TEMPO evaluates the idea of 'temporary conservation' in urban brownfields. Open space and development are thought as two states of a spatio-temporal cycle, a concept that enables both 'conservation and development'. Urban brownfields are characterised by periods of high-density development followed by abandonment with low disturbance intensity, which determines both regeneration and longevity of spontaneous vegetation. TEMPO will quantify the turnover rates of development and abandoment in several cities.

The biodiversity of urban brownfields largely depends on soil quality and disturbance. In TEMPO the relationship between these two factors and the occurrence of plant functional types as well as insect guilds will be quantified using habitat models. The models will be cross-validated in two cities, Bremen and Berlin.

Planning the turnover between development and abandoment has to take into account the abilitiy of species to colonise newly emerged brownfields. Consequently, a mosaic cycle between development and a number of successional stages of the vegetation will preserve high biodiversity. This mosaic cycle does not exclude all areas from development, as often practised in traditional nature conservation. In order to test different planning strategies of spatio-temporal turnover of urban brownfields, a spatially explicit model of mosaic cycles of the biodiversity will be developed.