More than half of the human population lived in urban areas in 2024. This figure is expected to rise further, with implications for biodiversity and the life of ecological communities that this environment harbors and connects, but can also disrupt and fragment. Urban ecological connectivity is a comparatively new field of research that focuses on the extent to which urban green spaces (UGS) are spatially connected, which are critical to urban ecology through their biodiversity. In this artec paper, David J. Torne uses various methods of image and satellite data analysis (visual, GRIS data and NDVI) to examine the tree cover of the Bremen-Gr?pelingen district to determine the extent to which the overgrown areas are spatially connected and compares the capabilities of the different analysis methods to answer this question.

The paper is a product of the EU-funded research project Biodiverse Cities at the artec Sustainability Research Center. It is part of a series of artec papers presenting various socio-ecological studies in Bremen-Gr?pelingen.

The artec Sustainability Research Center is an interdisciplinary center of the University of Bremen for scientific research on sustainability issues. In its publications series ‘artec Paper’ the research center publishes a loose series of articles and talks as well as selected working papers and reports from research projects.

You can read the complete artec paper no. 236 here. Please also note our further artec papers.