Urban greening is often pitched as a sustainable panacea to advance urban climate adaptation and human wellbeing. While urban forests, greenery and nature-based solutions must be urgently implemented in many urban areas globally, their effectiveness, sustainability and resilience in arid cities
remains unclear.
By highlighting global examples from dry and semi-desert systems, this contribution will uncover unresolved issues related to urban greening as well as highlight opportunities to advance research and science co-production. Foci of discussion will include issues related to plant species selection and trade, scaling of solutions in space and time, risk mitigation as well as the integration of nature-based solutions within technical and social system that – we hope – could increase greening success in a 50°C arid urban world.
Biography
Dr Ossola is an Assistant Professor in Plant Science and Director of the Urban Science Lab at the University of California Davis (USA). Dr Ossola is a first-generation ecologist and environmental scientist who specializes in urban and peri-urban areas. Dr Ossola is a recipient of a 2022 New Innovator Award from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR). He is a Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and is a former US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine NRC Associate within the National Risk Management Research Laboratory of US-EPA. Dr Ossola is the Chair of the Saratoga Horticultural Research Endowment (SHRE) and Member of the Executive Oversight Team of the Los Angeles Center for Urban Natural Resources Sustainability.