A systematic review of green infrastructure effects on urban ecosystems

Global urbanization continues unabated, with more than 50% of the worlds’ population living in cities. Cities are conventionally viewed as a threat to local biodiversity because natural habitat is replaced with development. However, more recently, there is greater acknowledgement from the public and private sectors that supporting local environments sustains critical ecosystem services, which in turn improves human health and biodiversity conservation. Consequently, urban planning and design has shifted towards green infrastructure (GI), such as green roofs and retention ponds, to increase connections between city and nature in an era of climate change. The contribution of GI to some ecosystem services has been proven (e.g. stormwater management, building cooling), but the contribution to biodiversity conservation remains unspecified. Using a systematic literature review, this dataset is an aggregation of studies that have measured community composition of urban ecosystems in association with green infrastructures.