Browsing by Subject "Lahti"

Urbanization is a growing trend, with most people living in cities nowadays. Understanding the relationships between people and nature is crucial, as ecological conditions are heavily influenced by human-environment interactions. According to prior research, socioeconomy and biodiversity are generally related. Low biodiversity typically correlates with poorer socioeconomic status, and vice versa. In this study, I aimed to determine whether there is a correlation between Lahti's socioeconomy (income) and biodiversity (bird and plant species richness and the urban ecosystem integrity index, UEII). Lahti is a medium sized city with an urban continuum of 54 km2. I used existing biodiversity data collected in the summer of 2021 and combined it with the most up-to-date socioeconomic data at the time, retrieved from the publicly available city of Lahti statistical database TILDA. The results of the study were contradictory to previous research, i.e., there was no relationship between biodiversity and socioeconomy. This gives us novel information about the luxury effect and its presence and opens doors for further research on the topic.