Research

Biodiversity loss is considered the next big global crisis, overshadowing the COVID‐19 pandemic and climate change. Biodiversity loss and climate change are interlinked and mutually reinforcing. However, many people perceive both biodiversity loss and climate change as abstract and psychologically distant threats. Citizens and farmers may struggle with translating these global crises into imminent concerns they can identify and act on in their local livelihood. BIODIVERCITI engages citizens and farmers to reflect on the interrelation between biodiversity loss and climate change and the role they personally play in these crises in a familiar environment – their own garden and cropland. The project analyses how beliefs and behaviours may transfer from biodiversity to climate action in order to transform mindsets and practices. BIODIVERCITI aims to close the gap how to leverage engagement with biodiversity to simultaneously advance engagement with climate action. Therein, the project pursues four research questions: - Which improvements in biodiversity indicators can be achieved? - How do individual climate action and efficacy beliefs change? - How may citizens and farmers collaborate for combating biodiversity loss and climate change? - How may gardens and farmland provide conjunctive elements in habitats? BIODIVERCITI is a multi‐stakeholder citizen science project. The project involves and observes citizens and farmers and their respective gardens and cropland over the timeframe of two vegetation periods. Citizens and farmers receive personal advice on enhancing biodiversity, observe their garden/cropland and are evaluated how their attitudes and beliefs change. Each participating citizen is supported and trained in biodiversity‐enhancing elements and techniques suitable for their garden, which species may benefit, and how to identify and monitor these species. Farmers are grouped by their participation in the Austrian agri‐environmental programme ÖPUL and supplementary organic farming certification.

Nature restoration in cities is a crucial aspect of sustainable urban development, especially in terms of contributing to climate adaptation and biodiversity conservation. However, it can involve significant changes at an individual level, which may challenge the traditional relationship between people and nature. The acceptance of restoration projects by urban dwellers depends on whether they establish new relationships between people and nature. Research indicates that there are significant differences in the acceptance of restoration measures, particularly between young and older people. The comparatively low level of acceptance among today's youth and young adults poses a significant challenge for urban nature restoration. Against this background, this research project takes a biographical approach to identify influences on the acceptance of urban nature throughout the life course. By using a biographical approach, we can systematically identify age and generational influences and possible intervention points for educational institutions, urban planning, and greenspace management. Qualitative interviews will be conducted with young people and adults of various ages residing in Vienna, as well as with experts from different fields such as environmental education and urban planning. The project aims to develop an explanatory model of the interactions between age and generation-related influences, different human-nature relationships, and the acceptance of urban restoration. The results will establish a knowledge base for developing intervention strategies and designing further experiments in urban areas to develop new human-nature relationships for restored cities.

Vienna's urban landscape changed fundamentally in the second half of the 20th century. Under the programmatic slogan “social green”, numerous parks, open spaces for educational institutions and outdoor areas for multi-storey residential buildings were created in Vienna from 1950 onwards. In the 1970s to 1990s, international competitions were organized (e.g. Karlsplatz), large-scale new recreational spaces were created (e.g. Danube area, Wienerberg), play streets were laid out and rivers (e.g. Liesingbach) were renatured. Today, these projects represent key elements in the green space system of the City of Vienna. The Archive of Austrian Landscape Architecture LArchive preserves thousands of analogue plans and photos of these projects. The stock of plans and photos represents a unique cultural heritage, but has so far only been available in analogue form. As part of this project, high-quality digital copies of plans and photos documenting the planning and design of Vienna's open spaces from the second half of the 20th century will be produced and published in an online collection. The thus generated data will form an essential basis for the evaluation and further development of urban green structures in the context of national and international research projects and - at Viennese level - for the revision of the STEP 2025 urban development plan. At the same time, the archival material will be made accessible to a broad audience of scientists, teachers, colleagues from the field, local authorities, art historians and citizens via the online collection. The data will be transferred to the online platform for Austria's cultural heritage and to Europeana. Publication of the digitised material will raise the profile of the Archive of Austrian Landscape Architecture and the impact of the profession.