Urban green infrastructure index: Assessing supply of regulating and cultural ecosystem services at a megacity scale
Yury DvornikovValentina GrigorievaViacheslav VasenevMikhail VarentsovOlga RomzaykinaOlga MaximovaAnastasia KonstantinovaVictor MatasovЕkaterina Kozlova
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Megacity
Urban ecosystem
Green infrastructure
The ability for urban ecosystems to deliver provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services is vital for the health, sustainability, and resilience of urban environments. The increasing pressures being placed on urban environments by global climate change and the need to create sustainable food systems contributes to rising interest in green infrastructure and urban agriculture solutions. Yet, few studies have systematically assessed the ecosystem service provision of urban agriculture and green infrastructure in parallel. In this systematic review of 157 peer-reviewed journal articles, we synthesize the benefits and disbenefits of implementing various forms of urban agriculture and green infrastructure for the delivery of ecosystem services in urban areas. While both provide a diverse variety of ecosystem services, our review suggests that some services are provided more prevalently when green infrastructure is solely adopted (e.g., Local Climate and Air Quality Regulation), while other services are best delivered when green infrastructure is combined with urban agriculture (e.g., Biological Control and Maintenance of Genetic Diversity). Our data also show that ecosystem service delivery is partly modulated by the spaces in which urban growing takes place. Community Gardens, Green Spaces, Allotments, and Parks are found to be most conducive for diverse service provision, although it is also clear that some growing spaces have not been studied as frequently in urban ecosystem service research. We conclude by highlighting some key research gaps and priorities for urban ecosystem service research, including a stronger focus on under-represented services and growing spaces, the need for more systematic data collection, and the value of incorporating ecosystem service assessments into wider suitability and cost-benefit analyses.
Green infrastructure
Urban ecosystem
Urban Agriculture
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Maintaining and improving ecosystem services in urban areas and human well-being are essential for sustainable development and therefore constitute an important topic in urban ecology. Here we reviewed studies on ecosystem services in urban areas. Based on the concept and classification of urban ecosystem services, we summarized characteristics of urban ecosystem services, including the human domination, high demand of ecosystem services in urban areas, spatial heterogeneity and temporal dynamics of ecosystem services supply and demand in urban areas, multi-services of urban green infrastructures, the socio-economic dimension of ecosystem services supply and ecosystem disservices in urban areas. Among different urban ecosystem services, the regulating service and cultural service are particularly indispensable to benefit human health. We pointed out that tradeoffs among different types of ecosystem services mostly occur between supportive service and cultural service, as well as regulating service and cultural service. In particular, we emphasized the relationship between landscape design (i.e. green infrastructure) and ecosystem services supply. Finally, we discussed current gaps to link urban ecosystem services studies to landscape design and management and pointed out several directions for future research in urban ecosystem services.
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Humans rely upon ecosystem services to regulate their environment and to provide resources and cultural benefits. As the world’s urban population grows, it becomes increasingly important to find ways of improving the provision of ecosystem services in urban areas. However, the kinds of ecosystem services that are most needed or demanded by urban populations, and the opportunities to provide these, vary widely in cities around the world. Here we explore variation in climate, Human Development Index (HDI), and population density, and discuss their implications for providing and managing urban ecosystem services. Using 221 published studies of urban ecosystem services, we analyse the extent to which existing research adequately covers global variation in climatic and social conditions. Our results reveal an under-representation of studies from tropical cities and from lower HDI countries, with implications for how we conceptualize and quantify urban ecosystem services, and how we transfer benefits across case studies. Future work should be aimed at correcting these deficits and determining the extent to which conclusions about urban ecosystem services are transferable from one city to another.
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