Urban ecosystem conditions and ecosystem services – a comparison between large urban zones and city cores in the EU

Kourdounouli, Christina; Jönsson, Anna Maria

doi:10.1080/09640568.2019.1613966

Cited by 19 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Reduction of the respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses and allergies [9,17,18,31,44 However, the provision of ecosystem services in public urban spaces is not sufficient to guarantee the quality of human life in growing cities. Private actions in private space need to take social responsibility; for example, by developing urban elements integrating functional biodiversity that is able to support ecosystem services to reduce the environmental impacts and increase human well-being [2,56,92,93]. It is important to apply multifunctional land use actions to guarantee the simultaneous use of space for human activities such as housing, and ecosystem services production such as stormwater retention, energy conversion and habitat creation, involving both the public and private sectors [94].…”

Section: -Air Quality Regulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning of Urban Green Spaces: An Ecological Perspective on Human Benefits

Semeraro

Scarano

Buccolieri

et al. 2021

Land

122

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In the context of urban land-use growth and the consequent impacts on the environment, green spaces provide ecosystem services for human health. The ecosystem services concept synthesises human–environmental interactions through a series of combined components of biodiversity and abiotic elements, linking ecological processes and functions. The concept of green infrastructure (GI) in the urban context emphasises the quality and quantity of urban and peri-urban green spaces and natural areas. In dense urban contexts, the applications of GI are limited and not applied to the potential urban spaces such as roofs and gardens. Often, roofs are characterised by impermeable paved surfaces with negative effects on human well-being, whereas garden designs do not consider social needs and environmental interactions. The role of urban stressors or the urban context as a driving force or pressure of urban green space is not always well understood and employed in the planning of green spaces. This is partly due to a knowledge gap between different science disciplines that operate on different scales, from single processes of the plants (which focus on plant responses to environmental stresses affecting human well-being) to urban ecosystems (which focus on the biodiversity and urban space planning–human well-being relationship). This can create a paradox, as green spaces that are not adequately designed might not produce the expected effects. In this paper, an overview of benefits and limitations of applying the ecosystem services approach when designing green spaces is presented. The focus is on the main urban ecosystem services provided by green roofs and community gardens such as GI that can represent strategies to provide ecological and social multifunctionality to waterproofed surfaces connected to the buildings and low-exploited gardens being the main areas that affect dense urban settlements, and thus, increasing the ecosystem services in the urban environment, such as reducing the Urban Heat Island, as well as flooding events. Specifically, the paper highlights (i) feedback between ecological processes and functions that support ecosystem services, (ii) urban environmental stresses in relation to disservices that these can create for human well-being and (iii) key issues that should be considered in the planning and design of urban ecosystem services. Such a new vision of urban ecosystem services highlights the need to look at GI as an active part of the urban space design in the built environment.

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Section: -Air Quality Regulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning of Urban Green Spaces: An Ecological Perspective on Human Benefits

Semeraro

Scarano

Buccolieri

et al. 2021

Land

122

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“…Irrigated fields also displayed strong negative correlations with LSTs [34]. Further, amongst the most significant mitigants of UHI and related health risks were ecological services provided by urban forests [35,36]. Ecosystem services are defined as those benefits which are obtained by humans as a product of an ecosystem function [37].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land Surface Temperature Regulation Ecosystem Service: A Case Study of Jaipur, India, and the Urban Island of Jhalana Reserve Forest

Yosef

Rakholia

Mehta

et al. 2022

Forests

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Although Land Surface Temperatures (LSTs) are on the rise globally, the distribution of LSTs varies depending on the land cover type. Urban Heat Island and Urban Cool Island effects act differently, especially in semi-arid regions. Therefore, we identify demi-decadal, seasonal, and zonal differences in LSTs in a semi-arid region in the city of Jaipur, where zones include rural and urban areas that encircle the Jhalana Reserve Forest (JRF). After deriving LSTs from remotely sensed thermal bands of Landsat satellites’ Multi-spectral datasets, we found that there is a significant difference in LST (p < 0.01) among the zones. In addition, LSTs were found to be significantly lower in JRF compared to Urban and Rural areas in all seasons and all study years, which indicates the urban cooling effect due to the presence of the forest. Nevertheless, summer LSTs have warmed with a mean difference of 4.8 °C between 2000 and 2020. Therefore, our study supports the promotion of Urban Forests, especially in semi-arid zones, for inculcating LST regulation ecosystem services to enrich and enhance the standard of living of the human population.

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“…Although there are a considerable amount of green-infrastructure policy and design approaches being applied in cities around the world [110][111][112], this practical work did not establish clear links to current research on ecosystem services in the context of the SDGs. The evolution of SDGs knowledge is clearly charted in Figure 2.…”

mentioning

confidence: 89%

The SDGs, Ecosystem Services and Cities: A Network Analysis of Current Research Innovation for Implementing Urban Sustainability

et al. 2021

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Ecosystem services provide essential services for cities and are key factors in achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Such services are best delivered through green infrastructure, which works in resourceful, multifunctional, synergistic, and environmentally sensitive ways to deliver ecosystem services and provide alternative cleaner pathways for the delivery of multiple urban services. It is unclear if current research supports the necessary linkages between ecosystem services, cities, and green infrastructure in order to achieve the SDGs. To answer this question, we conducted a systematic review analysing 3392 studies on the SDGs from the WoS database. The contents of 66 of those with relevance to ecosystem services and urban research were reviewed in depth. We applied network-analytic methods to map the relationships of different knowledge clusters of SDGs research (1) across time, (2) across disciplines, and (3) in relation to ecosystem services and cities. The results of our analysis show that research on the SDGs have developed stronger networks from 2010–2018, but this research has not been sustained. Further, whilst research on cities now occupies a central place in the SDGs literature, research on ecosystem services only shows tentative links to both green-infrastructure research and SDGs research. Such literature on urban green infrastructure remains peripheral to the central challenge of sustainable urban transitions. We conclude that when it comes to the SDGs, research articles typically consider urban services independently of green infrastructure. Further, it suggests that green infrastructure is not generally considered as a sustainable alternative to conventional urban infrastructures. To address this serious shortcoming, we recommend transdisciplinary approaches to link urban ecosystem and urban green infrastructure research to the 2030 global sustainability agenda.

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Urban ecosystem conditions and ecosystem services – a comparison between large urban zones and city cores in the EU

Abstract: Jönsson (2020) Urban ecosystem conditions and ecosystem services-a comparison between large urban zones and city cores in the EU,

Cited by 19 publications

References 39 publications

Planning of Urban Green Spaces: An Ecological Perspective on Human Benefits

Planning of Urban Green Spaces: An Ecological Perspective on Human Benefits

Land Surface Temperature Regulation Ecosystem Service: A Case Study of Jaipur, India, and the Urban Island of Jhalana Reserve Forest

The SDGs, Ecosystem Services and Cities: A Network Analysis of Current Research Innovation for Implementing Urban Sustainability

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