemblages. Global Ecology and Conservation, 3, pp.222-233.

Prodanovic, V., Hatt, B., McCarthy, D., Zhang, K. and Deletic, A., 2017. Green walls for greywater reuse: Understanding the role of media on pollutant removal. Ecological Engineering, 102, pp.625-635.

Rupprecht, C.D., Byrne, J.A., Garden, J.G. and Hero, J.M., 2015. Informal urban green space: A trilingual systematic review of its role for biodiversity and trends in the literature. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 14(4), pp.883-908.

Williams, N.S., Lundholm, J. and Scott MacIvor, J., 2014. Do green roofs help urban biodiversity conservation?. Journal of applied ecology, 51(6), pp.1643-1649.