Denver Parks and Recreation Restoration & Ecological Services On-Call

Multiple projects under a citywide on-call contract provide sustainable strategies for conserving urban open space, enhancing biodiversity, and improving water management.

Urban Habitat Connectivity Study
In 2024, Denver Parks and Recreation (DPR) identified the need to know where high-quality habitat areas are and how they could be connected to meet habitat and foraging requirements for urban wildlife. After identifying focal species, habitat requirements, and movement patterns, Biohabitats conducted a spatial analysis using high-resolution land cover data and infrastructure data. The study assessed habitat quality and habitat connectivity using Omniscape and Circuitscape models. Data inputs included source areas based on habitat type, patch size, edge condition, movement distances, and adjacent landscape permeability. The resulting analysis positions DPR to make science-informed decisions regarding green infrastructure, new park/open space acquisitions, restoration, turf conversion, or landscape transformations through the lens of biodiversity and habitat connectivity.

Open Space Vision Plan
Denver’s parks and open spaces are critical to community health and ecosystem resiliency, but they are facing multiple ecological stresses–including invasive species, climate change, degradation from encampments and recreation, and development-related impacts. To address these issues, Biohabitats helped DPR develop a Vision Plan based on an integrated city-wide ecosystem approach. The Vision supports a network of landscapes for biodiversity, ecosystem services, wildlife, and stewardship. Based on a robust, six-month stakeholder engagement process, the plan established values, criteria, goals, strategies, and priority actions. The Plan also established the baseline categorization of existing urban open spaces/hybrid/traditional and waterways, criteria for incorporating new open spaces, an adaptive management framework, and programmatic functions and resources needed for implementation.

Municipal Turfgrass Study
With rising temperatures and reduced availability of water due to drought and record low flows in the Colorado River basin, irrigating turfgrass across the city of Denver is no longer economically or environmentally sustainable. To address this issue, enhance the policy already in place for parks, and comply with state water conservation guidance on turfgrass replacement, DPR is examining possibilities for a city-wide program to reduce potable water usage for irrigation and the quantity of turf in the city. Biohabitats led a collaborative visioning process with Denver staff and leadership from multiple departments to examine internal strategy options for turfgrass reduction. The study included geospatial analysis to map Denver’s non-recreational turf, review of turfgrass and water reduction policies and programs, and interviews with managers in comparable arid cities. The findings will help inform Denver’s development of standardized terminology, programs, and potential policies in coming years. The common vocabulary, fact summaries, and tools will assist Denver in transitioning to more sustainable water management and water-wise landscaping.

Another outcome has been to facilitate communication with partner agencies to make better ecologically informed decisions around adaptive management, land use, stormwater, nearby development, and climate adaptation strategies.

TAGS

• Analysis+Planning
• Assessment+Monitoring