IPPET in Cambridge City Nature Reserves (urban palaeoecology)

Using Cambridge city as a case study, IPPET will assess long-term ecological changes in city wetlands and the degree of resilience to anthropogenic pressure to better inform their management, and most importantly, to help predict the future trajectory of wetlands that are considered to have high ecological values in the face of growing human pressure and climate change.

Existing long-term ecological studies (paleoecology) of wetlands have focused on isolated and preserved wetlands in less accessible areas with minimal human disturbance. These settings are considered ideal for paleoecological investigations, and knowledge of human impacts is often drawn from past centuries–millennia in these studies. While this is relevant, it is also important to acknowledge that the nature and scale of human land use and impact in the deep past is different from that of the present day/recent past. Today, we have greenhouse gas emissions, industrialization, mechanized farming, urbanization, pollution, and population growth, to name a few, at a scale that has not occurred in Earth’s history, and at least some of these anthropogenic footprints will likely remain for many years to come (e.g., population growth). It is therefore more realistic to consider recent long-term human impacts on ecosystems to guide future projections. Learning how wetlands in cities characterized by heavy human activities have responded to anthropogenic pressure through time will provide some insights to assist in determining the potential future of ecologically more valued wetlands, especially those at potential risk of future proximity to urban sprawl and assist in planning accordingly.

Field work in Cambridge City Nature Reserves [October 2024]