Designing sustainable urban landscape and meeting the challenge of climate change: a study of plant species adaptation and fitness under different climate change scenarios in public landscape of UK

Abstract

There is much evidence to indicate the climate is changing. In order to investigate the effects of climate change on the designed landscape in the UK and suggest new plant species for using in the UK greenspace, according to the 2050 UK climate change scenario, 12 climate change scenarios were designed and simulated. Eighteen plant species, native to Western Europe, the Mediterranean area, and the Southern Rocky Mountain Region were chosen to represent a gradient from well fitted to poorly fitted to the current British climate. Plant species seedlings were grown in situ under 450 and 900 ppm of CO2 concentration with three watering regime rates and two different temperature treatments. The plant response of the community and individual species to CO2 concentration, changing precipitation, temperature and interaction effects of these environmental factors on designed plant community in urban areas were investigated. The results indicated that a mix of maritime climate species and southern European, Mediterranean climate species which showed a high level of sustainability in current and future UK climate scenarios, is recommended to design a multi-layer plant community and dynamic public landscape.