#97: Climate Adaptation Strategies for Urban Trees and Woodlands

[00:00:09] Welcome to The Green Urbanist, a podcast for urbanists fighting climate change. I'm Ross.

[00:00:24] Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast. It's your old pal Ross here. I'm really excited to be doing this episode. Let me tell you a little bit about it.

[00:00:36] So, back in summer of 2024, I had the opportunity to do a small research project for a local nature reserve near where I used to live in East London.

[00:00:46] So I've since moved to Italy. I'm now living just outside Milan, but for years, over seven years, I lived in London, mostly in East London.

[00:00:56] And for the last year, I've been volunteering at this amazing place called Bethel and Green Nature Reserve.

[00:01:01] And it's a tiny pocket of dense forest and a pond and a little bit of medicinal plant growing area in East London.

[00:01:15] It's just a wonderful place and I had a great time volunteering there.

[00:01:19] And when the reserve managers got to the point where they were looking to update their management plan, which they're doing at the moment,

[00:01:29] I propose I do a research project for them on something that I'm really, really interested in and passionate about, which is climate adaptation.

[00:01:37] Now, we often think of climate adaptation in terms of the effects of climate change on human society.

[00:01:43] And if you don't know what climate adaptation is or you're not too sure about what that term is,

[00:01:48] I've done episodes on this in the past.

[00:01:51] And essentially, it's about changes to our behaviour and our management and our ways that we live and design and plan cities in response to climate change.

[00:02:05] Either the effects of climate change that we're feeling right now or the effects that we anticipate we'll feel in the future.

[00:02:11] So that's climate adaptation.

[00:02:13] It exists and it's growing in terms of a practice across things like, as you'd expect, flood resilience and responses to heat waves in a way to keep humans safe,

[00:02:28] keep people resilient in response to climate change.

[00:02:33] But I think we can't forget that our ecosystems and the habitats that we depend on and all the animals that we share our built spaces with also need to adapt to climate change.

[00:02:45] So this project was looking at, if we look at this nature reserve in East London, which happened to be mostly woodland with a pond.

[00:02:54] And I really want to know what impact is climate change going to have on this space in the coming years?

[00:03:02] Let's say I said up until sort of 2050, just to give something to aim for.

[00:03:08] And how could the management of a reserve like this change?

[00:03:13] How could the management adapt in response to climate change and the predicted effects of climate change?

[00:03:19] Now, if you're starting to think, well, this is really specific, this isn't really relevant to me.

[00:03:23] What I'm going to do in this episode, instead of talking about the real specifics of this site,

[00:03:29] I'm going to just pull out the learnings more broadly from this research project that I think is applicable to lots of different spaces,

[00:03:38] in particular to natural and semi-natural spaces within cities.

[00:03:45] A lot of the research is focused on the UK and the south of England, and particularly London.

[00:03:50] So if you're based in that sort of area, this would be really specific, really, you know, specific and interesting for you.

[00:03:56] If you're somewhere else in the world, I think you'll still get something out of this episode.

[00:04:00] So do listen on.

[00:04:01] And hey, if you get bored, there's 95 other episodes of The Green Urbanist.

[00:04:06] Go and find one of those to listen to.

[00:04:07] So if you're still listening, what I'm going to cover today and what you're going to learn,

[00:04:11] hopefully, is a new way of conceptualising climate change in cities.

[00:04:18] You're going to learn how climate change might affect some really key tree species and plant species within England and temperate Europe.

[00:04:28] And you're going to learn about some climate adaptation options and strategies that urban nature reserves and other semi-natural spaces could explore in order to build resilience or to adapt their spaces and their ecology to climate change.

[00:04:47] Before we get into the main part of the episode, I just want to let you know that I am currently finalising an online course that will be available to purchase in the coming weeks, probably in November 2024.

[00:05:02] And that is called, that course is called Sustainability Essentials for Built Environment Professionals.

[00:05:09] And what it is, is that if you're at the beginning of your sustainability journey, if you're not really sure where to start, if you haven't studied this stuff before, but you want to start making a positive impact in terms of climate action in your career,

[00:05:22] then this course gives you an introduction to a whole range of topics and concepts and really the key information that you need to get started and figure out where you want to go next in sustainability.

[00:05:34] So it will cover topics like net-series carbon, climate adaptation, biodiversity, also things like regenerative design, circular economy, and lots and lots of case studies and examples and really tangible examples of this stuff in action.

[00:05:51] It's going to be quite concise.

[00:05:53] It's going to be less than two hours long, and it's going to be lots of bite-sized video lessons about each of these topics.

[00:06:00] So if that sounds like something that you would benefit from, what you can do is follow the link in the episode description.

[00:06:07] So if you just scroll down in the episode description, the episode details, you'll see a link to the course.

[00:06:13] Go there. You can learn a bit more on that page.

[00:06:15] You can also enter your email address to be put on the specific mailing list for people who are interested in purchasing that course once it's available.

[00:06:24] There's information on pricing and the curriculum and everything on that page.

[00:06:27] So do go have a look. I'll be sending out some more emails and talking about it some more once it goes live.

[00:06:33] But if you do that, you'll make sure to be the first to know once it's available.

[00:06:37] And you also get a 50% discount if you're part of that initial cohort that gets access to the course once it goes live in November.

[00:06:46] So don't miss that.

[00:06:48] All right, let's go back into the main part of the episode.

[00:06:53] So if you're thinking about climate change and you're trying to plan for adapting to climate change, the first thing you really need to look at is what are the predictions?

[00:07:02] What are the projections for climate change within your area?

[00:07:06] And this is a huge topic in and of itself.

[00:07:09] So to cover it kind of succinctly, I suppose I'll just tell you a bit about my process.

[00:07:14] So you might have heard about in the news, we're getting a lot of figures, things saying we are going to breach 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels within the next couple of years, probably.

[00:07:30] We're already at 1.2 or 1.3 degrees of warming, depending on how you measure it.

[00:07:36] We could go past two.

[00:07:38] Some scientists are saying we're projected to hit three degrees of warming.

[00:07:43] If you know the climate science, this stuff is quite scary.

[00:07:46] But actually, even for us, those of us who have studied climate science, it's quite hard to conceptualize really what does this mean.

[00:07:52] So what I wanted to do was to find some sort of more concrete, more tangible way of figuring out what are the effects of climate change on London as a city.

[00:08:04] And in particular, I'm looking at a really small site.

[00:08:08] So taking these big global projections and trying to refine them down into something that's tangible and feels real for a local context is really what I wanted to do.

[00:08:19] So if we think about, say, the UK in general, how much warming are we going to see?

[00:08:26] Well, it depends.

[00:08:27] It depends on our actions over the next couple of decades.

[00:08:30] We have several projections from the IPCC.

[00:08:34] Are we going to go business as usual?

[00:08:36] Are net zero targets going to take off?

[00:08:38] Is there going to be tipping points that will be triggered?

[00:08:41] There's a lot of unknowns, really, in the next couple of decades.

[00:08:44] That means it's really difficult to say with certainty, actually, how many degrees of warming and what does that mean for my local area?

[00:08:52] So instead, what I looked at was, first of all, let's just talk general projections.

[00:08:57] What are we sure about?

[00:08:59] Well, we're pretty sure whatever happens within the UK, there's going to be more heat waves, more droughts, less rainfall overall in the summer months, but also milder, wetter winters.

[00:09:13] Now, within that, the weather is also getting more unpredictable.

[00:09:16] So, you know, seemingly random events of storms, droughts, heat waves, flooding, you know, big rainfall events happening when we're not really expecting it, that kind of thing.

[00:09:30] Then if you zoom in even further and you start to think, well, at my city level, you know, what am I expecting?

[00:09:36] And that gets really, really difficult.

[00:09:38] But there's a fantastic research paper that was published in 2019 by a team of scientists led by Baston.

[00:09:47] So it's Baston et al. 2019.

[00:09:50] And the title of that paper is Understanding Climate Change from a Global Analysis of City Analogues.

[00:10:00] So let me read to you a little bit of the abstract, which I think will explain what this paper is about and why I think it's useful.

[00:10:08] And this might give you, I'll put a link to it.

[00:10:11] I don't know if it's available open source, but I'll try and include a link to somewhere where you can read it for free.

[00:10:18] Because it's well worth actually just going in and you'll be, you might be able to find, if you live in a major city somewhere in the world, you'll be able to find some information in there.

[00:10:28] But let me just explain what this is about.

[00:10:30] So the abstract of the paper reads,

[00:10:32] Here we test the extent to which the iconic cities around the world are likely to shift in response to climate change.

[00:10:40] By analysing city pairs for 520 major cities of the world, we test if their climate in 2050 will resemble more closely to their own current climate conditions or to the current conditions of other cities in different bioclimatic regions.

[00:10:55] Even under an optimistic climate scenario, we found that 77% of future cities are very likely to experience a climate that is closer to that of another existing city than to its own current climate.

[00:11:11] In addition, 22% of cities will experience climate conditions that are not currently experienced by any major existing cities.

[00:11:22] As a general trend, we found that all cities tend to shift towards the subtropics, with cities from the northern hemisphere shifting to warmer conditions on average about 1,000 kilometres south.

[00:11:34] And cities from the tropics shifting to drier conditions.

[00:11:38] We notably predict that Madrid's climate in 2050 will resemble Marrakesha's climate today.

[00:11:45] Stockholm will resemble Budapest.

[00:11:48] London will resemble Barcelona.

[00:11:50] Moscow to Sofia.

[00:11:53] Seattle to San Francisco.

[00:11:55] And Tokyo to Changsha.

[00:11:58] Gonna be honest, I don't know where Changsha is, but maybe you do and maybe that's helpful.

[00:12:03] So hopefully that bit of the abstract there paints a clear picture for you.

[00:12:07] Actually, how dramatic the changes in climate are likely to be at the city level by 2050.

[00:12:14] 2050 is not that far away.

[00:12:17] For me, doing this report on a site in London, the one of London being more similar to the current climate of Barcelona is pretty startling.

[00:12:29] Even if you've never been to Barcelona, you know that's a Mediterranean place.

[00:12:33] It's a lot hotter and drier than London is currently.

[00:12:36] So it gives a real tangible connection of saying, ah, I can actually imagine what this will be like.

[00:12:43] And then you can start to think about, well, how are we going to deal with a Barcelona-like climate in London?

[00:12:48] We've never had that before.

[00:12:50] We haven't had to deal with the kind of droughts or the kind of heat that Barcelona gets regularly.

[00:12:56] But then you start to think about the ecology.

[00:12:58] And, you know, the ecology in northern Spain is quite different to London and the south of England.

[00:13:04] So how is that going to cope?

[00:13:06] How are our major tree species going to cope with that sort of temperature changes and those changes in precipitation?

[00:13:18] So it's not a perfect model because, you know, in reality, it's not, you know, our climate won't be perfectly like Barcelona.

[00:13:27] But in the broad, you know, in broad ways, it will be more similar.

[00:13:32] It'll probably also be more unpredictable than Barcelona's climate is now in terms of storms and rainfall events and things like that.

[00:13:39] So you have to factor that into it as well.

[00:13:41] Just the general, you know, increase in sort of chaotic weather that will happen.

[00:13:47] Now, for those of you who are outside of London, maybe outside of Europe, I want to read a bit more from this study because it is quite startling.

[00:13:55] So in terms of general trends, cities in the northern hemisphere like North America and Europe are likely to shift southwards.

[00:14:06] And there are existing cities, major cities that have similar climates, these climate analogues.

[00:14:13] And for tropical and subtropical regions, the article goes on to say this.

[00:14:18] These trends highlight the extreme vulnerability of tropical and subtropical cities, 30% of which will experience shifts into entirely novel climate regions with no existing analogues across the world's major cities.

[00:14:34] So that is obviously extremely, extremely concerning.

[00:14:38] And in a sense, these cities are sort of stepping into the unknown and they don't have the benefit of looking to cities to the south, seeing how they've dealt with this climate.

[00:14:49] It's, you know, the report says that this lens supports the idea of novel climates.

[00:14:55] It isn't just that these places are shifting towards climates that exist elsewhere in the world, but they're actually novel.

[00:15:03] We haven't seen them before and therefore it's quite difficult to know exactly how to adapt to that.

[00:15:09] So in many ways, you know, in northern Europe, in temperate regions, we really have it easy.

[00:15:15] You know, I mean, we're going to see huge changes over the coming years, but it's not on the same scale of cities in the tropics and the subtropics.

[00:15:23] Coming back to London today, coming back to London now, that is kind of more of the focus of today's episode.

[00:15:37] There's just a quote here I'll read from the paper that just says exactly why it's useful to use this climate analogues approach.

[00:15:45] So the paper says,

[00:15:46] In 2008, Barcelona experienced extreme drought conditions, which required the importation of 22 million euros of drinking water.

[00:16:05] Since then, the municipal government has implemented a series of smart initiatives to manage the city's water resources, including the control of park irrigation and water fountain levels.

[00:16:17] And then it goes on to say, you know, London could look at Barcelona, what they're doing to inform what they need to do, what London needs to do in the coming years.

[00:16:26] So great paper. I'll put a link to it in the episode description so you can check it out and maybe learn a bit about your city.

[00:16:33] But let's move back to some of the findings.

[00:16:36] So what I wanted to do was I looked at this nature reserve and I had a look at what were the dominant vegetation that was there.

[00:16:46] So I've mentioned that the reserve is largely woodland, sort of semi-natural British woodland.

[00:16:53] The canopy level, so the tallest trees, are really dominated by three species, which is European ash, English oak and also, excuse me, field maple.

[00:17:09] I have it written down. So English oak, European ash and field maple.

[00:17:16] So these are the main sort of big canopy species.

[00:17:18] So they're quite important because they're providing a lot of habitat for birds, for invertebrates, and they're also providing that level of shade to the forest.

[00:17:26] Underneath that, in the layers underneath, you have several also very important native species of smaller tree.

[00:17:34] Things like common hawthorn, dogwood. What else do we have?

[00:17:41] Those are actually kind of the two main smaller trees that we find.

[00:17:45] And then there's a number of other species there which are quite important.

[00:17:49] There's one black mulberry tree. There is one English elm, whose numbers are declining nationally.

[00:17:56] There's one common juniper as well.

[00:17:59] So there's a couple of sort of quite special trees in there that we don't really want to lose.

[00:18:03] And then in terms of the ground cover, we have a really rich ground layer, which again will be really important for ecology.

[00:18:10] And these are things like ground ivy.

[00:18:14] Also things like Alexanders.

[00:18:16] So if you don't know Alexanders, these are, well, you can Google them and you'll see what they look like.

[00:18:26] They're kind of, you know, you would walk by it and not really notice that anything was strange about it.

[00:18:30] But it's an interesting plant because it's thought to have been brought over by the Romans, you know, 2000 years ago.

[00:18:38] It's commonly found along coastal regions in the Mediterranean and also, weirdly, in London.

[00:18:46] And it's really, really, it's a really sort of fast growing species and it was used actually for food.

[00:18:53] So you can make food out of it.

[00:18:54] I'm not exactly sure how.

[00:18:56] I've never tried it myself, but apparently it was used in kitchen gardens.

[00:19:00] And so that's how it sort of ended up just being released into cities and why you find it in London and other British cities.

[00:19:09] Because people were growing it in their gardens, essentially.

[00:19:12] I'll come back to Alexanders, which is quite an interesting one.

[00:19:15] And then there's other things like wild privet, butcher's broom, common name, and common ivy, which is on a lot of the trees.

[00:19:25] If those don't really mean anything to you, don't worry.

[00:19:28] I won't get too into like the botany of it.

[00:19:32] But I was just to say, those were the species I was interested in looking at because they form the sort of,

[00:19:37] they're the most sort of dominant species within that reserve.

[00:19:41] Now, what does this mean generally?

[00:19:43] Well, lots of these species are very common across England, but also across Northern Europe.

[00:19:50] And so, you know, this sort of research is useful for a lot of other contexts as well.

[00:19:55] And so I was interested, the question was, okay, if the climate is moving more towards something like Barcelona,

[00:20:01] how are these species going to do in that climate?

[00:20:05] You know, are they just going to be fried to death?

[00:20:09] You know, are they going to succumb to drought?

[00:20:12] Or could they actually be quite resilient and do quite well in that sort of warmer, drier climate?

[00:20:17] That was essentially the question.

[00:20:18] And I'll give you some headlines, which is that I basically looked at two factors.

[00:20:23] One, do these species currently exist in Barcelona slash northeastern Spain, that sort of area?

[00:20:31] And I just looked at range maps of where you find these species.

[00:20:35] And then the other thing I did is actually look into the peer-reviewed research and see,

[00:20:40] has anyone researched how resilient these species are to heat and drought in particular?

[00:20:47] And from that, you know, those two factors, I kind of figured out how vulnerable these particular species would be.

[00:20:54] And I gave them a rating, high, medium, low.

[00:20:58] The sort of score, the vulnerability level isn't based on anything particularly scientific.

[00:21:04] It's just what I reckon from reading the research.

[00:21:07] So, you know, take that with a grain of salt.

[00:21:10] But it allows me just to bundle up the findings in a slightly easy way.

[00:21:19] So looking to 2050, there's really two species of major concern that identified in the study.

[00:21:25] And that's European ash and English oak.

[00:21:28] Now, interestingly, both of these species have been reported in literature as being generally drought tolerant,

[00:21:35] maybe heat tolerant.

[00:21:37] But there isn't like really, really good research to back that up.

[00:21:41] I think that's more of a accepted wisdom type thing.

[00:21:46] And what I saw is that actually their natural ranges don't extend to northeastern Spain or the Barcelona area.

[00:21:53] So that flags up that it may be a concern for them in coming decades that they're entering

[00:21:58] or the climate is shifting around them in a way that that species isn't usually found in.

[00:22:06] So that might tell us that they will likely struggle in the coming decades, up to 2050-ish mid-century.

[00:22:14] And the other thing is that there have been situations of oak woodland failure in temperate Europe.

[00:22:21] Not necessarily English oak, but other species of oak within temperate Europe that have failed because of associations with drought.

[00:22:28] So that's another thing to bear in mind, I think, looking at what has happened in other places that have had periods of drought.

[00:22:38] And it seems that oak can be vulnerable to that.

[00:22:43] So those are my sort of, you know, alarm bells ringing like, okay, these two species, which are really important and found, you know, widespread across England,

[00:22:53] may be at risk in the coming decades.

[00:22:56] And I'll get on in a moment to talk about what we might do in response to that.

[00:23:02] A couple of other species I've put in the medium category, which is that basically there's some evidence that they might be vulnerable to heat or drought.

[00:23:16] However, they are generally found in northeastern Spain and that sort of area.

[00:23:21] So things like common hawthorn, dogwood, black mulberry, these are species that you would find in Mediterranean regions.

[00:23:31] But for one reason or another, there's something in the research that says actually they might be slightly susceptible to drought or to heat.

[00:23:42] English elm and ground ivy have also put in that category.

[00:23:48] And then there's a couple of species I looked at, which I would consider low vulnerability.

[00:23:52] And these are things that actually, if anything, may thrive in a warmer climate.

[00:23:57] So notably within this category is field maple.

[00:24:01] Field maple is found throughout Europe, including north of Spain, and is generally considered to prefer warmer climates and be heat tolerant.

[00:24:10] So that's a species that, you know, all things being equal may actually do quite well with some extra heat, some extra warmth.

[00:24:19] Alexanders, which I mentioned before, they're a Mediterranean species.

[00:24:22] They actually, I think there may be a risk of them becoming quite invasive and actually outcompeting native species.

[00:24:29] They do very, they're very heat, they're particularly heat adapted and they do quite well in Mediterranean type climates.

[00:24:35] And they already grow quite vigorously.

[00:24:37] So in the case of Bethlehem Green Nature Reserve, after, you know, the ground level of the forest had started to see a lot of Alexander growth after one or two years,

[00:24:50] the volunteers and the managers decided to go in and thin them out.

[00:24:55] So they didn't remove them all together, but they just thinned them out because there was a sense that actually these might be taking over a little bit.

[00:25:01] And what's interesting is there's actually a vacant site that borders the nature reserve.

[00:25:09] And literally every inch of the ground on that vacant site is covered with Alexanders.

[00:25:14] So we sort of had that to look at to sort of say, OK, well, that's what can happen if there's no management put in place for what is an exotic species.

[00:25:23] So they were careful just to go in and thin those out and probably will do into the future.

[00:25:31] And then there's a couple of other things.

[00:25:33] I mean, I mentioned wild privet, butcher's broom, common ivy.

[00:25:36] All of these species probably will do quite well in a Mediterranean type climate.

[00:25:44] So not too much concern about those failing or dying out.

[00:25:49] Although, of course, the caveat we have to put on all this is every site is different.

[00:25:54] Your soil conditions, your microclimate, everything has to be taken into account.

[00:25:58] And so, you know, your mileage may vary.

[00:26:00] But this is as specific as we can really get within this report, within this research project.

[00:26:08] Now, clearly, the small number of species that I've looked at here is just a drop in the ocean in terms of what you might have in your local area.

[00:26:16] Or if you have a park or a nature reserve in mind, what might be there, what might be the typical species found there.

[00:26:23] So, you know, your own research is sort of needed.

[00:26:25] And as a starting point, what I'd invite you to do, what is a great resource that I'm so happy I found, is the EU has published a tree atlas for Europe.

[00:26:36] And it's available.

[00:26:38] It's a massive, massive document.

[00:26:39] I think you can get it physically.

[00:26:40] It's like well over a thousand pages.

[00:26:42] But they have every chapter, which is a different common tree species found in Europe, available online.

[00:26:48] And I'll put the link to that in the episode description.

[00:26:51] It is, it basically, you go through and it has a chapter for every, it looks like almost every tree species within, within, found within Europe.

[00:27:05] And beautiful illustrated chapters, full colour.

[00:27:10] And within each of those chapters, you have a range map that shows where these species are found.

[00:27:16] And it also has like a survivability map where it says, you know, something like English Oak will say England, unsurprisingly, high survivability.

[00:27:26] And then northern Spain, Mediterranean region, very low survivability.

[00:27:30] And so you get a sense of actually, if we, if we have an idea of where the climate is shifting further south, further towards the tropics or towards the Mediterranean regions, this is sort of a good first touch to say, am I concerned about this species going forward?

[00:27:48] It's quite a blunt way of analysing this, and I'm sure anyone who's a tree expert listening is thinking like, this is, you know, this is not how you would necessarily do this.

[00:28:00] Obviously, ideal situation, get someone who's really knowledgeable about your tree species to talk to about this and look at the peer-reviewed research.

[00:28:11] But as a first pass, this is, I think, a really good resource.

[00:28:14] And a really good resource just for learning more about particular tree species, if you're interested in that.

[00:28:19] So links to that is in the episode description as well.

[00:28:26] So let's think a little bit about what does some of this mean.

[00:28:30] So I've said there's a couple of species, English Oak and European Ash, which, you know, there's a real possibility that we could start seeing these species dying out, failing due to drought and heat in the coming decades.

[00:28:46] And then there's other species that may struggle, that may have their growth stunted, that may lose some of their crown or may fail in particular circumstances as well.

[00:28:57] And so, you know, it isn't if you're just, let's say, if you're just looking at street trees or if you just had a tree in your garden, then that level of analysis might be enough.

[00:29:08] But if you're interested in looking at habitats and ecosystems, things like nature reserves, things like maybe park habitats, semi-natural habitats that you might find in cities,

[00:29:18] then you really want to be thinking, OK, what are the knock-on implications of this for the wider habitat?

[00:29:24] And so if you've got a semi-mature, semi-natural woodland with a really good structure of vegetation, you've got a canopy layer, you've got these smaller trees within that, you've got a base layer.

[00:29:36] And then suddenly some of your major canopy layer species, things like the English oaks and the European ash, die out due to climate change or you lose a number of them.

[00:29:47] What happens is now that shading is gone.

[00:29:51] And what you've got is you've got sunlight, which essentially is energy coming into the forest, maybe hitting the forest floor, hitting the lower trees that are below that.

[00:30:01] And it starts to change the dynamic of that habitat quite a lot.

[00:30:05] So you can imagine in a situation where you have a number of these large canopy level species die out,

[00:30:13] now you've suddenly got all this more energy coming into the system and you may well have species in there,

[00:30:19] maybe some exotic species that are already pre-adapted to this warmer condition.

[00:30:23] And now they have all this energy that they're getting from the sun to help them grow.

[00:30:27] So what you might see is the dynamic shift over several years, several decades from being a sort of closed canopy woodland to being something that has this vibrant growth of understory

[00:30:40] and actually may start to look more like a sort of scrubby grassland habitat where you have left fewer trees, but a really dense lower layer.

[00:30:51] So that's really interesting.

[00:30:52] It's not the habitat you had before, but it is still a habitat.

[00:30:55] It's probably very good for a particular species.

[00:30:58] And you might see some species of bird or invertebrate or bat reduce and you might see others increase, you know, the sort of animals that rely.

[00:31:07] So there'll be this real shifting balance, shifting ecologies happening over the next couple of decades, which I think is really interesting.

[00:31:15] It's quite exciting, really.

[00:31:17] And I think, you know, I talked to the reserve managers and a couple of the volunteers.

[00:31:24] I did a little talk on this report for them.

[00:31:26] And one of the things that they said afterwards was, they said, maybe we just need to be a bit less precious about the species we're going to lose

[00:31:33] and be a bit more excited about the species that are sort of going to win out from this situation.

[00:31:39] And that we might have an opportunity to see new sorts of habitats take over and we get a chance to study and see what that does to animals and to the ecology of the place.

[00:31:52] It could be really exciting.

[00:31:53] It's certainly going to be different.

[00:31:57] Some of you may be thinking, well, that feels like overly hopeful.

[00:32:02] It's a bit overly optimistic.

[00:32:05] And I get that because we're constantly bombarded with sort of doom and gloom narrative about climate change.

[00:32:12] So I think the reality is that it's very possible we'll see what ecologists call regime shifts in certain habitats.

[00:32:20] And what that means is climate conditions change and a habitat that once was stable, like a woodland,

[00:32:28] hits a tipping point where it can no longer support itself and shifts into a new baseline of a different type of habitat.

[00:32:35] That has happened in the world because of various reasons.

[00:32:41] That has happened, I think, because of climate change in places like Africa,

[00:32:45] where lakes, which had been there for centuries, have dried out and transformed into grassland.

[00:32:50] And all the people that were once fishermen then had to become herders because their ecosystem had changed around them and they had to adapt dramatically.

[00:33:01] So there are situations around the world where this has happened.

[00:33:04] These regime shifts have happened.

[00:33:06] And we might start to see them in cities, in local parks, in local nature reserves,

[00:33:11] in the edges of cities, in these semi-natural spaces that are really important for people who use them.

[00:33:17] If we think for a moment about typical urban parks.

[00:33:22] The typical park you find in Britain and across much of the world, thanks to colonialism,

[00:33:27] is basically a manicured lawn that is cut every couple of weeks and a couple of feature trees.

[00:33:37] Some of them may be exotic, some of them may be native, and then maybe some ornamental planting,

[00:33:42] maybe some flowers planted and that kind of thing.

[00:33:45] Generally not very, very ecologically diverse, not very biodiverse,

[00:33:51] although some parks in London in particular have many, many types of trees, types of tree species,

[00:33:56] but they're just not sort of within their natural habitat.

[00:33:59] They're in a sort of human-made, contrived landscape, which is this urban park aesthetic that we've become very used to having.

[00:34:10] It's very interesting to think about how that may change over the coming years.

[00:34:17] Are we going to be able to support vast swathes of lawn when we have reduced rainfall, when we have more drought?

[00:34:25] I think many of us living in cities have experienced what has happened to our parks in the last couple of summers

[00:34:32] when we've had periods of drought and heat waves,

[00:34:34] and just seen them go from this lush green area to brown, fried, dusty.

[00:34:44] I can't even call it a lawn or a grass anymore, but just this dried out, dead vegetation.

[00:34:51] And seeing the trees really struggle, a lot of trees have dropped their leaves early in August in recent years

[00:34:57] because they literally didn't have enough water to sustain them.

[00:35:01] So they just, you know, people said it was like an early autumn.

[00:35:04] And so, you know, we have to start to think about how we adapt our expectations,

[00:35:11] our management regimes, our design practices

[00:35:14] in anticipation that the climate that we'll be in won't be this,

[00:35:20] what we've been used to basically for our whole lives.

[00:35:24] We will be shifting as I discussed.

[00:35:29] So that's where this idea of climate adaptation, but also building and resilience comes into it.

[00:35:35] How can we change our expectations, our management and our design approach

[00:35:39] to build more resilient and climate adapted spaces?

[00:35:46] That should really be on the top of the mind of everyone who's involved in this sort of work.

[00:35:54] So I'm going to give you three main management recommendations,

[00:35:58] which is what I gave in this report to the Nature Reserve,

[00:36:02] but I think are likely to be relevant for you as well.

[00:36:06] Now, this is really more geared towards managing an existing site.

[00:36:11] At the end, I might talk a little bit about if you're, let's say, a landscape architect

[00:36:16] or a master planner and you're designing new green spaces,

[00:36:19] what we can start to think about that as well.

[00:36:22] So the first thing is if you're managing an existing site,

[00:36:25] I think it's really important to just start with data collection.

[00:36:28] Start by establishing some ongoing monitoring of climate change impacts.

[00:36:33] One of the interesting things about the Nature Reserve that I was looking at

[00:36:36] is that it's mostly a woodland, but it does have a human-made pond in it as well.

[00:36:43] And the pond has become a really important habitat for newts,

[00:36:46] for dragonflies and for several other species.

[00:36:49] And also birds use it as well throughout the year.

[00:36:52] So really, really nice, important little microhabitat there.

[00:36:57] And something I gleaned from the research is that ponds are a very fragile habitat.

[00:37:04] They're not very resilient.

[00:37:06] They're quite sensitive to change.

[00:37:08] And so when it's hot and dry, if it's a small pond,

[00:37:13] you will literally see the water level decrease.

[00:37:16] And we've seen that during the summer at this Nature Reserve,

[00:37:20] that the water level was getting really, really low.

[00:37:22] And we had to go in and actually bring in fresh water to refill it.

[00:37:27] So the other thing that may happen is over a longer period of time,

[00:37:31] several years, you might start to see the ecology within the pond change.

[00:37:34] As the water is getting hotter,

[00:37:36] maybe it becomes too hot for particular invertebrates to use for their larvae

[00:37:42] or as part of their life cycle.

[00:37:43] It may become too hot for newts or for frogs

[00:37:46] or other species that are making use of it.

[00:37:50] And so if you can monitor those changes,

[00:37:52] that's like an early warning system

[00:37:53] that will tell you that changes are also likely to come

[00:37:57] or that other more robust habitats are also feeling the stress,

[00:38:03] but they're just not showing it yet.

[00:38:04] So something like a woodland would be more resilient in general than a pond.

[00:38:09] And so you might not see,

[00:38:10] you might just look at it, you know,

[00:38:11] as a casual observer and think,

[00:38:13] well, it's lush and green and it's doing fine.

[00:38:15] But actually internally, you know, the vegetation,

[00:38:18] the animals may actually be struggling from heat in the summer.

[00:38:23] And, you know, if you have something like a pond,

[00:38:26] that's like an early warning system.

[00:38:27] So that was something that was very interesting that I thought.

[00:38:30] The other thing is if you don't have a pond

[00:38:33] or if you're just looking at terrestrial habitats,

[00:38:35] something like a woodland or a grassland,

[00:38:38] there are visual, visible effects,

[00:38:40] visual signs that you can look at.

[00:38:42] Things like leaf wilting and discoloration,

[00:38:46] premature leaf drop.

[00:38:47] So that's a sort of early autumn thing

[00:38:50] that you might've heard a couple of years ago.

[00:38:53] And crown dieback where, you know,

[00:38:56] basically you're just not getting leaf growth

[00:38:57] in subsequent years on the outer edges of the tree's crown.

[00:39:03] So if you had, say, a volunteer base

[00:39:05] or you had a site manager or a ranger or someone like that

[00:39:08] who can do this kind of ongoing monitoring,

[00:39:12] then over the couple of years,

[00:39:14] you'll start to build up quite a good data set

[00:39:16] and you'll be able to see trends.

[00:39:17] You'll be able to see if certain species are reducing.

[00:39:21] I didn't mention that,

[00:39:22] but you could do things like invertebrate surveys as well,

[00:39:24] which are quite like low tech to do

[00:39:26] and also quite fun to do with volunteers.

[00:39:29] You can do it with students

[00:39:30] and it's a learning opportunity as well.

[00:39:34] So those things are, I think, probably quite important.

[00:39:37] And for like well-funded big nature reserves,

[00:39:40] you're probably doing stuff like that already,

[00:39:42] but you're probably not doing it

[00:39:44] in things like urban parks

[00:39:45] or in smaller, more informal sort of natural sites.

[00:39:50] The second recommendation that I wanted to make

[00:39:52] is to look into something called scenario planning.

[00:39:56] So scenario planning is this kind of really,

[00:40:00] really good tool that has quite a dark past

[00:40:02] because it started with,

[00:40:05] really sort of started in the military,

[00:40:07] in the US military,

[00:40:08] and then it moved into the corporate world.

[00:40:11] And the organization that really pioneered

[00:40:13] scenario planning in business was Shell,

[00:40:15] the oil company,

[00:40:16] who wanted to look at different scenarios

[00:40:18] of climate change

[00:40:20] and shocks to the oil industry

[00:40:22] and how they can basically be ready for that

[00:40:25] and stay in business.

[00:40:27] So, you know, that's obviously quite concerning,

[00:40:31] but it started to move into

[00:40:33] the field of environmental management

[00:40:35] and climate science.

[00:40:37] And it's a really, really useful set of tools,

[00:40:40] scenario planning,

[00:40:42] that you can use in various different circumstances.

[00:40:45] So the crux of it is basically

[00:40:46] that you get together,

[00:40:48] usually in a group,

[00:40:49] get your site managers and your volunteers

[00:40:52] or your design team

[00:40:53] or whoever, you know,

[00:40:55] whoever is relevant to the project,

[00:40:56] members of the local community as well, maybe.

[00:40:59] And you think,

[00:41:00] okay, what are some possible future scenarios

[00:41:03] that we could experience on this site?

[00:41:06] And if you were looking, say, to 2050,

[00:41:08] then you might think about

[00:41:09] different levels of climate impact.

[00:41:11] So you think,

[00:41:12] well, if we have this natural space,

[00:41:14] let's think of a couple of scenarios.

[00:41:16] Let's say all the mature trees die,

[00:41:19] just to be blunt.

[00:41:21] One scenario.

[00:41:22] Another scenario is,

[00:41:24] you know, we have a huge storm

[00:41:25] and we lose, you know,

[00:41:28] X many species.

[00:41:29] Let's say that we don't,

[00:41:32] you know, maybe more of a optimistic scenario.

[00:41:35] Maybe we don't lose species,

[00:41:36] but we start to have issues

[00:41:38] with trees struggling with the heat,

[00:41:41] things like that.

[00:41:42] So you look at different

[00:41:42] potential future scenarios,

[00:41:44] all of which could come true.

[00:41:46] And then you just make a plan

[00:41:47] for how you would proactively plan

[00:41:49] or react to those situations.

[00:41:51] You sort of agree it collectively.

[00:41:53] And then when you have to take action,

[00:41:55] you already have it sort of agreed

[00:41:56] and written down somewhere.

[00:41:58] So there's lots of different

[00:42:00] workshop-based tools

[00:42:01] or different frameworks you can use

[00:42:04] for scenario planning.

[00:42:06] And honestly,

[00:42:06] if you just Google scenario planning,

[00:42:08] environmental management,

[00:42:09] something like that,

[00:42:10] you'll get a wealth of information

[00:42:12] and guidance

[00:42:13] about how you can use that.

[00:42:17] Okay, I can hear that I'm starting

[00:42:18] to lose my voice,

[00:42:19] so I'm going to try and wrap this up.

[00:42:22] And then the final sort of main recommendation

[00:42:24] I made in this report was

[00:42:26] to look at basically

[00:42:28] what other people have done

[00:42:29] in terms of climate adaptation strategies.

[00:42:32] And there's a really,

[00:42:33] really good report.

[00:42:33] Again, I'll link it

[00:42:34] in the episode description.

[00:42:35] I'm pretty sure this one

[00:42:36] is publicly available.

[00:42:38] And it is,

[00:42:39] the US Department of Agriculture

[00:42:41] Forestry Service

[00:42:42] has put together a report.

[00:42:45] Let me see if I have it up.

[00:42:50] Yes.

[00:42:51] The report is called

[00:42:52] Climate Adaptation Actions

[00:42:54] for Urban Forests and Human Health.

[00:42:56] So really, really relevant

[00:42:58] for looking at things.

[00:42:59] You know, urban forests meaning

[00:43:01] the totality of all the trees

[00:43:03] within a city,

[00:43:04] but also relevant for,

[00:43:05] I think, you know,

[00:43:06] lots of different

[00:43:07] sort of natural

[00:43:08] and semi-natural sites

[00:43:10] within cities.

[00:43:11] Very, very good report.

[00:43:13] Very well referenced

[00:43:14] and written in quite a,

[00:43:16] you know, plain English way.

[00:43:18] So definitely check that out

[00:43:20] if this is an area

[00:43:21] that you're working in

[00:43:22] and you want to get more

[00:43:23] into the details.

[00:43:25] And some of the key things

[00:43:26] that I picked out of that

[00:43:28] are,

[00:43:32] firstly,

[00:43:34] try to build in some resilience

[00:43:35] to what you,

[00:43:37] to what you already have.

[00:43:38] So in the next couple of years,

[00:43:40] maybe your priority

[00:43:41] is just to try and keep

[00:43:42] the species that you have

[00:43:43] and maintain the habitat

[00:43:44] that is already there

[00:43:46] if it's biodiverse

[00:43:47] and if it's performing well already,

[00:43:49] if it's a healthy ecosystem.

[00:43:51] And that might just look,

[00:43:52] might just look like,

[00:43:55] sustainably making use of water

[00:43:57] to add water

[00:43:58] to trees and plants

[00:44:00] during periods of drought

[00:44:01] if you can.

[00:44:02] I would say,

[00:44:03] look at things like

[00:44:04] rainwater capture and storage

[00:44:06] so you're not putting pressure

[00:44:07] on the public water supply

[00:44:08] if that is an issue

[00:44:10] during summers.

[00:44:12] You know,

[00:44:12] it might be as simple

[00:44:13] as just putting in

[00:44:14] like quite a low-tech

[00:44:15] irrigation system

[00:44:17] to try and keep

[00:44:18] some of your important

[00:44:19] tree species

[00:44:20] or your important habitats

[00:44:21] you know,

[00:44:22] lush and resilient.

[00:44:25] That's one thing.

[00:44:26] Then,

[00:44:27] I think the next stage

[00:44:28] of that,

[00:44:28] that sort of short-term,

[00:44:30] you know,

[00:44:30] quite defensive

[00:44:32] sort of thinking

[00:44:33] but I think

[00:44:34] could be quite important.

[00:44:35] The next stage

[00:44:36] is really thinking about

[00:44:39] the potential effects

[00:44:40] of climate change

[00:44:41] and monitoring that

[00:44:43] and sort of getting ahead

[00:44:44] of it if you can.

[00:44:45] One of the things

[00:44:45] we're likely to see

[00:44:48] from climate change

[00:44:49] is new pests

[00:44:51] and pathogens

[00:44:52] coming into ecosystems

[00:44:53] potentially causing

[00:44:55] a lot of problems.

[00:44:57] And so you can imagine

[00:44:58] if our climate

[00:44:59] is shifting

[00:44:59] we may also get

[00:45:01] pests and pathogens

[00:45:02] coming in

[00:45:03] from more southerly regions

[00:45:06] who are now

[00:45:07] adapted to this new climate

[00:45:09] and if we're not prepared

[00:45:11] for that

[00:45:11] if something

[00:45:11] we haven't seen before

[00:45:12] they can actually cause

[00:45:13] a lot of damage

[00:45:14] and there's issues.

[00:45:16] I know in various cities

[00:45:17] around the world

[00:45:17] of particular pests

[00:45:18] and pathogens

[00:45:20] wreaking havoc

[00:45:21] on particular tree species.

[00:45:23] And so,

[00:45:24] you know,

[00:45:24] establishing like monitoring

[00:45:26] routines

[00:45:27] for looking for these things

[00:45:28] and dealing with it

[00:45:29] calling an expert

[00:45:31] specialist

[00:45:31] to come and deal with it

[00:45:32] early

[00:45:33] can be really,

[00:45:34] really important.

[00:45:35] Also things like

[00:45:36] invasive plant species.

[00:45:38] So,

[00:45:39] you know,

[00:45:40] not all exotic plants

[00:45:40] are invasive

[00:45:41] but generally invasive plants

[00:45:43] are exotic

[00:45:43] and so,

[00:45:44] again,

[00:45:45] shifting climate regime

[00:45:47] the climate is now suitable

[00:45:49] for some exotic species

[00:45:51] some of these

[00:45:52] may well become invasive

[00:45:53] start to outcompete

[00:45:55] native species

[00:45:56] or actually actively

[00:45:57] harm native species

[00:45:58] start to

[00:45:59] sort of dominate habitats

[00:46:00] where it becomes

[00:46:01] a bit of a monoculture.

[00:46:03] That's where,

[00:46:03] you know,

[00:46:04] active management

[00:46:05] stepping in

[00:46:05] removing that

[00:46:06] people have been

[00:46:07] you know,

[00:46:07] it's kind of a never-ending battle

[00:46:08] people have been battling

[00:46:11] rhododendron

[00:46:11] and Himalayan balsam

[00:46:13] for decades

[00:46:13] and it's still everywhere.

[00:46:15] So,

[00:46:16] you know,

[00:46:16] it may be a losing battle

[00:46:18] but at least for your

[00:46:19] particular site

[00:46:20] you might be able

[00:46:21] to just keep it managed

[00:46:22] and stop it

[00:46:24] becoming dominant.

[00:46:27] Other things you might look at

[00:46:29] are things like

[00:46:29] we're likely to have

[00:46:30] more storms

[00:46:31] and more sort of

[00:46:32] strong wind events.

[00:46:34] Do you have trees

[00:46:35] that are likely

[00:46:36] to fall over

[00:46:37] onto a building

[00:46:38] or onto,

[00:46:39] you know,

[00:46:40] injure someone,

[00:46:41] you know,

[00:46:43] fall into someone's house

[00:46:44] or something like that?

[00:46:45] Can you get ahead

[00:46:46] and either remove that tree

[00:46:47] or prune it

[00:46:48] or,

[00:46:49] you know,

[00:46:49] do something to reduce

[00:46:50] the risk

[00:46:50] and again,

[00:46:51] again,

[00:46:51] you know,

[00:46:52] if you think that might be a risk,

[00:46:54] get an Arab or culturalist

[00:46:55] to look at it

[00:46:55] and they'll give you

[00:46:56] a proper assessment.

[00:46:58] And then we move into

[00:46:59] strategy three,

[00:47:01] the sort of third part

[00:47:01] which is the much more

[00:47:02] sort of radical

[00:47:04] and future-looking

[00:47:05] perspective

[00:47:06] on climate adaptation

[00:47:07] which is to say,

[00:47:09] you know what,

[00:47:10] we're entering

[00:47:10] a new climate regime,

[00:47:12] ecology is going to change

[00:47:13] so let's actually

[00:47:15] facilitate that change

[00:47:16] in a positive way.

[00:47:17] So some things

[00:47:18] that you might do

[00:47:22] as part of this strategy

[00:47:23] is actually looking

[00:47:25] at exotic species

[00:47:27] or species

[00:47:27] from further south

[00:47:30] than you,

[00:47:31] than your current,

[00:47:32] you know,

[00:47:32] whatever your site

[00:47:33] that you're looking at is

[00:47:34] and actually source

[00:47:35] new tree species,

[00:47:37] plant species

[00:47:38] from there

[00:47:39] to bring to your site.

[00:47:42] And so,

[00:47:43] you know,

[00:47:43] for instance,

[00:47:43] if you're worried

[00:47:44] about native oak trees

[00:47:46] not surviving

[00:47:47] climate change,

[00:47:48] could you bring in

[00:47:49] Mediterranean oak species?

[00:47:50] Now this is very contentious

[00:47:52] because people always

[00:47:52] want to promote

[00:47:53] native first

[00:47:55] and there's always

[00:47:56] a risk of importing

[00:47:58] pathogens and pests

[00:47:59] or bringing in something

[00:48:01] that's invasive

[00:48:02] but, you know,

[00:48:03] you can do your research

[00:48:04] and you can,

[00:48:04] I think you can be

[00:48:05] fairly sure

[00:48:06] when you're looking

[00:48:07] at this

[00:48:08] that if you're

[00:48:09] bringing something in,

[00:48:10] you know,

[00:48:10] is it known to be invasive?

[00:48:12] Is it known to create problems?

[00:48:14] You know,

[00:48:15] our cities are full

[00:48:16] of exotic species

[00:48:17] who are perfectly benign

[00:48:19] or actually quite good

[00:48:20] for biodiversity

[00:48:22] and so, you know,

[00:48:23] look around your city

[00:48:25] at, you know,

[00:48:27] public parks

[00:48:28] where they have

[00:48:29] lots of exotic tree species

[00:48:30] and start to think about

[00:48:31] which ones are doing well

[00:48:32] there that you could

[00:48:33] incorporate into your site.

[00:48:35] Not to replace everything

[00:48:36] with exotic species

[00:48:37] but to just bring in

[00:48:39] and build that resilience

[00:48:40] and build more diversity

[00:48:42] in what species

[00:48:44] you have on site

[00:48:45] so that if you start

[00:48:46] to lose native species

[00:48:47] you have the exotic ones

[00:48:49] that are there

[00:48:49] and growing

[00:48:50] and ready

[00:48:51] to sort of,

[00:48:52] you know,

[00:48:53] fill that niche.

[00:48:56] And I think

[00:48:57] that's a fairly,

[00:48:58] and I've spoken

[00:48:59] to some Aribar culturalists

[00:49:00] and I think

[00:49:00] that's a fairly

[00:49:02] uncontentious idea

[00:49:03] for most people

[00:49:05] who are in this world

[00:49:06] is actually saying,

[00:49:07] yeah,

[00:49:07] the urban,

[00:49:07] you know,

[00:49:08] the urban canopy,

[00:49:09] the urban forest,

[00:49:10] we should be incorporating

[00:49:12] more biodiversity

[00:49:14] and species

[00:49:15] that are adapted

[00:49:15] to warmer,

[00:49:16] drier climates

[00:49:17] because it's likely

[00:49:18] we'll start to lose

[00:49:19] native species.

[00:49:22] And then I think

[00:49:24] thinking,

[00:49:25] going back to this idea

[00:49:26] of regime shifts

[00:49:27] and the idea that

[00:49:28] habitats

[00:49:29] and ecosystems

[00:49:30] can hit a tipping point

[00:49:31] and shift into a new state,

[00:49:32] at a certain point

[00:49:33] we may have to start

[00:49:34] thinking about

[00:49:35] whether we resist that

[00:49:36] or facilitate it

[00:49:37] and go with it.

[00:49:38] And so if we do have

[00:49:40] mass die-offs

[00:49:41] of trees,

[00:49:42] if we do have,

[00:49:43] you know,

[00:49:44] a shift from a woodland

[00:49:45] to a grassland

[00:49:46] or something like that,

[00:49:48] you know,

[00:49:49] are we going to resist it

[00:49:50] and get in there

[00:49:51] and replant trees

[00:49:52] just to see them fail again?

[00:49:54] Are we going to try

[00:49:56] and replant

[00:49:57] exotic species

[00:49:58] in the hope

[00:49:59] that that will work?

[00:50:00] Or will we sort of

[00:50:01] try and work

[00:50:01] with the way

[00:50:02] nature is shifting

[00:50:03] and go in

[00:50:05] and actually facilitate

[00:50:06] those shifting habitats?

[00:50:09] That's almost

[00:50:10] a sort of

[00:50:11] philosophical question,

[00:50:12] I think,

[00:50:12] for people who are involved

[00:50:13] with habitat management.

[00:50:16] And I think

[00:50:17] if you're involved

[00:50:17] in designing new spaces

[00:50:19] if you're a landscape architect

[00:50:21] or you're doing

[00:50:22] a large master plan

[00:50:23] and you actually

[00:50:24] have the opportunity

[00:50:24] to start thinking about

[00:50:25] what sort of habitats

[00:50:27] you're designing for

[00:50:29] and what you're going

[00:50:29] to be planting,

[00:50:30] do think about this.

[00:50:32] You really need to be

[00:50:32] thinking about

[00:50:33] the resilience,

[00:50:34] which is about,

[00:50:35] you know,

[00:50:36] maintaining

[00:50:36] some sort of

[00:50:37] stable habitat

[00:50:38] through climate change,

[00:50:39] but also thinking about

[00:50:40] how you might

[00:50:41] facilitate change

[00:50:42] in the future

[00:50:43] as a new

[00:50:44] climate reality

[00:50:45] takes hold.

[00:50:49] So lots of food

[00:50:50] for thought there.

[00:50:52] I really hope

[00:50:53] this has been

[00:50:53] useful for you.

[00:50:55] Again,

[00:50:55] it's really just

[00:50:56] a drop in the ocean,

[00:50:57] but I think it's

[00:50:57] sort of provoking me

[00:50:58] to think about

[00:50:59] these things

[00:51:00] in quite different ways.

[00:51:01] I'd love to hear

[00:51:02] your opinion.

[00:51:03] If you've listened

[00:51:04] this far

[00:51:04] and you're starting

[00:51:05] to think about

[00:51:06] how this might be

[00:51:06] relevant to your work,

[00:51:07] do email me,

[00:51:09] ross

[00:51:09] at greenurbanispod.com.

[00:51:12] I'd love to hear

[00:51:12] from you.

[00:51:13] It would be really

[00:51:14] interesting.

[00:51:14] If you're working

[00:51:15] in this area

[00:51:15] in particular,

[00:51:16] you know,

[00:51:17] it'd be great

[00:51:17] to get your

[00:51:17] perspective.

[00:51:22] Now,

[00:51:22] my voice is

[00:51:23] well and truly gone.

[00:51:25] Not sure why.

[00:51:26] I've just been

[00:51:27] talking too much,

[00:51:27] I guess.

[00:51:29] If you enjoyed

[00:51:29] this episode,

[00:51:31] maybe share it

[00:51:32] with a colleague

[00:51:32] or a friend

[00:51:33] who you think

[00:51:34] will enjoy it

[00:51:35] as well,

[00:51:35] because that helps

[00:51:36] the podcast

[00:51:37] to reach new listeners.

[00:51:39] Thanks for listening

[00:51:40] and you'll hear

[00:51:41] another episode

[00:51:41] next week.

[00:51:43] Bye for now.

[00:51:44] Bye for now.