Podcast #08 - Understanding human relationship with nature

Social media can have many uses for research. Many urbanists have used data collected by phones and other devices to reveal patterns of cities. For example, showing where tourists are more likely to visit, revealing urban inequality, or as a tool for garnering citizen feedback on issues that need solutions. Big data has powerful applications in urban planning.

But what about nature? The natural world and the value of nature to humans is an increasingly important topic in urban research. Here at the Singapore-ETH Centre, Natural Capital Singapore is a project aimed at measuring and quantifying the value of Singapore’s green spaces. In this episode, Dr Jahson Alemu, a postdoctoral researcher with the team, discusses how social media is being leveraged to understand how we interact with nature.

What sorts of spaces do people enjoy, and why? What specific features of open spaces (like interesting trees, rivers, or flowers) are people more likely to visit? And, how can this data help planners, designers, and policymakers make better decisions about preserving access to this vital resource? This is particularly relevant to land-scarce Singapore, where the need for development must be balanced with the need to maintain open space and areas for recreation.

Biography

Jahson is a marine ecologist with broad interests in biodiversity-environment interactions and how human-induced changes alter tropical coastal biodiversity, communities, ecosystem function, and ecosystem services. Having recently moved to Singapore, he is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the National University of Singapore. As a researcher at the Natural Capital Singapore project, he is working on assessing and mapping the status of coastal and marine ecosystems, as well as benefits that people derive from them.