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Abstract

Most cities are not self-sufficient in terms of supply and demand of urban ecosystem services (UES) which creates important social, economic and environmental problems at different scales. Cities have enormous potential to reduce pressures on the environment while enhancing wellbeing for their inhabitants by acting both on the UES supply and demand sides. In this study we focus on the demand side by exploring the feasibility of self-sufficient cities under an environmentally radical, utopian scenario that implies the optimisation of UES demand by individuals, i.e. the minimum possible consumption of provisioning UES, a reduced need for regulating UES and the adequate fulfilment of cultural UES demand for a reasonable human wellbeing. Definitions of optimal demand are provided for a set of essential UES by 2050: food supply, freshwater supply, urban cooling, air purification, carbon sequestration, flood prevention, physical recreation and mental recreation. Operational UES demand indicators are identified for these UES. Based on these, we show the current average ecosystem service demand values in European cities, the current most exigent demand values and propose optimised future demand values. These utopian values intend to serve as benchmarks towards optimised UES demand that will make cities more self-sufficient.

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... These "ecosystem services" could satisfy dweller demands, with detailed definitions and classifications found in related report work [8]. Although several studies have investigated human-environment interactions [9][10] and recent urban ecosystem demands in Europe [11][12][13], the investigation of dweller demands as a background to UES is still largely lacking in Asia and clearly requires increased attention worldwide. ...
... Accompanying socioeconomic accumulation, severe environment deterioration and biodiversity loss are prevalent in China. And for their enormous potential in reducing environmental pressure [12], more than 60% of the UES articles were found to be concerned with direct environmental services. Among the topics of the articles, water and soil conservation, air purification, and microclimate regulation were the top three topics, with discussion and analysis found in 40%, 33%, and 20% of the collected articles, respectively. ...
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Nowadays, various urban ecosystem services (UES) provided by urban green infrastructure (UGI) have been the concern of scholars worldwide. And as China being recognized as a living laboratory in sustainable studies, concerns toward UES provided by UGI and factors of urban dweller demands is definitely required. However, for related reviews and special discussions are lacking until now, this study calculated the types of UES and demand concerns with a collection of 54 Chinese and 51 English articles in UES studies, 162 Chinese and 26 English articles in urban dweller research. In addition, with detailed discussions through spatial distributions, perspectives, and methodologies, comprehensive analyses were conducted and unique features were summarized to back up other nations or situations worldwide.
... Many of these proxies and indicators are simple to generate and widely available to researchers from existing data bases; they are derived from empirical studies that establish relationships between land use or land cover and ES potential for given study areas. In the URBES project, we used this approach to perform single case studies , Larondelle et al. 2014a, Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al. 2015) as well as larger cross-city comparisons Haase 2013, Larondelle et al. 2014a). However, because of a legacy of nonurban empirical field work, differences in urban morphologies, and urban heterogeneity, land-use and land-cover based proxies and ES indicators may have limited applicability in urban areas and limited transferability from one city to another (e.g., Haase 2013, Kain et al. 2016) for several reasons. ...
... At the core city level, pollution abatement can be addressed more effectively by reducing pollution sources (e.g., by limiting traffic) rather than increasing pollution sinks (e.g., through restoration of urban green infrastructure). Thus, a mix of policy interventions and behavioral change needs to be considered when assessing future demand for urban ES (Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al. 2015). ...
... Many of these proxies and indicators are simple to generate and widely available to researchers from existing data bases; they are derived from empirical studies that establish relationships between land use or land cover and ES potential for given study areas. In the URBES project, we used this approach to perform single case studies , Larondelle et al. 2014a, Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al. 2015) as well as larger cross-city comparisons Haase 2013, Larondelle et al. 2014a). However, because of a legacy of nonurban empirical field work, differences in urban morphologies, and urban heterogeneity, land-use and land-cover based proxies and ES indicators may have limited applicability in urban areas and limited transferability from one city to another (e.g., Haase 2013, Kain et al. 2016) for several reasons. ...
... At the core city level, pollution abatement can be addressed more effectively by reducing pollution sources (e.g., by limiting traffic) rather than increasing pollution sinks (e.g., through restoration of urban green infrastructure). Thus, a mix of policy interventions and behavioral change needs to be considered when assessing future demand for urban ES (Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al. 2015). ...
Article
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Understanding the dynamics of urban ecosystem services is a necessary requirement for adequate planning, management, and governance of urban green infrastructure. Through the three-year Urban Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (URBES) research project, we conducted case study and comparative research on urban biodiversity and ecosystem services across seven cities in Europe and the United States. Reviewing > 50 peer-reviewed publications from the project, we present and discuss seven key insights that reflect cumulative findings from the project as well as the state-of-the-art knowledge in urban ecosystem services research. The insights from our review indicate that cross-sectoral, multiscale, interdisciplinary research is beginning to provide a solid scientific foundation for applying the ecosystem services framework in urban areas and land management. Our review offers a foundation for seeking novel, nature-based solutions to emerging urban challenges such as wicked environmental change issues.
... The change in ESs supply and demand can re ect the dynamic process between the natural ecosystem and the human social system, which has become the hot topic of academic attentio [11][12]5]. Researches have been conducted mainly from the perspectives of human well-being, habitat for humanity, urban-rural gradient relationships and ecological equity [13][14][15][16]. Since 2000, research on ESs supply and demand has mainly focused on basic and applied research, including conceptual discussion [17], quantitative analysis on ESs supply and demand [18][19], ESs types and spatio-temporal evolution [4,20], reversibility trade-offs and synergies [12,21], supply-demand matching at different spatio-temporal scales [22][23] and the application of their research results [24]. ...
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To achieve the best management of the ecosystem and sustainable socioeconomic development, it is crucial to clarify the matching relationship between the supply and demand of ecosystem services (ESs). Therefore, four types of ESs were chosen for the Hexi region in this study: food supply, carbon sequestration, water yield, windbreak and sand fixation. This study evaluated the supply-demand and matching relationships between various ecosystem services tapping into the InVEST model, the supply-demand ratio of ecosystem services, and the four-quadrant model. It also analyzed the supply-demand ratio of comprehensive ecosystem services and their cold and hot spots. The findings suggest that (1) the overall ESs supply showed an increasing trend, with a spatial pattern of “high in the southeast and low in the northwest”. The demand for food supply and carbon sequestration services has been increasing annually, while the demand for water production and wind and sand prevention services has been declining. The demand space is characterized by a layout similar to the distribution of population, production and living areas, and ecologically vulnerable areas; (2) From the perspective of quantity matching, with the exception of windbreak and sand fixation services which are in short supply, all others are in a state of oversupply. Regrading spatial matching, all ESs are primarily dominated by low-low spatial matching zones, with large areas concentrated in the northwest desert region; (3) The supply-demand ratio of overall ESs shows a fluctuating upward trend. The proportion of cold spots and sub-cold spots, which are mainly concentrated in the northwest region, accounts for more than 50%, while that of hot spots and sub-hot spots is relatively small and mainly appears in the Qilian Mountains of the southern region and a few oasis areas.
... Finally, the third way to reduce the land footprint is to reduce the food consumption. (Rodríguez-Rodríguez, Kain, Haase, Baró, & Kaczorowska, 2015) defined the optimal food demand as the balanced amount of energy for a person to maintain good health. That should be 2200 kcal per capita per day, but currently is much higher, achieving the amount of 3456 kcal per capita per day for European urban areas. ...
Article
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The resilience of the local food system is being underlined as one of the most important strategic goals for a sustainable future. However, since the question of what constitutes the local scale of food production depends largely on the type of product and supply chain, the associated foodshed can range from a site scale, city and city region up to wider region and country level. As a proof of concept whether functional urban areas (FUAs) can serve as references for local food systems, we provide evidence on their capacity to provide vegetarian diet supply to their residents. Applying the Metropolitan Foodshed and Self-Sufficiency Scenario (MFSS) model methodology we estimate the level of potential food self-sufficiency of the FUAs. We quantitatively compare the results for FUAs with the results of local planning documents of metropolitan areas. The approach is applied to 9 city regions representing different European countries: Wrocław (PL), Ostend (BE), Berlin (DE), Avignon (FR), Copenhagen (DK), Bari (IT), Brasov (RO), Athens (EL), Barcelona (ES). The results show that vegetarian and local food demand could be satisfied in first five FUAs of these city regions. However, if the same number of calories as current diet delivers is to be maintained only the first three FUAs have enough agricultural land to supply vegetarian ingredients to this diet. The results for metropolitan comparison return the same three cities plus Bari. We discuss the use of FUA in defining foodshed area and the role of consumers’ dietary choices in regional food self-sufficiency.
... Although we have not considered a decrease in the food consumption in this study, some authors have already shown the need to decrease the current food consumption per capita in European urban areas (3456 kcal capita − 1 day − 1 ) in order to adjust the current demand to the supply, and, thus, to achieve the "optimal demand" (2200 kcal capita − 1 day − 1 ), defined as a "balanced amount of energy from diet for a person to maintain good health, avoiding overweight and under-nutrition" (Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al., 2015). However, the final food self-sufficiency will depend on the balance between the total consumption per hectare of urbanized landmainly dependent on the population growthand the consumption per capita (Kroll et al., 2012). ...
Article
The resilience of the food supply system has become a vital issue for many countries especially under substantial international supply disturbances (e.g. the effects of COVID-19 restrictions). Regionalizing diets and increasing food self-sufficiency contribute greatly to shortening food supply chains and, therefore, to increasing the resilience of the food system. Simultaneously, food supply disturbances can offer a chance for food system transition toward implementing sustainable management practices in agriculture (e.g. organic farming), increasing the sustainability of food production. In this study, we have proposed a foodshed for the cities of Vienna and Bristol, delineating the spatial extent for such a regionalization and self-sufficiency discussion. We used the Metropolitan Foodshed and Self-sufficiency Scenario model to assess the potential self-sufficiency of these areas under different pathways involving more sustainable and resilient food system scenarios by distinguishing: i) The regionalization, ii) production system, iii) food losses and wastage, and iv) population growth until 2050. Furthermore, we have found the main local food policies and studies involving both cities, linking them to the current self-sufficiency levels and proposing pathways to increase them. Our results suggest that the foodsheds proposed are suitable to achieve a high degree of potential self-sufficiency when shifting consumers’ behavior toward sustainably produced regional products, and reducing food wastes in households and food losses in agriculture. This should be accompanied in parallel by an increase in the diversification of regional crop production managed sustainably. We call for the adoption of the foodshed approach – based on the concept of sustainable city region food systems – so that it can be integrated into the food policies to increase food self-sufficiency sustainably.
... For example, based on the supply of and demand for flood regulation, areas that have a high potential to mitigate downstream flood risk through land use modifications have been identified [17]. Some authors have maintained that assessing multiple ESSD mismatches can help to better design urban green infrastructure where it is needed [8,18], and some have attempted to propose the achievement of urban self-sufficiency by optimizing ESSD at the local scale [19]. Although there have been numerous studies on integrating ES mismatches into planning, the optimization of land use to reduce ESSD mismatches remains a gap in the existing research. ...
Article
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Shortfalls and mismatches between the supply and demand of ecosystem services (ES) can be detrimental to human wellbeing. Studies focused on these problems have increased in recent decades, but few have applied land use optimization to reduce such spatial mismatches. This study developed a methodology to identify ES mismatches and then use these mismatches as objectives for land use optimization. The methodology was applied to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao “Greater Bay Area” (GBA), a megacity of over 70 million people and one of the world’s largest urban agglomerations. Considering the demand for a healthy and secure living environment among city-dwellers, we focused on three ES: heat mitigation, flood mitigation, and recreational services. The results showed large spatial heterogeneity in supply and demand for these three ES. However, compared to current conditions in the GBA, our model showed that optimized land use allocation could better match the supply and demand for heat mitigation (number of beneficiaries increased by 15%), flood mitigation (amount of population exposed to flood damage decreased by 37%), and recreation (number of beneficiaries increased by 14%). By integrating land use allocation and spatial mismatch analysis, this methodology provides a feasible way to align ES supply and demand to advance urban and regional sustainability.
... Allotments and community gardens facilitate encounters, joint activities and intercultural exchange (Pauleit et al. 2018). Growing local food in the city-be it in different types of gardens, on balconies or in abandoned cemeteries-increases urban self-sufficiency (Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al. 2015), and, at the same time, raises awareness about regional and healthy food (counteracting problems such as obesity among children and adults). Thus, recreational ecosystem services contribute to urban public health in multiple ways. ...
Chapter
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Global urbanisation comprises both urban sprawl and increasing densification of existing cities. Along with the heat waves, floods and droughts associated with climate change, urbanisation challenges our cities, and thus the places where soon 60% of the world’s population will live. In addition to human beings and their health, nature and biodiversity are under extreme pressure to function and to survive in these growing urban systems. More and more key biodiversity areas (KBAs) are becoming urbanised, and wetlands are being sealed. However, ecosystems are crucial for a healthy and safe life in cities. So how should we save urban nature as a habitat for humans, flora and fauna? This chapter presents three concepts that provide different perspectives for sustainable urban land management. They represent complementary paths to increased urban sustainability. Nonetheless, implementation is still a long way off, and moreover, unsolved issues still exist, such as the social inclusiveness of the three approaches.
... As cidades, de forma geral, foram responsabilizadas por cerca de 75% do consumo global de energia final KURIYAN;SHAH, 2017;TORABI MOGHADAM et al., 2017) (RODRÍGUEZ-RODRÍGUEZ et al., 2015). ...
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O Planejamento Energético Urbano é a integração entre o Planejamento Energético e o Planejamento Urbano, é um processo e, ao mesmo tempo, uma estratégia importante para abordar muitos problemas e oportunidades fundamentais relacionados à Urbanização, Planejamento Energético, Sustentabilidade e Mudanças Climáticas. A primeira menção ao Planejamento Energético Urbano é de 1978 e o primeiro trabalho publicado que cita o Sistema de Energia Urbano data de 1991. Ainda assim, há pouca literatura que busca avançar na construção teórica da definição e da harmonização dos conceitos de Planejamento Energético Urbano e de Sistemas de Energia Urbanos. Pesquisadores da área argumentam que o desenvolvimento de tais conceitos pode levar à redução da demanda de energia, das emissões de poluentes e de gases de efeito estufa, bem como pode conduzir a mudanças mais profundas, tais como a busca pela diminuição das injustiças sociais e ambientais, a melhoria da qualidade de vida da população urbana e a transição do sistema de energia urbano vigente para outro de baixo carbono e/ou sustentável. A presente pesquisa tem como objetivos principais investigar o conceito do Planejamento Energético Urbano e demonstrar a inter-relação/interdependência das Políticas do Planejamento de Energia e Planejamento Urbano, a fim de determinar seus possíveis impactos. Para tanto, foi adotada a abordagem de pesquisa quali-quantitativa, exploratória, cujos dados são desagregados, bottom-up e multicriteriais. Um total de 29 estratégias e soluções de Planejamento Urbano e de Planejamento Energético foram selecionadas e simuladas, usando o modelo LEAP_SP, para visualizar o futuro sistema energético e urbano de São Paulo (2014-2030) e para quantificar as possíveis sinergias da implementação do Planejamento Energético Urbano. Essas estratégias foram simuladas em quatro cenários: C_REF (taxas históricas), Estratégias de Políticas Energéticas (C_PE), Estratégias de Políticas Urbanas (C_PU) e Estratégias de Políticas Energética e Urbana (C_PEU). Com o exercício de modelagem realizado, foi verificado que a atuação em Planejamento Energético Urbano pode impactar positivamente a diminuição da demanda de energia e emissões de poluentes e de gases de efeito estufa, e no aumento da geração de energia localmente com recursos endógenos e renováveis. Com isso, diminui-se a dependência em relação a recursos energéticos externos às cidades, aumentando a segurança energética e melhorando também a qualidade de vida dos habitantes das áreas urbanas. Como contribuições desta pesquisa, destacam-se o estudo epistemológico sobre os termos Planejamento Energético Urbano e Sistemas de Energia Urbanos, a proposta de harmonização para o conceito de Planejamento Energético Urbano, o desenvolvimento de estrutura científica que possibilita a análise das sinergias de atuação em Planejamento Energético Urbano (Matriz de Soluções Integradas de Estratégias de Planejamento Energético e Planejamento Urbano), que por sua vez foi utilizada no estudo de caso da megacidade de São Paulo, através do desenvolvimento do modelo LEAP_SP (2014-2030).
... On the supply side, conservation, restoration, enhancement, and creation of urban green infrastructure are the actions that planners can put in place to secure and enhance the provision of urban regulating ES (Cortinovis and Geneletti, 2018a). On the demand side, planners can arrange land uses and functions in a way that the demand matches the existing supply (Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al., 2015). ...
Article
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Urban planning is the most relevant decision-making process affecting urban regulating ecosystem services. However, a clear understanding of the effects of planning decisions on both the supply and demand of urban regulating ecosystem services is still lacking. To support planners in enhancing urban regulating ecosystem services, there is a need to understand what variables are at stake and how changes in planning-related variables may affect urban regulating ecosystem services. The article presents a conceptual framework that describes how capacity, demand, and flow of urban regulating ecosystem services, and related benefits, are linked to the main variables controlled by urban planning, i.e. the location, typology, and size of urban green infrastructure, and the spatial distribution and vulnerability profile of population and physical assets. The variables and links described in the framework are then detailed for seven urban regulating ecosystem services. The analysis reveals, for each service, what are the main levers on which planners can act to shape the amount and spatial distribution of urban regulating ecosystem services and related benefits across the city. Uses and limitations of the proposed framework are discussed, and some key messages are drawn for planners on how to operationalise the findings.
... In addition, because human needs change with population growth, human preferences and other factors, ES supply and ES demand are unbalanced in most cases (Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al., 2015). ESSD matching is also a dynamic process. ...
... Cities have an enormous potential to reduce environmental pressure while enhancing well-being for their inhabitants. This can be made by decoupling cities metabolism from the use of nonrenewable energy resources and inefficient processes as part of a transition to a sustainable economy [8], acting on both the demand and supply sides of the Urban Energy System (UES) [5]. According to Rutter and Keirstead (2012), the UES is the combined processes of acquiring and using energy to meet the energy service demands of an urban region [3]. ...
... In this study, we set our conservation target goals based on the proportional area of potential distribution area of the ES indicators. However, the approach can be refined to set these goals based on scientific quantification of ES requirements, but this will require advancing our understanding of the required minimum area or quantity for each ES indicator needed to ensure the sustainability of the planning area (Schulp, Lautenbach & Verburg, 2014;Rodríguez et al., 2015). Unfortunately, the lack of basic data to quantify ES requirements hinders further research in this direction. ...
Article
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Rapid urbanization and agricultural development has resulted in the degradation of ecosystems, while also negatively impacting ecosystem services (ES) and urban sustainability. Identifying conservation priorities for ES and applying reasonable management strategies have been found to be effective methods for mitigating this phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to propose a comprehensive framework for identifying ES conservation priorities and associated management strategies for these planning areas. First, we incorporated 10 ES indicators within a systematic conservation planning (SCP) methodology in order to identify ES conservation priorities with high irreplaceability values based on conservation target goals associated with the potential distribution of ES indicators. Next, we assessed the efficiency of the ES conservation priorities for meeting the designated conservation target goals. Finally, ES conservation priorities were clustered into groups using a K-means clustering analysis in an effort to identify the dominant ES per location before formulating management strategies. We effectively identified 12 ES priorities to best represent conservation target goals for the ES indicators. These 12 priorities had a total areal coverage of 13,364 km ² representing 25.16% of the study area. The 12 priorities were further clustered into five significantly different groups ( p -values between groups < 0.05), which helped to refine management strategies formulated to best enhance ES across the study area. The proposed method allows conservation and management plans to easily adapt to a wide variety of quantitative ES target goals within urban and agricultural areas, thereby preventing urban and agriculture sprawl and guiding sustainable urban development.
... They are also highly regarded for positive effects in promoting their visitors' physical and mental health [7][8][9] and providing opportunities for social interactions and recreation [9][10][11]. The QoL benefits derived from UGS are increasingly central to urban society [12,13] and, therefore, understanding visitors' attitudes and perceptions of UGS is essential for informed urban planning [14,15]. However, exploring visitors' perceptions of green spaces is challenging as it depends on cognitive, affective, and behavioural components and, therefore, sensory perceptions are individually different [16][17][18][19]. ...
Article
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Individual perceptions are essential when evaluating the well-being benefits from urban green spaces. This study predicted the influence of perceived green space characteristics in the city of Szeged, Hungary, on two well-being variables: the green space visitors’ level of satisfaction and the self-reported quality of life. The applied logistic regression analysis used nine predictors: seven perceived green space characteristics from a questionnaire survey among visitors of five urban green spaces of Szeged; and the frequency of green space visitors’ crowd-sourced recreational running paths and photographs picturing green space aesthetics. Results revealed that perceived green space characteristics with direct well-being benefits were strong predictors of both dependent variables. Perceived green space characteristics with indirect, yet fundamental, well-being benefits, namely, regulating ecosystem services had minor influence on the dependent variables. The crowd-sourced geo-tagged data predicted only the perceived quality of life contributions; but revealed spatial patterns of recreational green space use and aesthetics. This study recommends that regulating ecosystem services should be planned with a focus on residents’ aesthetic and recreational needs. Further research on the combination of green space visitors´ perceptions and crowd-sourced geo-tagged data is suggested to promote planning for well-being and health benefits of urban green spaces.
... Previous UA self-sufficiency studies addressed annual self-sufficiency of the total vegetables [t] [22][23][24][25]. However, disasters are intractable and impact at random [26]. ...
Article
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Background: Post-earthquake studies from around the world have reported that survivors relying on emergency food for prolonged periods of time experienced several dietary related health problems. The present study aimed to quantify the potential nutrient production of urban agricultural vegetables and the resulting nutritional self-sufficiency throughout the year for mitigating post-disaster situations. Methods: We estimated the vegetable production of urban agriculture throughout the year. Two methods were developed to capture the production from professional and hobby farms: Method I utilized secondary governmental data on agricultural production from professional farms, and Method II was based on a supplementary spatial analysis to estimate the production from hobby farms. Next, the weight of produced vegetables [t] was converted into nutrients [kg]. Furthermore, the self-sufficiency by nutrient and time of year was estimated by incorporating the reference consumption of vegetables [kg], recommended dietary allowance of nutrients per capita [mg], and population statistics. The research was conducted in Nerima, the second most populous ward of Tokyo’s 23 special wards. Self-sufficiency rates were calculated with the registered residents. Results: The estimated total vegetable production of 5660 tons was equivalent to a weight-based self-sufficiency rate of 6.18%. The average nutritional self-sufficiencies of Methods I and II were 2.48% and 0.38%, respectively, resulting in an aggregated average of 2.86%. Fluctuations throughout the year were observed according to the harvest seasons of the available crops. Vitamin K (6.15%) had the highest self-sufficiency of selected nutrients, while calcium had the lowest (0.96%). Conclusions: This study suggests that depending on the time of year, urban agriculture has the potential to contribute nutrients to diets during post-disaster situations as disaster preparedness food. Emergency responses should be targeted according to the time of year the disaster takes place to meet nutrient requirements in periods of low self-sufficiency and prevent gastrointestinal symptoms and cardiovascular diseases among survivors.
... Strong investment into green corridors for walking and cycling in an attractive environment play a crucial role in this strategy (City of Copenhagen, 2014). The generation of provisioning ecosystem services by urban GI offers further potential for reducing the ecological footprint; e.g., via local provision of food from urban agriculture, by composting of biowaste from green space maintenance, or by water supply (Barthel, Parker, & Ernstson, 2013;Mettepenningen, Koopmans, & Van Huylenbroeck, 2014; Rodríguez-Rodríguez, Kain, Haase,Baró, & Kaczorowska, 2015). As with many of the other services discussed here, climate change mitigation highlights that not only quantity and quality of green spaces matter; their location and the overall spatial configuration of GI also strongly influence the magnitude of the services. ...
Chapter
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Urban green infrastructure (GI) has been promoted as an approach to respond to major urban environmental and social challenges such as reducing the ecological footprint, improving human health and well-being, and adapting to climate change. Various definitions of GI have been proposed since its emergence more than two decades ago. This article aims to provide an overview of the concept of GI as a strategic planning approach that is based on certain principles. A variety of green space types exist in urban areas, including remnants of natural areas, farmland on the fringe, designed green spaces, and derelict land where successional vegetation has established itself. These green spaces, and especially components such as trees, can cover significant proportions of urban areas. However, their uneven distribution raises issues of social and environmental justice. Moreover, the diverse range of public, institutional, and private landowners of urban green spaces poses particular challenges to GI planning. Urban GI planning must consider processes of urban change, especially pressures on green spaces from urban sprawl and infill development, while derelict land may offer opportunities for creating new, biodiverse green spaces within densely built areas. Based on ample evidence from the research literature, it is suggested that urban GI planning can make a major contribution to conserving and enhancing biodiversity, improving environmental quality and reducing the ecological footprint, adapting cities to climate change, and promoting social cohesion. In addition, GI planning may support the shift toward a green economy. The benefits derived from urban green spaces via the provision of ecosystem services are key to meeting these challenges. The text argues that urban GI planning should build on seven principles to unlock its full potential. Four of these are treated in more detail: green-gray integration, multifunctionality, connectivity, and socially inclusive planning. Considering these principles in concert is what makes GI planning a distinct planning approach. Results from a major European research project indicate that the principles of urban GI planning have been applied to different degrees. In particular, green-gray integration and approaches to socially inclusive planning offer scope for further improvement In conclusion, urban GI is considered to hold much potential for the transition toward more sustainable and resilient pathways of urban development. While the approach has developed in the context of the Western world, its application to the rapidly developing cities of the Global South should be a priority. Keywords: green infrastructure, green space, ecosystem services, urban, multifunctionality, connectivity, integration, social inclusion
... Quality of air is one of the Local Agendas 21 indexes which determined the sustainability of a city at a local level (Marsal-Llacuna, Colomer-Llinàs and Meléndez-Frigola, 2015). Air purification and carbon sequestration are regarded ecosystem services in the context of cities (Rodríguez-Rodríguez, Kain, Haase, Baró and Kaczorowska, 2014). These services are defined as benefits provided by nature (Szarejko and Ładysz, 2014). ...
Article
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The article attempts to identify green logistics tasks in the area of reducing the negative environmental impacts of households and entities operating in the city. The purpose of this article is to determine changes in relation to the effect of economic entities and households functioning in the city on atmospheric air and waste quantity, as well to indicate cities and agglomerations which are characterized by the greatest degree of hazard in this respect. The analysis looks at the following variables: pollutants emissions in cities at high environmental risk of air pollutants emissions from environmentally harmful facilities, concentration of suspended particulate matter pm10 by agglomerations, concentration of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and benzene and lead by agglomerations, mixed municipal waste collected and treated in cities, controlled landfill sites in operation by urban areas. Data from the years 2005 and 2013 were analyzed. In the article the methods of descriptive and mathematical statistics were used.
... Three groups, all from local authorities, identified 'expansion of urban green space' also as an important driver (with potential positive effects on ES). Water consumption and urban green space are related to the demand of essential ES in urban contexts and there are evidences that current demand could be substantially optimized for an enhanced human wellbeing, at least in Europe (Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al., 2015). Urban green space also fits within the concept of green infrastructure, which is considered to play a major role in ES provision (Maes et al., 2015), as recognized by the EU-wide strategy on Green Infrastructure (European Commission, 2013). ...
Article
(Full text freely available until April 17 at http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Sck17szSIn9ar) Ecosystem services (ES) assessments have been undergoing rapid developments. Despite considerable advancements it is still difficult to comprehensively assess a large suite of ES, often requiring a selection of the most relevant ones. However, documented and tested procedures to select ES, particularly through participatory processes, are scarce. The aim of this research is to explore the participatory selection of ES, illustrated with the case of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area in Portugal, southwestern Europe. Drawing from a spatial planning context, different types of stakeholders were involved through a combination of participatory techniques. It was possible to identify differences in stakeholders' ES selection, while at the same time arriving at a set of priority ES and linking them with spatial planning goals that entail potential effects on ES. The strengths of the approach include the use of different participatory techniques, of drivers that help translating plans and of an existing ES classification system to support it. On the other hand, the exploratory nature of the research meant that a limited range of types of stakeholders was covered. The participatory approach developed in this research has the potential to be adapted for ES selection in other planning contexts or in strategic environmental assessments.
Article
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Using a novel approach based on the urban ecosystem services approach, this research explores the relation between socio-economic, architectonic and ecological factors in urban renewal processes. This deductive conceptual approach is based on the definition of an urban diagnosis and intervention model based on the concept of urban socio-ecosystemic services. This conceptual approach is applied to three research cases in Andalusia (Spain) neighbourhoods linked to participatory urban renewal processes. A model is inductively defined from these analysed case studies: the socio-ecosystemic services model, based on the conceptual frame, the development of particular instruments and the definition of a participatory methodological strategy. The results obtained in these urban workshops show that the socio-ecosystem model better integrates the relationships between the architectural, socio-economic and ecological dimensions in addressing the need for urban services and infrastructure and the quality of life in neighbourhoods. Citizens can formulate their needs and perceptions of the neighbourhood beyond traditional quantitative variables (i.e. number of car parks, average size of dwellings, population density, etc.), incorporating aspects such as urban landscape, air quality, urban noise, shaded rest areas and children’s spaces. All these perceptions are collected and transformed into proposals for neighbourhood improvement, which are assessed and prioritized by the citizens. Together with participatory processes, this approach can be considered as the key to success in urban renewal strategies in neighbourhoods. However, it is necessary to develop indicators and metrics of the relationships between the socio-economic and ecological dimensions that allow a more integrated study of the model at different urban scales.
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Local governments, scientists and urban planners need to create a sensitivity to greening initiatives of local citizens and their networks and learn to co-create locally relevant strategies with them, combining communal practices with broader policies and legislation and scientific efforts. We focus on three pathways to enhance this social capital needed for greening cities: communal learning; new types of ownership for citizens’ initiatives; and making the impact of citizens’ activities and practices more explicit. Three cases demonstrate each of these pathways. First, Steenbreek Foundation, an initiative of universities, municipalities and urban ecologists, exemplifies communal learning through local actions. Steenbreek Foundation aims to engage citizens and local municipalities in greening public and private gardens by demonstrating the added value of greening. In 2021 over 140 municipalities and local initiatives joined Steenbreek Foundation. Second, communal ownership is exemplified by the Kaskantine in Amsterdam, an urban farm cafe, where residents of the neighbourhood of Nieuw-West take over management of urban land and water to develop nature-based technologies for off-grid living in the city. Third, communal impact is exemplified by the Doughnut Coalition in Amsterdam, an organisation of residents that develop their own bottom-up measurement technique to measure the social impact of their neighbourhood activities. The three case studies show diverse ways of including communities in urban greening initiatives. Whether through encouraging community learning, creating strategies for communal ownership and management of resources, or through measuring and tracking the impact of community action, these initiatives have demonstrated the potential of civic engagement. The chapter concludes with three principles that local governments and urban planners need to embrace in order to involve communities in their greening strategies.
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The destruction of the ecological system caused by urban expansion has led to the environmental deterioration, cities have become increasingly vulnerable. In this study, six districts and counties along the Yellow River in Zhengzhou were selected as the study area. First, green infrastructure elements were extracted by morphological spatial pattern analysis. Then, outside the urban areas, we used connectivity analysis to evaluate the importance of core areas, adopted minimum cumulative resistance model to extract potential corridors, and identified the important corridors by using the gravity model. Finally, in the urban areas, we set up an evaluation system to assess the demands for ecosystem services. The results showed that: (1) Seven landscape types of green infrastructure be identified in study area. (2) There are 17 vital cores, 136 potential corridors, and 24 vital corridors outside the urban areas. (3) The blocks with high demand for ecosystem services are mostly concentrated in the old blocks with dense populations and poor infrastructure, and there are 5 blocks with comprehensive high-demand. Based on identified importance for green infrastructure land space, and high-demand level for ecosystem services areas in this study, a green infrastructure net plan was proposed based on spatial conservation prioritisation.
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This study assumes the results from Collaço et al. (2019a), that quantifies and implements 29 EP and UP strategies, selected through a literature review, through the simulation model long-range energy alternatives planning (LEAP) system (Heaps 2006). All the strategies were applied to the São Paulo megacity UES. This modeling exercise aimed to compare the impact of the strategies’ implementation on energy savings, reductions in GHG emissions, and increase in local energy generation under four scenarios: (i) a reference scenario (C_REF), (ii) a scenario that implements EP strategies (C_EP), (iii) a scenario that implements UP strategies (C_UP), and (iv) a scenario that integrates both UP and EP strategies (C_UEP). In the second stage, we classified the 29 EP and UP strategies into 13 categories, according to Collaço et al. (2019a). Subsequently, in addition to the modeling results, we analyzed the degree of achievement of the SDG goals based on four indices according to Cruz and Marins’ methodological proposal (PMCM; Cruz 2019). The first index analyzes the comprehensiveness capacity of the strategies, as we sought to identify the strategies that achieve the largest number of SDG goals simultaneously. The second index concerned effectiveness, so as to determine which strategies have been the most effective in addressing the SDGs. The third index evaluates the joint performance of strategies for a set of problems (in this case, the 17 SDGs). Finally, the fourth index assesses the capacity of all UEP strategies to effectively achieve the 17 SDGs. Thus, it was possible to determine the overall performance of the strategies in achieving the SDGs goals, considering their level of coverage and ability to solve/address the goals.
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Urban environments provide opportunities for greater resource efficiency and the fostering of urban ecosystems. Brownfield areas are a typical example of underused land resource. Brownfield redevelopment projects that include green infrastructure allow for further ecosystems to be accommodated in urban environments. Green infrastructure also deliver important urban ecosystem services (UES) to local residents, which can greatly contribute to improving quality of life in cities. In this case study, we quantify and assess the economic value of five UES for a brownfield redevelopment project in Antwerp, Belgium. The assessment is carried out using the “Nature Value Explorer” modelling tool. The case includes three types of green infrastructure (green corridor, infiltration gullies and green roofs) primarily intended to connect nature reserves on the urban periphery and to avoid surface runoff. The green infrastructure also provides air filtration, climate regulation, carbon sequestration and recreation ecosystem services. The value of recreation far exceeds other values, including the value of avoided runoff. The case study raises crucial questions as to whether existing UES valuation approaches adequately account for the range of UES provided and whether such approaches can be improved to achieve more accurate and reliable value estimates in future analyses.
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In an increasingly urban planet, many cities and their inhabitants are facing multiple pressing threats within their borders, including heat stress, pollution and growing disconnection with the biosphere. Improving sustainability, resilience and livability in urban areas should be thus a major goal on the policy agenda, from local to global authorities. The operationalization of the ecosystem services framework, building on the concepts of ‘green infrastructure’ and ‘nature-based solutions’, is claimed by a mounting number of policy-makers, practitioners and scientists as the way forward to address many of these urban challenges. However, the extent to which urban green infrastructure can offer relevant solutions to these challenges is rarely considered in ecosystem service assessments, and therefore unknown to decision-makers. This dissertation critically examines the role and contribution of green infrastructure to cope with diverse urban challenges (with a focus on air pollution, greenhouse emissions, heat stress and opportunities for outdoor recreation) at different spatial scales. Building on the ecosystem services cascade model, an operational framework is proposed and applied across four original research chapters to inform planning and management decisions on the basis of the relationships between the green infrastructure’s capacity to deliver ecosystem services, the actual provision or use of these services (flow), and the amount of services demanded by the urban population. Identification of unsatisfied demand, i.e., the mismatch between ecosystem service flow and demand, is a main focus of the assessments since it expresses the limits of urban green infrastructure in relation to the considered challenges. The dissertation uses and refines a variety of methodological approaches for modeling and mapping the capacity, flow and demand of urban ecosystem services (e.g., i-Tree and ESTIMAP tools). The spatial scope of the research carried out within the assessment framework of this dissertation principally encompasses the urban area of Barcelona, Spain, considering both the local or city scale (Barcelona municipality) and the metropolitan or regional scale (Barcelona metropolitan region). Results from the research indicate that the contribution of ecosystem services provided by urban green infrastructure to cope with urban problems is often limited (e.g., its impact on air quality or carbon offsetting was lower than 3% considering total carbon emissions and air pollution in all case studies) and/or uncertain at the city and metropolitan scales. In addition, the positive impact of green infrastructure on environmental quality and human wellbeing is usually challenged by ecosystem disservices (e.g., biogenic emissions), trade-offs (e.g., provisioning versus regulating services) or spatial mismatches between service supply and demand (e.g., air purification and outdoor recreation capacities of large metropolitan green infrastructure blocks are too far from demand sites). On the basis of these findings, several implications for urban/landscape planning, management and decision-making are drawn, including: (1) the prioritization of abatement policies on the pressures generating a demand for certain ecosystem services (e.g., air purification and carbon sequestration); (2) combining land sharing strategies in urban and agricultural land in order to increase their multifunctionality and resilience and, concurrently, assure the conservation of large patches of multifunctional periurban forest areas; (3) development of new green spaces in compact urban cores using innovative strategies (e.g., rooftop gardens); and (4) consideration of ecosystem services trade-offs and disservices in planning and management. Finally, I contend that urban green infrastructure planning and management requires a holistic approach, considering the whole range of ecosystem services potentially provided by different types of green infrastructure and the interactions between them, together with the different spatial scales at which these ecosystem services can be relevant for the resilience, sustainability and livability of urban areas. This calls for a strong multi-scale and multi-disciplinary institutional coordination between all the authorities dealing with urban and environmental policy and for the harmonization of planning and management instruments in a multi-level governance approach.
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In 2010, the Second Conference on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity in Barcelona, Spain, convened more than 500 participants from over 40 countries to discuss how to intentionally “degrow” the global economy. (See Box 2–1 for the definition of degrowth.) A variety of academic papers were discussed—from the mechanics of economic degrowth to strategies on how to pursue and communicate this challenging concept.1
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Mapping key areas for ecosystem service (ES) supply is essential for the development of strategies that will ensure their future supply. Given the rapid development in this area of research, we performed a review of different approaches used to map ES, with a special focus on those that use social–ecological data. We used an analytical framework based on five criteria for analyzing and comparing the methodological approaches: the types of ES, availability of data sources, types of data sources, spatial scale, and methods used to model ES. We found that regulating services were the most commonly mapped, followed by provisioning, cultural, and supporting services. Secondary (readily available) data were used more frequently than primary data to map ES. Biophysical data (land-cover variables) and mixed sources (databases like global statistics) were the most commonly employed ones. Most studies were performed at the regional or at the national scale. The most commonly used method to model services was the development of models based on the well-known causal relationships between environmental variables, followed by the extrapolation of ES values from primary data to the total analyzed area frequently using land-cover maps. Our synthesis reveals that the majority of studies are based on secondary data, applied at broad scales, without validation techniques. There is an urgent need to develop methods for deepening our understanding of the social–ecological processes behind the supply of ES in order to improve our ability to map ES for decision making.
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This introductory article does three things. First, it compares neo-liberal and social innovation discourses about urban socio-economic change, including associated policies and key agencies. Second, it seeks to improve the analytical framework of urban development by combining `spatialized' Regulation Theory with elements from Cultural Political Economy and from Urban Regime Theory.Third, with the help of case-studies, the article illustrates how social innovation is a potentially powerful concept, capable of anchoring urban change movements more firmly into the local social and political fabric. The case-studies, some of which are included in this special issue, analyse examples of social innovation in a number of European urban contexts, within the framework of the FP5 SINGOCOM research project.
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The Ecosystem Services Journal starts in 2012 with a formidable basis in the reports and books from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and TEEB projects. Following a half-century history of growing awareness and associated scientific based policy development a bridging concept with natural and social science notions was developed and coined “ecosystem services”. The agenda for the journal Ecosystem Services, presented in this introductory paper to the Journal Ecosystem Services is aimed at scientists and policy analysts who consider contributing to better knowledge and better use of that knowledge about ecosystem services. This should include knowledge of the ecological systems that provide the services, the economic systems that benefit from them, and the institutions that need to develop effective codes for a sustainable use. The agenda is derived from the experience of the authors in science and policy analysis and extended with some of the recommendations from the TEEB book for national and international policy making emphasising the science—policy—practice linkage, which is the philosophy of the Journal.
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Because we have entered the 'millennium of the cities', urban ecological research needs to account for the provisions ecosystem services provide to urban regions. In urban areas, ecosystem service assessment studies need to account for the complex land use patterns, which change over relatively short periods of time. We discuss an analytical framework for the spatial and temporal integration of different ecosystem services in an urban region to determine synergies, trade-offs and losses, and we employ a case study in Leipzig-Halle, Germany. The following five ecosystem services, which are of special importance for urban areas, were selected: local climate regulation, recreation potential, biodiversity potential, food supply, and above-ground carbon storage. These services were analyzed from 1990 to 2006. Our results identified only slight increases in urbanization (1% or 3 km(2)) and in mining restoration (-11 km(2)). However, the detected land use changes led to synergies with biodiversity and climate regulation of > 50% of the total area, whereas trade-offs of approximately 60% were detected between variables such as climate regulation and recreation. Finally, we address both the opportunities and the challenges that were encountered in the integration study, specifically with respect to the application in land use planning.
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This paper is concerned with the relationships between urbanisation and residential water consumption, taking as a case study the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona. More precisely, it investigates the influence of certain demographic, behavioural and housing factors on this consumption using descriptive statistics and a regression analysis. The data are derived from a sample of 532 households in 22 municipalities of the study area. Results show that income, housing type, members per household, the presence of outdoor uses (garden and swimming pool), the kind of species planted in the garden and consumer behaviour towards conservation practices play a significant role in explaining variations in water consumption. It is concluded that, along with prices and incomes, further research is needed on other demographic and housing variables in order to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the determinants of domestic water consumption in areas periodically affected by water stress.
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The concept of ecosystem services (ES) has taken the environmental science and policy literature by storm, and has become almost the approach to thinking about and assessing the nature-society relationship. In this review, we ask whether and in what way the ES concept is a useful way of organising research on the nature-society relationship. We trace the evolution of the different versions of the concept and identify key points of convergence and divergence. The essence of the concept nevertheless is that the contribution of biotic nature to human well-being is unrecognised and undervalued, which results in destruction of ecosystems. We discuss why this formulation has attracted ecologists and summarise the resultant contributions to research, particularly to the understanding of indirect or regulating services. We then outline three sets of weaknesses in the ES framework: confusion over ecosystem functions and biodiversity, omission of dis-services, trade-offs and abiotic nature, and the use of an economic valuation framework to measure and aggregate human well-being. Underlying these weaknesses is a narrow problem frame that is unidimensional in its environmental concern and techno-economic in its explanation of environmental degradation. We argue that an alternative framing that embraces broader concerns and incorporates multiple explanations would be more useful, and outline how this approach to understanding the nature-society relationship may be implemented.
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"Urban landscapes constitute the future environment for most of the world's human population. An increased understanding of the urbanization process and of the effects of urbanization at multiple scales is, therefore, key to ensuring human well-being. In many conventional natural resource management regimes, incomplete knowledge of ecosystem dynamics and institutional constraints often leads to institutional management frameworks that do not match the scale of ecological patterns and processes. In this paper, we argue that scale mismatches are particularly pronounced in urban landscapes. Urban green spaces provide numerous important ecosystem services to urban citizens, and the management of these urban green spaces, including recognition of scales, is crucial to the well-being of the citizens. From a qualitative study of the current management practices in five urban green spaces within the Greater Stockholm Metropolitan Area, Sweden, we found that 1) several spatial, temporal, and functional scales are recognized, but the cross-scale interactions are often neglected, and 2) spatial and temporal meso-scales are seldom given priority. One potential effect of the neglect of ecological cross-scale interactions in these highly fragmented landscapes is a gradual reduction in the capacity of the ecosystems to provide ecosystem services. Two important strategies for overcoming urban scale mismatches are suggested: 1) development of an integrative view of the whole urban social-ecological landscape, and 2) creation of adaptive governance systems to support practical management."
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The issue of environmentally significant consumption is closely linked to population–environment relationships, but with some exceptions the two literatures have proceeded along separate tracks. We explore three consumption–environment research agendas: household–level consumption; ecological footprints and material flow accounting; and values, attitudes, behaviors and lifestyles. In each of these we note areas of overlap with the population–environment literature, and ways in which the population–environment literature might benefit or borrow from conceptual or methodological approaches in the consumption–environment literature. We also propose ways in which consumption research might be integrated into the largest (in terms of funding) of the population–environment research agendas, land-use and land-cover change research. In the concluding section we present a conceptual framework for understanding the population–environment literature that incorporates production and consumption into the model, and we propose some population–consumption–environment (PCE) research areas to which the population-environment research community could make significant contributions.
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The term ‘social innovation’ has come into common parlance in recent years. Some analysts consider social innovation no more than a buzz word or passing fad that is too vague to be usefully applied to academic scholarship. Some social scientists, however, see significant value in the concept of social innovation because it identifies a critical type of innovation. In this paper, we suggest one possible definition of social innovation and show that when its empirical meaning is distilled, the term is of great importance. We distinguish social innovation from business innovation, and identify a subset of social innovations that requires government support.
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Unsustainable consumption patterns of the North (or rather of the global affluent consumers class) have been identified by Agenda 21 as one of the key driving forces behind the unsustainable development. However, neither accounting based on the system of national accounts SNA nor household economics provide the proper instruments to assess the environmental impact of household decision making. Eco-efficiency assessments as familiar in the business sector provide no appropriate tool for households. As an alternative an environmental space based assessment scheme is suggested covering the major pressures on the environment caused by household decisions. The methodology is used twice: once to analyse the environmental relevance of the main activity clusters of household consumption and once to identify the dominant acts of consumption within each cluster. The latter provide the basis for deriving environmental performance indicators. A rough analysis of household influence potentials permits to identify housing, eating and mobility as the three priority fields for action for minimising the environmental impact of households. Extending the influence analysis actor matrixes are derived allocating influence and thus responsibility for environmental pressures to different groups of economic agents.
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In recent years social, economic and environmental considerations have led to a reevaluation of the factors that contribute to sustainable urban environments. Increasingly, urban green space is seen as an integral part of cities providing a range of services to both the people and the wildlife living in urban areas. With this recognition and resulting from the simultaneous provision of different services, there is a real need to identify a research framework in which to develop multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research on urban green space. In order to address these needs, an iterative process based on the delphi technique was developed, which comprised email-mediated discussions and a two-day symposium involving experts from various disciplines. The two outputs of this iterative process were (i) an integrated framework for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research and (ii) a catalogue of key research questions in urban green space research. The integrated framework presented here includes relevant research areas (i.e. ecosystem services, drivers of change, pressures on urban green space, human processes and goals of provision of urban green space) and emergent research themes in urban green space studies (i.e. physicality, experience, valuation, management and governance). Collectively these two outputs have the potential to establish an international research agenda for urban green space, which can contribute to the better understanding of people's relationship with cities.
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Alteration in land use is likely to be a major driver of changes in the distribution of ecosystem services before 2050. In Europe, urbanization will probably be the main cause of land-use change. This increase in urbanization will result in spatial shifts in both supplies of ecosystem services and the beneficiaries of those services; the net outcome of such shifts remains to be determined. Here, we model changes in urban land cover in Britain based on large (16%) projected increases in the human population by 2031, and the consequences for three different services--flood mitigation, agricultural production and carbon storage. We show that under a scenario of densification of urban areas, the combined effect of increasing population and loss of permeable surfaces is likely to result in 1.7 million people living within 1 km of rivers with at least 10 per cent increases in projected peak flows, but that increasing suburban 'sprawl' will have little effect on flood mitigation services. Conversely, losses of stored carbon and agricultural production are over three times as high under the sprawl as under the 'densification' urban growth scenarios. Our results illustrate the challenges of meeting, but also of predicting, future demands and patterns of ecosystem services in the face of increasing urbanization.
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Ecological studies of terrestrial urban systems have been approached along several kinds of contrasts: ecology in as opposed to ecology of cities; biogeochemical compared to organismal perspectives, land use planning versus biological, and disciplinary versus interdisciplinary. In order to point out how urban ecological studies are poised for significant integration, we review key aspects of these disparate literatures. We emphasize an open definition of urban systems that accounts for the exchanges of material and influence between cities and surrounding landscapes. Research on ecology in urban systems highlights the nature of the physical environment, including urban climate, hydrology, and soils. Biotic research has studied flora, fauna, and vegetation, including trophic effects of wildlife and pets. Unexpected interactions among soil chemistry, leaf litter quality, and exotic invertebrates exemplify the novel kinds of interactions that can occur in urban systems. Vegetation and faunal responses suggest that the configuration of spatial heterogeneity is especially important in urban systems. This insight parallels the concern in the literature on the ecological dimensions of land use planning. The contrasting approach of ecology of cities has used a strategy of biogeochemical budgets, ecological footprints, and summaries of citywide species richness. Contemporary ecosystem approaches have begun to integrate organismal, nutrient, and energetic approaches, and to show the need for understanding the social dimensions of urban ecology. Social structure and the social allocation of natural and institutional resources are subjects that are well understood within social sciences, and that can be readily accommodated in ecosystem models of metropolitan areas. Likewise, the sophisticated understanding of spatial dimensions of social differentiation has parallels with concepts and data on patch dynamics in ecology and sets the stage for comprehensive understanding of urban ecosystems. The linkages are captured in the human ecosystem framework.
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"Four quantitative scenarios are presented that describe changes in worldwide ecosystem services up to 2050-2100. A set of soft-linked global models of human demography, economic development, climate, and biospheric processes are used to quantify these scenarios. The global demand for ecosystem services substantially increases up to 2050: cereal consumption by a factor of 1.5 to 1.7, fish consumption (up to the 2020s) by a factor of 1.3 to 1.4, water withdrawals by a factor of 1.3 to 2.0, and biofuel production by a factor of 5.1 to 11.3. The ranges for these estimates reflect differences between the socio-economic assumptions of the scenarios. In all simulations, Sub-Saharan Africa continues to lag behind other parts of the world. Although the demand side of these scenarios presents an overall optimistic view of the future, the supply side is less optimistic: the risk of higher soil erosion (especially in Sub-Saharan Africa) and lower water availability (especially in the Middle East) could slow down an increase in food production. Meanwhile, increasing wastewater discharges during the same period, especially in Latin America (factor of 2 to 4) and Sub-Saharan Africa (factor of 3.6 to 5.6) could interfere with the delivery of freshwater services. Marine fisheries (despite the growth of aquaculture) may not have the ecological capacity to provide for the increased global demand for fish. Our simulations also show an intensification of present tradeoffs between ecosystem services, e.g., expansion of agricultural land (between 2000 and 2050) may be one of the main causes of a 10%-20% loss of total current grassland and forest land and the ecosystem services associated with this land (e.g., genetic resources, wood production, habitat for terrestrial biota and fauna). The scenarios also show that certain hot-spot regions may experience especially rapid changes in ecosystem services: the central part of Africa, southern Asia, and the Middle East. In general, the scenarios show a positive balance of increasing services, especially in developing countries, and a negative balance of increasing risks and tradeoffs of services. The challenge, then, is dealing with these risks so as to avoid a future curtailment of ecosystem services."
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Most people on the planet live in dense aggregations, and policy directives emphasize green areas within cities to ameliorate some of the problems of urban living. Benefits of urban green spaces range from physical and psychological health to social cohesion, ecosystem service provision and biodiversity conservation. Green space coverage differs enormously among cities, yet little is known about the correlates or geography of this variation. This is important because urbanization is accelerating and the consequences for green space are unclear. Here, we use standardized major axis regression to explore the relationships between urban green space coverage, city area and population size across 386 European cities. We show that green space coverage increases more rapidly than city area, yet declines only weakly as human population density increases. Thus, green space provision within a city is primarily related to city area rather than the number of inhabitants that it serves, or a simple space-filling effect. Thus, compact cities (small size and high density) show very low per capita green space allocation. However, at high levels of urbanicity, the green space network is robust to further city compaction. As cities grow, interactions between people and nature depend increasingly on landscape quality outside formal green space networks, such as street plantings, or the size, composition and management of backyards and gardens.
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The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) introduced a new framework for analyzing social-ecological systems that has had wide influence in the policy and scientific communities. Studies after the MA are taking up new challenges in the basic science needed to assess, project, and manage flows of ecosystem services and effects on human well-being. Yet, our ability to draw general conclusions remains limited by focus on discipline-bound sectors of the full social-ecological system. At the same time, some polices and practices intended to improve ecosystem services and human well-being are based on untested assumptions and sparse information. The people who are affected and those who provide resources are increasingly asking for evidence that interventions improve ecosystem services and human well-being. New research is needed that considers the full ensemble of processes and feedbacks, for a range of biophysical and social systems, to better understand and manage the dynamics of the relationship between humans and the ecosystems on which they rely. Such research will expand the capacity to address fundamental questions about complex social-ecological systems while evaluating assumptions of policies and practices intended to advance human well-being through improved ecosystem services.
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Looking out on and being in the green elements of the landscape around us seem to affect health, well-being and feelings of social safety. This article discusses the design of a research program on the effects of green space in the living environment on health, well-being and social safety. The program consists of three projects at three different scales: at a macro scale using data on the Netherlands as a whole, at an intermediate scale looking into the specific effect of green space in the urban environment, and at micro scale investigating the effects of allotment gardens. The projects are observational studies, combining existing data on land use and health interview survey data, and collecting new data through questionnaires and interviews. Multilevel analysis and GIS techniques will be used to analyze the data. Previous (experimental) research in environmental psychology has shown that a natural environment has a positive effect on well-being through restoration of stress and attentional fatigue. Descriptive epidemiological research has shown a positive relationship between the amount of green space in the living environment and physical and mental health and longevity. The program has three aims. First, to document the relationship between the amount and type of green space in people's living environment and their health, well-being, and feelings of safety. Second, to investigate the mechanisms behind this relationship. Mechanisms relate to exposure (leading to stress reduction and attention restoration), healthy behavior and social integration, and selection. Third, to translate the results into policy on the crossroads of spatial planning, public health, and safety. Strong points of our program are: we study several interrelated dependent variables, in different ordinary settings (as opposed to experimental or extreme settings), focusing on different target groups, using appropriate multilevel methods.
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Urban areas are hot spots that drive environmental change at multiple scales. Material demands of production and human consumption alter land use and cover, biodiversity, and hydrosystems locally to regionally, and urban waste discharge affects local to global biogeochemical cycles and climate. For urbanites, however, global environmental changes are swamped by dramatic changes in the local environment. Urban ecology integrates natural and social sciences to study these radically altered local environments and their regional and global effects. Cities themselves present both the problems and solutions to sustainability challenges of an increasingly urbanized world.
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The core idea of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is that the human condition is tightly linked to environmental condition. This assertion suggests that conservation and development projects should be able to achieve both ecological and social progress without detracting from their primary objectives. Whereas “win–win” projects that achieve both conservation and economic gains are a commendable goal, they are not easy to attain. An analysis of World Bank projects with objectives of alleviating poverty and protecting biodiversity revealed that only 16% made major progress on both objectives. Here, we provide a framework for anticipating win–win, lose–lose, and win–lose outcomes as a result of how people manage their ecosystem services. This framework emerges from detailed explorations of several case studies in which biodiversity conservation and economic development coincide and cases in which there is joint failure. We emphasize that scientific advances around ecosystem service production functions, tradeoffs among multiple ecosystem services, and the design of appropriate monitoring programs are necessary for the implementation of conservation and development projects that will successfully advance both environmental and social goals. The potentially bright future of jointly advancing ecosystem services, conservation, and human well-being will be jeopardized unless a global monitoring effort is launched that uses the many ongoing projects as a grand experiment. • poverty alleviation • pro-poor conservation • sustainable management
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The implications of de-growth are much more far reaching and radical than seems to be appreciated. It is important to start with a brief consideration of the magnitude and nature of the global predicament, because when this is understood it becomes clear firstly that consumer-capitalist society cannot be made sustainable or just, secondly that a satisfactory and viable post-capitalist society must take a particular form, and thirdly that specific implications for transition strategy are indicated.
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Shifting consumer preferences towards ‘green’ consumption is promoted by many governments and environmental groups. Rebound effects, which reduce the effectiveness of such actions, are estimated for cost-saving ‘green’ consumption choices using Australian data. Cases examined are: reduced vehicle use, reduced electricity use, changing to smaller passenger vehicles, and utilising fluorescent lighting. It is found that if rebound effects are ignored when eval- uating ‘green’ consumption, environmental benefits will be overstated by around 20% for reduced vehicle use, and 7% for reduced electricity use. Rebound effects are higher, and environmental benefits lower, when more efficient vehicles or lighting are utilised rather than simple conserva- tion actions of forgoing use. In addition, lower income households have higher rebound effects, suggesting that environmental policy directed at changing consumer behaviour is most effective when targeted at high income households. Additionally, an inherent trade-off between economic and environmental benefits of ‘green’ consumption choices is demonstrated. The size of the rebound effect, and the observed variation with household income, is attributed to life-cycle analysis (LCA) methodologies associated with the calculation of embodied GHG emis- sions of consumption goods. These results should be therefore be interpreted as the minimum rebound effect to include in policy evaluation.
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Global Urban Analysis provides a unique insight into the contemporary world economy through a focus on cities. It is based upon a large-scale customised data collection on how leading businesses use cities across the world: as headquarter locations, for finance, for professional and creative services, for media. These data - involving up to 2000 firms and over 500 cities - provide evidence for both how the leading cities, sometimes called global cities, are coming to dominate the world economy, and how hundreds of other cities are faring in this brave new urban world. Thus can the likes of London, New York and Hong Kong be tracked as well as Manchester, Cleveland and Guangzhou, and even Plymouth, Chattanooga and Xi'an. Cities are assessed and ranked in terms of their importance for various functions such as for financial services, legal services and advertising, plus novel findings are reported for the geographical orientations of their connections.
Article
The cooling effect of small urban green wooded sites of various geometric configurations in summer is the object of this study. It was studied experimentally at 11 different wooded sites in the Tel-Aviv urban complex during the period July–August 1996. An empirical model is developed in this study for predicting the cooling effect inside the wooded sites. The model is based on the statistical analysis carried out on 714 experimental observations gathered each hour from the 11 sites on calm days, when urban climate is expressed. Two factors were found to explain over 70% of the air temperature variance inside the studied green site, namely, the partial shaded area under the tree canopy and the air temperature of the non-wooded surroundings adjoining the site. The specific cooling effect of the site due to its geometry and tree characteristics, besides the shading, was found to be relatively small, about 0.5 K, out of an average cooling of about 3 K at noon. The cooling effect of the green wooded areas on their immediate surroundings at noon was also analyzed. The findings corroborate earlier studies that the range is noticeable. At small green sites, the cooling effect estimated in this study is perceivable up to about 100 m in the streets branching out from the site. The empirical findings in this study permit development of tools for incorporating the climatic effects of green areas in the urban design. Some policy measures are proposed accordingly, for alleviating the “heat island” effect in the urban environment.
Article
‘Urban greening’ has been proposed as one approach to mitigate the human health consequences of increased temperatures resulting from climate change. We used systematic review methodology to evaluate available evidence on whether greening interventions, such as tree planting or the creation of parks or green roofs, affect the air temperature of an urban area. Most studies investigated the air temperature within parks and beneath trees and are broadly supportive that green sites can be cooler than non-green sites. Meta-analysis was used to synthesize data on the cooling effect of parks and results show that, on average, a park was 0.94°C cooler in the day. Studies on multiple parks suggest that larger parks and those with trees could be cooler during the day. However, evidence for the cooling effect of green space is mostly based on observational studies of small numbers of green sites. The impact of specific greening interventions on the wider urban area, and whether the effects are due to greening alone, has yet to be demonstrated. The current evidence base does not allow specific recommendations to be made on how best to incorporate greening into an urban area. Further empirical research is necessary in order to efficiently guide the design and planning of urban green space, and specifically to investigate the importance of the abundance, distribution and type of greening. Any urban greening programme implemented would need to be appropriately designed and monitored to continue to evaluate benefit to human health through reducing temperature.
Article
Among the main effects of human activities on the environment are land use and resulting land cover changes. Such changes impact the capacity of ecosystems to provide goods and services to the human society. This supply of multiple goods and services by nature should match the demands of the society, if self-sustaining human–environmental systems and a sustainable utilization of natural capital are to be achieved. To describe respective states and dynamics, appropriate indicators and data for their quantification, including quantitative and qualitative assessments, are needed. By linking land cover information from, e.g. remote sensing, land survey and GIS with data from monitoring, statistics, modeling or interviews, ecosystem service supply and demand can be assessed and transferred to different spatial and temporal scales. The results reveal patterns of human activities over time and space as well as the capacities of different ecosystems to provide ecosystem services under changing land use. Also the locations of respective demands for these services can be determined. As maps are powerful tools, they hold high potentials for visualization of complex phenomena. We present an easy-to-apply concept based on a matrix linking spatially explicit biophysical landscape units to ecological integrity, ecosystem service supply and demand. An exemplary application for energy supply and demand in a central German case study region and respective maps for the years 1990 and 2007 are presented. Based on these data, the concept for an appropriate quantification and related spatial visualization of ecosystem service supply and demand is elaborated and discussed.
Article
Floods exert significant pressure on human societies. Assessments of an ecosystem's capacity to regulate and to prevent floods relative to human demands for flood regulating ecosystem services can provide important information for environmental management. In this study, the capacities of different ecosystems to regulate floods were assessed through investigations of water retention functions of the vegetation and soil cover. The use of the catchment based hydrologic model KINEROS and the GIS AGWA tool provided data about peak rivers’ flows and the capability of different land cover types to “capture” and regulate some parts of the water. Based on spatial land cover units originating from CORINE and further data sets, these regulating ecosystem services were quantified and mapped. Resulting maps show the ecosystems’ flood regulating service capacities in the case study area of the Malki Iskar river basin above the town of Etropole in the northern part of Bulgaria. There, the number of severe flood events causing significant damages in the settlements and infrastructure has been increasing during the last few years. Maps of demands for flood regulating ecosystem services in the study region were compiled based on a digital elevation model, land use information and accessibility data. Finally, the flood regulating ecosystem service supply and demand data were merged in order to produce a map showing regional supply-demand balances. The resulting map of flood regulation supply capacities shows that the Etropole municipality's area has relatively high capacities for flood regulation. Areas of high and very high relevant capacities cover about 34% of the study area. The flood regulation ecosystem service demand map shows that areas of low or no relevant demands far exceed the areas of high and very high demands, which comprise only 0.6% of the municipality's area. According to the flood regulation supply-demand balance map, areas of high relevant demands are located in places of low relevant supply capacities. The results show that the combination of data from different sources with hydrological modeling provides a suitable data base for the assessment of complex function–service–benefit relations.
Article
The concept of ecosystem services is an approach widely discussed to clarify and to assess the dependence of human society on ecosystems and landscapes. In order to better differentiate between the potential performance of ecosystems and landscapes and the quality needed or demanded by society, in this paper we suggest returning to the landscape potential concept developed by landscape ecologists in the 1970s. Emerging from both concepts is the hereinafter discussed EPPS framework – ecosystem (or landscape) properties, potentials and services – which is a way to better link both potentials and services to current planning and management practice and governance schemes. The empirical part of the paper shows applications of the EPPS framework in an urban region.
Article
Data from urban metabolism studies from eight metropolitan regions across five continents, conducted in various years since 1965, are assembled in consistent units and compared. Together with studies of water, materials, energy, and nutrient flows from additional cities, the comparison provides insights into the changing metabolism of cities. Most cities studied exhibit increasing per capita metabolism with respect to water, wastewater, energy, and materials, although one city showed increasing efficiency for energy and water over the 1990s. Changes in solid waste streams and air pollutant emissions are mixed. The review also identifies metabolic processes that threaten the sustainability of cities. These include altered ground water levels, exhaustion of local materials, accumulation of toxic materials, summer heat islands, and irregular accumulation of nutrients. Beyond concerns over the sheer magnitudes of resource flows into cities, an understanding of these accumulation or storage processes in the urban metabolism is critical. Growth , which is inherently part of metabolism, causes changes in water stored in urban aquifers, materials in the building stock, heat stored in the urban canopy layer, and potentially useful nutrients in urban waste dumps. Practical reasons exist for understanding urban metabolism. The vitality of cities depends on spatial relationships with surrounding hinterlands and global resource webs. Increasing metabolism implies greater loss of farmland, forests, and species diversity; plus more traffic and more pollution. Urban policy makers should consider to what extent their nearest resources are close to exhaustion and, if necessary, appropriate strategies to slow exploitation. It is apparent from this review that metabolism data have been established for only a few cities worldwide, and interpretation issues exist due to lack of common conventions. Further urban metabolism studies are required.
Article
There is a need for comprehensive, standardised and georeferenced information on floods for political and economic decision-making. Relevant, accurate and up-to-date data is an important aspect for resource distribution, mitigation programmes, disaster monitoring and assessment. Despite this, there is a lack of spatial and thematic accurate global data for floods. In Europe, historic data on flood losses and casualties are neither comprehensive nor standardised, thus making long-term analyses at continental level difficult. In this article, we present a map and catalogue of the major flood events of the last 56 years in the European Union (EU), Bulgaria and Romania. This study is an effort to alleviate the lack of homogeneous and georeferenced information on flood disasters for large periods in Europe. The objectives of this paper are to identify and classify the major flood disasters of the last 56 years in the EU; to map the major flood disasters at pan-European scale with the support of a potential flood hazard map and ancillary GIS datasets; and to give a picture of the current situation for major floods in the EU on the basis of past events and current trends. The Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) of the Centre of Research on Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels (CRED) and United States Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and NATHAN of Munich Re are two of the main public global databases for natural disasters. Information from EM-DAT and NATHAN on flood disasters producing more than 70 casualties and/or more than 0.005% of EU GDP in damage has been assessed for the production of the map and catalogue of major flood disasters in Europe.
Article
Existing environmental legislation and ecological quality definitions such as ecosystem integrity tend to rely on measures that, either implicitly or explicitly, utilize naturalness as a key criterion. There are marked practical difficulties with employing the concept of naturalness in human dominated landscapes, and the management of such ecosystems is inevitably going to need to take account of human needs and expectations. We propose that ecological quality could be assessed by its ecosystem service profile (ESP): the overlap between societal expectations for, and the sustainable provision of, suites of ecosystem services. The status for each individual ecosystem service is defined by the ratio of its sustained provision to the expected level of provision for the service. The ESP measure is a multi-criterion, context-specific assessment of the match between expectation for and sustainable supply of ecosystem services. It provides a flexible measure of quality which takes into account that the “ideal” ecosystem state is largely dependent on the specific management context. The implementation of ESPs challenges us to develop indicators for the sustained provision of individual ecosystem services, much better understanding of the trade-offs among services, and practical tools for gauging societal demands. All of which are challenging problems. The proposed framework can help to strategically address research needs and monitoring requirements and foster a more integrative approach to ecosystem assessment and management in the future. The need for this follows from the fact that the undisturbed reference state represents only one aspect of an ecosystem and that ecological quality in human dominated landscapes will, ultimately, be determined by the value society places on the sustainable provision of multiple ecosystem services.
Article
Land consumption due to residential development, economic growth and transportation belongs to the most serious environmental pressures on landscapes worldwide, in particular in urbanised areas. Accordingly, the aim of containing the development of land is rated increasingly high on the agenda of environmental policy, at least in densely populated countries such as Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands or the UK. As a result, different strategies and instruments to prevent excessive land consumption are being discussed. However, many of these strategies and instruments adopt a rather general approach, while it seems more effective to define the particular areas where the goal of reducing land consumption is to be pursued. Such an approach must draw on information about how detrimental specific land use transitions are with regard to, for instance, the functionality of soils, water balance or habitat quality at specific locations. This paper introduces a conceptual framework for the impact assessment of land use transition in urban areas which highlights how such information can be acquired. This framework includes the differentiation of two levels of impact assessment: the level of the single land unit and the context level which takes into account regional and aggregated impacts of land use transition bound to the spatial context. The conceptual framework provides a basis to disaggregate (supra-)national policy targets regarding land use, to scale them down to the regional level, and thus to clarify the spatially explicit implications of land use policies.
Article
The cooling effect of small urban green wooded sites of various geometric configurations in summer is the object of this study. It was studied experimentally at 11 different wooded sites in the Tel-Aviv urban complex during the period July–August 1996. An empirical model is developed in this study for predicting the cooling effect inside the wooded sites. The model is based on the statistical analysis carried out on 714 experimental observations gathered each hour from the 11 sites on calm days, when urban climate is expressed. Two factors were found to explain over 70% of the air temperature variance inside the studied green site, namely, the partial shaded area under the tree canopy and the air temperature of the non-wooded surroundings adjoining the site. The specific cooling effect of the site due to its geometry and tree characteristics, besides the shading, was found to be relatively small, about 0.5 K, out of an average cooling of about 3 K at noon. The cooling effect of the green wooded areas on their immediate surroundings at noon was also analyzed. The findings corroborate earlier studies that the range is noticeable. At small green sites, the cooling effect estimated in this study is perceivable up to about 100 m in the streets branching out from the site. The empirical findings in this study permit development of tools for incorporating the climatic effects of green areas in the urban design. Some policy measures are proposed accordingly, for alleviating the “heat island” effect in the urban environment.
Article
The use of the metabolism concept, expanded to include aspects of livability, is applied to cities to demonstrate the practical meaning of sustainability. Its application in industrial ecology, urban ecology, urban demonstration projects, business plans and city comparisons are used to illustrate its potential.
Article
Humanity is increasingly urban, but continues to depend on Nature for its survival. Cities are dependent on the ecosystems beyond the city limits, but also benefit from internal urban ecosystems. The aim of this paper is to analyze the ecosystem services generated by ecosystems within the urban area. ‘Ecosystem services’ refers to the benefits human populations derive from ecosystems. Seven different urban ecosystems have been identified: street trees; lawns/parks; urban forests; cultivated land; wetlands; lakes/sea; and streams. These systems generate a range of ecosystem services. In this paper, six local and direct services relevant for Stockholm are addressed: air filtration, micro climate regulation, noise reduction, rainwater drainage, sewage treatment, and recreational and cultural values. It is concluded that the locally generated ecosystem services have a substantial impact on the quality-of-life in urban areas and should be addressed in land-use planning.
Article
Following formative work in the 1970s, disappearance in the 1980s, and reemergence in the 1990s, a chronological review shows that the past decade has witnessed increasing interest in the study of urban metabolism. The review finds that there are two related, non-conflicting, schools of urban metabolism: one following Odum describes metabolism in terms of energy equivalents; while the second more broadly expresses a city's flows of water, materials and nutrients in terms of mass fluxes. Four example applications of urban metabolism studies are discussed: urban sustainability indicators; inputs to urban greenhouse gas emissions calculation; mathematical models of urban metabolism for policy analysis; and as a basis for sustainable urban design. Future directions include fuller integration of social, health and economic indicators into the urban metabolism framework, while tackling the great sustainability challenge of reconstructing cities.
Article
This paper reviews the historic development of the conceptualization of ecosystem services and examines critical landmarks in economic theory and practice with regard to the incorporation of ecosystem services into markets and payment schemes. The review presented here suggests that the trend towards monetization and commodification of ecosystem services is partly the result of a slow move from the original economic conception of nature's benefits as use values in Classical economics to their conceptualization in terms of exchange values in Neoclassical economics. The theory and practice of current ecosystem services science are examined in the light of this historical development. From this review, we conclude that the focus on monetary valuation and payment schemes has contributed to attract political support for conservation, but also to commodify a growing number of ecosystem services and to reproduce the Neoclassical economics paradigm and the market logic to tackle environmental problems.
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