Urban Sprawl and Ecosystem Services: A Half Century Perspective in the Montreal Area (Quebec, Canada)

Abstract Urban sprawl is central to the issues surrounding sustainable urban development. It generally leads to multiple impacts on land-use change, including loss of sensitive natural areas, farmland and fragmentation of ecosystems, which negatively impact the production of a wide range of ecosystem services (ES). In this study, we evaluate the value of ES provided by forests, croplands, grasslands and wetlands. Four spatial analyses of the Montreal Metropolitan Region (Quebec, Canada) are used over a period of 45 years at 15 year intervals (1966, 1981, 1994 and 2010). We demonstrate that despite a variety of management strategies, urban sprawl continues to have negative impacts on ES economic value over time.

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