The Avifauna-Based Biophysical Index (ABI) approach for assessing and planning ecological landscaping in tropical cities

•Urban ecological landscaping needs benchmarks, yet rarely acquired or provided.•Bird metrics are plausible for reflecting landscape biophysical complexity.•The tool can be customized to consider regional variability.•The tool requires minimal cost, time and expertise for deployment. Ecological impairment is prevalent in built environment and habitat enrichment had begun in cities globally. Most commendable ecological landscaping initiatives are, however, centred around developed countries in temperate region. Thus the systemic approaches may be inept to capture and reflect the natural processes in tropical regions. This paper describes a novel attempt to address the deficiency by developing and testing the idea of using birds as a proxy to drive ecological landscaping in tropical cities. A range of a priori avifauna metrics were applied to measure the biophysical complexity of six exemplar strata in inner and periphery areas of Ipoh city, Malaysia. Data collected were analysed and the metrics were able to reflect biophysical complexity in each stratum, statistically. Additionally, a numerical rating index from "impaired" (0) to "excellent" (100) was also inferred from two reference strata, or "best performers", to provide urban landscape planners with a standardized comparative measure. Numerous intricacies emerging from the "best performers" are highlighted to inform ecological landscape planning and biomimicry design. The implications to the public, policymakers and other stakeholders are also succinctly discussed. The key strength of the system, known as the Avifauna-based Biophysical Index (ABI), is it fosters learning from nature. The system is open to the views of the local stakeholders and sensitive to the realities given that the benchmarks consider regional ecological and anthropogenic variability. The principles of the ABI system are universal since it does not advocate a "one size fits all" resolution. Hence, although the proof of concept was demonstrated in Ipoh, the ABI system is applicable to tropical cities elsewhere.