 |
 |
 |
|---|
LIUDD Case Studies – South West Christchurch
The Christchurch City Council is in the early stages of planning a substantial, more or less self-contained, 1000-ha urban development in SW Christchurch, incorporating integrated catchment management principles . Information gathering and some Lincoln University and consultant-led research is well advanced.
Current research opportunities concern the evolution of the urban cultural landscape and the conscious manipulation of this. How do these processes operate and how are they controlled at different scales – and in different climatic and topographic conditions?
Focusing on this study area, we are intending to examine the evolution of the hydro-toxicology, social structure of the community, and biodiversity within contrasting development styles in the SW Christchurch growth area.
Integrating (and retrofitting) nature into new urban developments involves an understanding of, and input into, the spatial and site-specific design and configuration of patches, corridors, and the matrix. Each of these spatial components has a role in influencing/managing stormwater, sediment, toxins, biodiversity and costs. Together these elements combine in functional (multiple pathways and resource ‘conservative’) or dysfunctional (leaky) ecosystems or catchments.
There are four components to the study in the focal area of SW Christchurch:
- Hydrology – integrated catchment management focusing on water and sediment detention or filtering and minimising substrate disturbance amd impervious surfaces.
- Toxicology – elimination at source and effective detention or filtration and subsequent treatment of filterbeds. Investigate inputs of toxins into domestic environments (gardens and drains) and track their pathways through the catchment.
- Sociology & Planning – characterising the evolving social relations in a new greenfields suburb and devising and testing various strategies for engaging individuals and neighbourhoods in incorporating biodiversity and functional habitats within suburbs.
- Biodiversity – at site/property, neighbourhood, and whole suburb/catchment scales. The purpose of this component is to integrate functional nature into low impact urban developments.
At the site/property level are biodiverse garden elements; at the neighbourhood level are street swales, drains, and local playground groves of trees; and at the suburb/catchment level are habitat patches and perhaps one or more larger sanctuaries. The latter may be in the form of restored forest patches 5–10 ha in size and/or detention ponds >5 ha and surrounding wetlands – some with filtration function. This project will involve applying patch dynamics models (of plants and invertebrates) to the planning of wetland and forest patch configurations to the SW Christchurch development.
Some of this biodiversity work will be linked to baseline knowledge of biotopes and successional processes in recent conventional developments alongside the newer LIUDD.
Studies on propagule rain between developing habitat patches and surrounding matrix and seed banks across this gradient will be used to evaluate the efficacy of the patch configurations incorporated in new developments.
Contact
 | Colin Meurk Email  |
Landcare Research | |
Phone: +64 3 321 9999 | |
| Details: Colin Meurk |