The adoption of urban greening to alleviate urbanization's drawbacks is on the rise, yet its impact on zoonotic disease spread remains poorly understood. Wild rodents, known reservoirs of various zoonotic pathogens, pose a heightened risk when they dwell near human habitats.
Significance of Urban Greening
Urban landscapes, dominated by concrete structures, are expanding rapidly worldwide, lacking essential green spaces. Consequently, urban greening initiatives are crucial to integrate nature into built environments, especially with climate change concerns growing. This emphasizes the urgent necessity for such efforts in urban areas.
Urban greening initiatives, now extending beyond parks and tree-lined streets, include innovative projects like living walls and green roofs. They not only enhance cities visually but also support biodiversity and purify air by creating habitats for diverse flora and fauna.
Beyond that, research has shown that exposure to green space alleviates stress and improves overall well-being. Additionally, urban greenery acts as a natural filter, capturing fine dust particles and converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, thereby mitigating air pollution.
As cities worldwide confront environmental challenges, urban greening emerges as a pivotal strategy for fostering healthier and more sustainable urban environments. However, a recent study sheds light on a potential drawback of urban greening initiatives.
Urban Zoonoses: Impact of Urban Greening on Rodent-Borne Pathogens in Changing Environments
Zoonoses are infectious diseases transmitted from animals to humans, with urban greening potentially altering the dynamics of pathogen transmission in urban environments. Understanding these changes is crucial for balancing the benefits of urban greening with the management of zoonotic disease risks in cities.
Marieke de Cock recently achieved success in defending her research at Wageningen University & Research, focusing on the impacts of environmental changes such as urban greening.
Her study, titled "Zoonotic quests in urban pests: Rodent-borne zoonotic pathogens in changing urban environments," suggests that environmental shifts like urban greening may exacerbate rodent presence, thereby increasing zoonotic disease threats in urban settings.
De Cock and her team investigated the interplay among urban greenery, rodent abundance, and the prevalence and diversity of zoonotic diseases carried by rodents.
Conducting field studies in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Eindhoven, the researcher systematically captured wild rats across sites with varying levels of urban greenery. The findings revealed a positive correlation between the abundance of wild rats and both the extent of urban greenery and food-related factors.
These results suggest that urban greening likely amplifies the presence of wild rats, with the absence of predators being more influential than the degree of greenery in determining the abundance of small mammals. Consequently, an upsurge in rodent populations could escalate the transmission of zoonotic pathogens among rodents, potentially heightening the zoonotic disease risk.
De Cock's research also highlighted a greater prevalence of vector-borne zoonotic pathogens in greener urban areas, attributed to the increased presence and survival of vectors like ticks and fleas. Consequently, urban greening might elevate the disease hazard associated with rat-borne zoonotic pathogens, although the actual risk would hinge on further exploration of exposure dynamics.
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