Linking Canopy, Corridors, and Communities: A Structured Multi-Scale Evidence Map of Urban Forest Cooling, Biodiversity, and Equity for Sustainable Development Goal 11

Abstract

Urban forests are expected to cool cities, sustain biodiversity, and distribute access to nature; however, evidence is often produced at scales that do not align with implementation. This structured evidence map characterizes English-language articles and reviews indexed in OpenAlex from 2000 to 15 July 2026 and interprets the patterns through three implementation cases. Five title-and-abstract searches returned 1201 records; 1103 remained after DOI/OpenAlex-ID deduplication, and a precision-oriented deterministic screen retained a 140-record core set. Metadata and abstracts were coded for outcome, scale, method, and management/governance language. Management/governance-related language occurred in 110 records, thermal outcomes in 74, biodiversity in 59, and explicit equity terms in 26. Thirty-three records were coded at two or more specified spatial scales and seven at all three; 14 jointly contained thermal and equity codes. These are record-level co-occurrences, not evidence of causal integration. Melbourne, Singapore, and Barcelona illustrate, without serving as controlled comparisons, three ways to translate citywide ambition into precinct stewardship, connected networks, and heat-health priorities. Within the defined corpus, canopy cover alone is an incomplete performance measure. The review proposes a non-aggregated decision chain and indicator portfolio linking network configuration, neighborhood vulnerability, site-level forest quality, and funded stewardship. Because screening and coding used one index and title/abstract metadata, the numerical patterns describe explicit framing rather than evidence quality, independent studies, or pooled effects.