CONTRIBUTIONS OF SINGAPORE'S VEGETATED AREAS TO THE URBAN ECOSYSTEMS

Abstract

With the increasing concern over climate change and global warming, many countries have developed keen interests in preserving the world's ecosystem. Ecosystem services have been playing a huge role in sustaining the world's needs. This study had evaluated the regulating aspect of ecosystem services. In order to have a clearer picture of the benefits ecosystem provides, 22 government protected vegetated areas in Singapore were studied. The factors covered in this study are air pollution removal, noise and temperature regulation, surface runoff mitigation and carbon fixation and storage.

The roles of trees and shrubs were evaluated and comparisons were made to determine which of these plays a significant role in the urban ecosystems. On top of that, the 22 vegetated areas were classified according to the different regions so as to determine which of the region plays a significant role to Singapore’s urban ecosystem.

It was found that trees play a significant role to the urban ecosystems as compared to shrubs. Also, the Central Region was identified as the region that plays a significant to Singapore’s urban ecosystem. However, the study conducted on the 22 protected vegetated areas do not represent the entire population of vegetated sites such as neighbourhood parks, hence the full capacity of Singapore’s vegetated areas to contribute to Singapore’s urban ecosystem are still not unknown.