Temporal Changes in Ecosystem Services in European Cities in the Continental Biogeographical Region in the Period from 1990–2012

Abstract

Ecosystem services (ES) in cities and surrounding suburban areas are one of the major factors which guarantee quality of life. Most studies directly referring to urban ecosystem services are conducted on a local scale or for selected cities. There are few studies which focus on temporal changes of the provision of ecosystem services across a large number of cities. This paper analyzes selected land use type (forest, green urban area), soil sealing, selected ecosystem services (food provisioning, climate regulation, recreation), and biodiversity potential in 85 large cities (over 100,000 citizens) from the Continental (Central and Eastern) biogeographical region in Europe. We used the Corine Land (2) The process of soil sealing growth occurred in all studied cities and the rate was the most intense in Polish cities; (3) There was a decrease of food production and biodiversity potential in all the analyzed cities; (4) climate regulating services experienced only slight changes; (5) There was a very positive trend of the recreation indicator in most core zones of the cities in Germany and several cities in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Denmark. Moreover, our results of the temporal changes of land use and ES in European cities in the Continental biogeographical region indicate how important it is to monitor CLC and ES for potential spatial planning and regional policy interventions.

Environmental Transformations in the Area of the Kuźnica Warężyńska Sand Mine, Southern Poland

“…Currently, owing to the growing demand for mineral resources, the number of degraded and destroyed sites worldwide has increased [7][8][9][10][11], and opencast mining often has irreversible natural consequences. Mineral resource mining has one of the strongest impacts among all industries, distorting the natural environment globally [12,13] and often causing it to lose its ecological functions [14]. The regeneration and reclamation of areas degraded by human activity is conditioned by both social and natural aspects.…”

Land Use/Land Cover Change Modeling and the Prediction of Subsequent Changes in Ecosystem Service Values in a Coastal Area of China, the Su-Xi-Chang Region

“…The consequences of these changes result in the degradation of ESs, which is the aggregate of ecosystem goods (such as food) and services (such as waste assimilation), that represent the benefits human populations derive, directly or indirectly, from ecosystem functions [12]. These impacts make the quantification of Ecosystem Service Values (ESVs) essential to raise awareness [13], develop decision making for the distribution of scarce resources among conflicting demands [14], incorporate ESs into the socioeconomic and marketing systems [15], formulate policy [16] and stimulate the conservation of ecosystems that deliver the most valuable services in support of human well-being [17].Following the pioneering works of Costanza et al [18], who estimated global ESVs by suggesting a list of ESV coefficients for different biomes, the evaluation of ESVs and their changes has received broad attention [15,16,19]. Since then, to support mitigations of local degradation and global change problems, the interest in the valuation of ESs has grown rapidly in research and policy making communities.…”

“…The consequences of these changes result in the degradation of ESs, which is the aggregate of ecosystem goods (such as food) and services (such as waste assimilation), that represent the benefits human populations derive, directly or indirectly, from ecosystem functions [12]. These impacts make the quantification of Ecosystem Service Values (ESVs) essential to raise awareness [13], develop decision making for the distribution of scarce resources among conflicting demands [14], incorporate ESs into the socioeconomic and marketing systems [15], formulate policy [16] and stimulate the conservation of ecosystems that deliver the most valuable services in support of human well-being [17].…”

Intellectual Structure of CORINE Land Cover Research Applications in Web of Science: A Europe-Wide Review

“…Moreover, they concluded that of all land changes, 60% are associated with direct human activities and only 40% with indirect environmental drivers, e.g., climate change. In addition, land cover changes exhibit regional dominance in agricultural intensification, temperate reforestation or afforestation, and urbanization [7,17,19,63].…”

“…They cover such processes as urbanization, intensification, and extensification of agriculture, and deforestation and afforestation [15,16]. Particularly noteworthy are studies concerning land cover dynamics and its impact on the environment and economy [16], changes in ecosystems [17,18] and climate [19], hazards and risk assessment [20], water and soil properties [21], urban sprawl [22], and land take [16,23]. In addition, the CORINE land cover technology was successfully transferred to several African countries [24,25].…”