ASLA 2018 Professional Research Award Winners / Giải thưởng ASLA 2018 Research Award

4 years in the making, this web-based interactive Atlas surveys the status of, and conflicts between conservation, land-use and urban growth in the world’s 36 biodiversity hotspots – regions which by definition harbor the most threatened and irreplaceable biodiversity on earth.

Specifically, the Atlas shows how the hotspots and their 391 constituent ecoregions are performing with regard to meeting 2020 United Nations protected area targets under the legally binding Convention on Biological Diversity. The Atlas also identifies 383 of the 422 major cities in the hotspots which are sprawling, and forecast to continue to sprawl, in direct conflict with remnant habitat and endangered (Red Listed) species.

Through its analysis of both large-scale land-use and peri-urban growth that is in conflict with biodiversity, the Atlas serves as a geopolitical tool for planners and conservationists to focus and prioritize their efforts. Whilst this is valuable and important work in and of itself, the Atlas also prepares the ground for the involvement of landscape architecture in regions where the profession’s skills are most needed.