Context

  • Natural infrastructure in urban areas contribute to people's well-being, quality of life and health thanks to the many services that they provide. Among these services is the capture of stormwater runoff, which reduces water treatment costs and flood risks in cities.
  • The exceptional spring flooding events in 2011 and 2017 in the Montreal Metropolitan Community have highlighted the limits of current water management systems and the need for alternatives approaches, such as integrating natural infrastructure into urban planning.
  • However, despite the benefits provided by natural infrastructure, they have reduced in both quantity and quality in recent decades, mainly due to urban sprawl.
  • The lack of reliable information on the potential and realized contribution of landscape features to numerous ecosystem services is a barrier to the protection and development of natural infrastructure.

Objective

  • Understanding the importance of natural infrastructure to ecosystem services provisions, with the aim of informing their conservation and integration into the planning of new urban developments. 

Deliverables

  • Estimating of the ecosystem services produced by the public trees of the Island of Montreal, including avoided runoff, carbon sequestration and carbon storage, evapotranspiration and improvement in air quality.
  • Evaluating the role of natural infrastructure in the MMC to flood risk mitigation, the reduction of urban heat-island effects and the conservation of biodiversity.
  • Mapping areas of high conservation priority due to their contribution to ecosystem service delivery.
  • Recommandations for integrating natural infrastructure in urban planning and protecting those areas that contribute most to the well-being and health of citizens.