Green Infrastructures and the Consideration of Their Soil-Related Ecosystem Services in Urban Areas—A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Although urban soils are strongly influenced by human activities, they provide a wide range of Ecosystem Services (ES) as long as they are not sealed off. This is a major sustainability issue as the loss of soil functions directly impacts ES and further on the possibility to adapt to the effects of the climate crisis. Green Infrastructure (GI) measures can be utilized to restore previously covered soil surfaces and compensate for lost soil functions. We conducted a systematic literature review to investigate the extent of peer-reviewed publications on GI measures in (peri-) urban areas covering soil-related ES. After identifying the relevant publications (n = 284), we generated an overview of the annual, spatial, and thematic distribution of the publications. Then, we employed an extended content analysis of the published focus topics to assess the representation of soil-related ES provided by GI. The content analysis revealed that the representation of soil-related ES in GI measures focused heavily on the contribution of soil to stormwater management. Detailed assessment of the interconnection of GI measures with key soil-related ES were missing. So far, the assessment of the loss of soil-related ES is not covered extensively in GI research publications.

The Role of Selected Ecosystem Services in Different Farming Systems in Poland Regarding the Differentiation of Agricultural Land Structure

“…Intensive farming of land contributes to climate change, aggravating erosion, soil degradation, and biodiversity loss [21][22][23][24]. Thus, it seems that supporting ecosystem services, i.e., enhancing soil formation and nutrient circulation, is of high importance [33,34]. Their mutual flow, as well as various disturbances, depends on the agroecosystem management method, which is associated with farming systems.…”

“…Particular ecosystem services were assessed and highlighted on the basis of a literature study: [19,20,25,26,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. Then, they were assigned to the specific farming systems, by creating and using a scale in order to estimate the degree of implementation of such individual services (from a high level to a lack of the factor).…”

Towards the Circular Soil Concept: Optimization of Engineered Soils for Green Infrastructure Application

“…When the quality of excavated materials is assessed in the beginning stages and assessment is included throughout the whole lifespan of a building project, the materials can either be reused for building purposes (e.g., sand for concrete production) or landscape construction (e.g., soil for plant substrates) according to their technical specifications and degree of contamination [18,19].…”

“…The sustainable basic principles of circularity [35] were applied as the underlying motivation. In accordance with the principles of a circular economy, the Circular Soil concept, introduced here for the first time, aims to fulfill the need to reuse as many resources as possible while securing and enhancing the ability of those resources to deliver essential ecosystem services [18]. This specifically addresses the problem of soil excavated from large construction sites and suggests reinstalling it for landscape construction, GI and open-space design, preferably at the same location.…”

Water-Stressed Plants Do Not Cool: Leaf Surface Temperature of Living Wall Plants under Drought Stress

“…It has long been known that urban heat islands (UHIs) occur in densely built-up areas and can be 5-6 • C warmer than the surrounding landscape [6]. Therefore, adequate and sustainable urban planning that mitigates the consequences of global increases in temperatures and the associated negative effects on human health is necessary [7][8][9][10]. This includes the use of materials such as thermochromic or radiative cooling structures to decrease the urban temperature or the intensive use of urban greenery and water for evaporative cooling [11].…”