Marine Elbakidze, a visiting professor at the PaqLab, gave a seminar talk on her work with integrating interdisciplinary research in urban forest studies. The talk, entitled “Urban nature as social-ecological technological system: the need for interdisciplinary research in multiple contexts” used case studies in both Eastern and Western Europe to investigate how, why, and under what conditions the ecological, social, and technological characteristics associated with different types of urban green infrastructure (UGI) offer essential benefits for both biodiversity and human well-being. She spoke about how we can enhance the role of UGI to effectively address the most urgent and context-specific challenges in urban development, as well as what is the need for interdisciplinary research to explore urban nature as UGI.

A riveting presentation – well done Marine! It was a full house!