Urban planning leaves an audible legacy in a megacity's bird soundscape
- 1School of Ecology, Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen Guangdong, 518107, People's Republic of China
Abstract
Cities are planned for people, yet planning also determines where wildlife persists and where residents hear it. How can this acoustic footprint guide planning and monitoring? We combined AI-powered passive acoustic monitoring at 31 stations with detection-corrected models and spatial validation to map Asian Koel activity across Shenzhen. Koel acoustic opportunity declined with tree and built cover and increased with starling and myna opportunity; host information improved prediction at unmonitored sites. Weekly opportunity expanded in spring and varied across the city; sampled-minute exposure concentrated around dawn. Supported predictions intersected planning-sensitive places, while 51.5% of the city grid remained a monitoring gap. We translated these boundaries into monitoring priorities for underrepresented environments and uncertain spring predictions. This reproducible workflow reveals the acoustic imprint of the present-day urban landscape and connects ecological diagnosis, prediction boundaries and adaptive monitoring to inform urban coexistence.
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BibTeX
@misc{chen2026urban,
title = {{Urban planning leaves an audible legacy in a megacity's bird soundscape}},
author = {Y. Chen and Z. Hao and C. Zhang and Z. Li and L. Zhang and Z. Chen and W. Fang and W. Liang and T. Zhou and Y. Liu},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.18.759919},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.18.759919v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Urban planning leaves an audible legacy in a megacity's bird soundscape
AU - Y. Chen
AU - Z. Hao
AU - C. Zhang
AU - Z. Li
AU - L. Zhang
AU - Z. Chen
AU - W. Fang
AU - W. Liang
AU - T. Zhou
AU - Y. Liu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/18
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.18.759919
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.18.759919v1
AB - Cities are planned for people, yet planning also determines where wildlife persists and where residents hear it. How can this acoustic footprint guide planning and monitoring? We combined AI-powered passive acoustic monitoring at 31 stations with detection-corrected models and spatial validation to map Asian Koel activity across Shenzhen. Koel acoustic opportunity declined with tree and built cover and increased with starling and myna opportunity; host information improved prediction at unmonitored sites. Weekly opportunity expanded in spring and varied across the city; sampled-minute exposure concentrated around dawn. Supported predictions intersected planning-sensitive places, while 51.5% of the city grid remained a monitoring gap. We translated these boundaries into monitoring priorities for underrepresented environments and uncertain spring predictions. This reproducible workflow reveals the acoustic imprint of the present-day urban landscape and connects ecological diagnosis, prediction boundaries and adaptive monitoring to inform urban coexistence.
ER -