Local assessment of New York City: Biodiversity, green space, and ecosystem services

Abstract

New York City (NYC) is a complex megacity with a diverse human population situated in a constellation of estuarine and terrestrial ecosystems. With over 20 million people in the metropolitan region, NYC nevertheless has rich biodiversity that provides a broad suite of ecosystem services, with new assessments of biodiversity underway in city government, NGOs, and universities. NYC contains the most parkland of any U.S. city and currently about 21 % of the city is covered by tree canopy. PlaNYC, the environmental and economic sustainability plan for NYC, set a goal of planting one million new trees by 2017, with the hope that canopy cover will reach 30 % by 2030. However, signifi cant challenges to local and regional biodiversity remain, including pollution, climate change, sea level rise, stormwater management, and human population growth. Nonetheless, NYC has made progress in improving the environmental quality of its urban ecosystems and in the provisioning of a broad range of urban ecosystem services. Three elements are key to this progress: (1) coherent governmental support in the form of an overarching long-term planning document, PlaNYC and the NYC Green Infrastructure Plan; (2) systematic investment in natural areas, green infrastructure and civic engagement by a rich variety of organizations; and (3) a commitment to the acquisition of data that facilitate informed decision-making.