Global Drivers and Tradeoffs of Three Urban Vegetation Ecosystem Services

Our world is increasingly urbanizing which is highlighting that sustainable cities are essential for maintaining human well-being. This research is one of the first attempts to globally synthesize the effects of urbanization on ecosystem services and how these relate to governance, social development and climate. Three urban vegetation ecosystem services (carbon storage, recreation potential and habitat potential) were quantified for a selection of a hundred cities. Estimates of ecosystem services were obtained from the analysis of satellite imagery and the use of well-known carbon and structural habitat models. We found relationships between ecosystem services, social development, climate and governance, however these varied according to the service studied. Recreation potential was positively related to democracy and negatively related to population. Carbon storage was weakly related to temperature and democracy, while habitat potential was negatively related to democracy. We found that cities under 1 million inhabitants tended to have higher levels of recreation potential than larger cities and that democratic countries have higher recreation potential, especially if located in a continental climate. Carbon storage was higher in full democracies, especially in a continental climate, while habitat potential tended to be higher in authoritarian and hybrid regimes. Similar to other regional or city studies we found that the combination of environment conditions, socioeconomics, demographics and politics determines the provision of ecosystem services. Results from this study showed the existence of environmental injustice in the developing world.

[1]  F. Escobedo,et al.  The socioeconomics and management of Santiago de Chile's public urban forests , 2006 .

[2]  Xixi Lu,et al.  A global comparative analysis of urban form: Applying spatial metrics and remote sensing , 2007 .

[3]  N. Heynen,et al.  Inequitable access to urban reforestation: the impact of urban political economy on housing tenure and urban forests , 2004 .

[4]  L. Hutyra,et al.  Terrestrial carbon stocks across a gradient of urbanization: a study of the Seattle, WA region , 2011 .

[5]  Greg Lindsey,et al.  Correlates of Urban Forest Canopy Cover , 2003 .

[6]  Nathalie Ortar,et al.  Cities and climate change: Global report on human settlements 2011 , 2011 .

[7]  M. Duggin,et al.  A temporal analysis of urban forest carbon storage using remote sensing , 2006 .

[8]  D. Nowak,et al.  Carbon storage and sequestration by urban trees in the USA. , 2002, Environmental pollution.

[9]  M. Numata,et al.  Urban ecology as the basis of urban planning , 1995 .

[10]  R. Briers,et al.  Ecology: From Individuals to Ecosystems , 2006 .

[11]  S. Siebert,et al.  Ecosystem services of urban green spaces in African countries—perspectives and challenges , 2012, Urban Ecosystems.

[12]  Kevin J. Gaston,et al.  Mapping an urban ecosystem service: quantifying above‐ground carbon storage at a city‐wide scale , 2011 .

[13]  Y. H. Farzin,et al.  Democracy and Environmental Quality , 2006 .

[14]  Valentí Rull,et al.  Unexpected biodiversity loss under global warming in the neotropical Guayana Highlands: a preliminary appraisal , 2006 .

[15]  Sean M McMahon,et al.  Scales of association: hierarchical linear models and the measurement of ecological systems. , 2007, Ecology letters.

[16]  Zoltan Szantoi,et al.  Socioeconomic Factors and Urban Tree Cover Policies in a Subtropical Urban Forest , 2012 .

[17]  S. Angel,et al.  The dynamics of global urban expansion , 2005 .

[18]  Col. Villa Quietud,et al.  Urban ecosystems and the North American carbon cycle , 2006 .

[19]  M. Alberti,et al.  Integrating Humans into Ecology: Opportunities and Challenges for Studying Urban Ecosystems , 2003 .

[20]  A. Kaźmierczak,et al.  Promoting ecosystem and human health in urban areas using Green Infrastructure: A literature review , 2007 .

[21]  R. D. Groot,et al.  A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services , 2002 .

[22]  T. Elmqvist,et al.  Social Movements and Ecosystem Services—the Role of Social Network Structure in Protecting and Managing Urban Green Areas in Stockholm , 2008 .

[23]  Francisco J. Escobedo,et al.  A framework for developing urban forest ecosystem services and goods indicators , 2011 .

[24]  Christer Thrane,et al.  Vegetation density of urban parks and perceived appropriateness for recreation , 2006 .

[25]  J. Church.  Human Development Report , 2001 .

[26]  E. Andersson.  Urban Landscapes and Sustainable Cities , 2006 .

[27]  K. Gaston,et al.  Land-cover effects on soil organic carbon stocks in a European city. , 2014, The Science of the total environment.

[28]  J. C. Stevens,et al.  A Ground-Based Method of Assessing Urban Forest Structure and Ecosystem Services , 2008 .

[29]  Kevin J. Gaston,et al.  The scaling of green space coverage in European cities , 2009, Biology Letters.

[30]  C. Tucker.  Red and photographic infrared linear combinations for monitoring vegetation , 1979 .

[31]  D. Civco,et al.  Mapping urban areas on a global scale: which of the eight maps now available is more accurate? , 2009 .

[32]  Madhusudan Katti,et al.  The Effects of Human Socioeconomic Status and Cultural Characteristics on Urban Patterns of Biodiversity , 2005 .

[33]  Lisa T. Smallbone,et al.  Relations between Urban Bird and Plant Communities and Human Well‐Being and Connection to Nature , 2011, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[34]  Ulla Mörtberg,et al.  A global analysis of the impacts of urbanization on bird and plant diversity reveals key anthropogenic drivers , 2014, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[35]  J. E. Wagner,et al.  Urban forests and pollution mitigation: analyzing ecosystem services and disservices. , 2011, Environmental pollution.

[36]  R. Costanza,et al.  Global mapping of ecosystem services and conservation priorities , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[37]  A. Pullin,et al.  Urban greening to cool towns and cities: a systematic review of the empirical evidence. , 2010 .

[38]  C. Gries,et al.  Socioeconomics drive urban plant diversity , 2003, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[39]  R. G. Davies,et al.  Urban form, biodiversity potential and ecosystem services , 2007 .

[40]  Peter Vogt,et al.  A National Assessment of Green Infrastructure and Change for the Conterminous United States Using Morphological Image Processing , 2010 .

[41]  Jean-Christophe Foltête,et al.  Assessing the capacity of different urban forms to preserve the connectivity of ecological habitats , 2011 .

[42]  Andrew Gonzalez,et al.  Economic Inequality Predicts Biodiversity Loss , 2007, PloS one.

[43]  A. Stewart Fotheringham,et al.  Principal Component Analysis on Spatial Data: An Overview , 2013 .

[44]  J. Greenwood,et al.  Bird densities are associated with household densities , 2007 .

[45]  Nik Heynen,et al.  The Political Ecology of Uneven Urban Green Space , 2006 .

[46]  Nina Schwarz,et al.  Synergies, Trade-offs, and Losses of Ecosystem Services in Urban Regions: an Integrated Multiscale Framework Applied to the Leipzig-Halle Region, Germany , 2012 .

[47]  John L. Harper,et al.  Ecology: from individuals to ecosystems. 4th edition , 2006 .

[48]  L. Kitchen.  Are Trees Always 'Good'? Urban Political Ecology and Environmental Justice in the Valleys of South Wales. , 2013 .

[49]  Nina Schwarz.  Urban form revisited—Selecting indicators for characterising European cities , 2010 .

[50]  K. Gaston,et al.  Psychological benefits of greenspace increase with biodiversity , 2007, Biology Letters.

[51]  N. Grimm,et al.  Global Change and the Ecology of Cities , 2008, Science.

[52]  C. Woodcock,et al.  Assessment of spectral, polarimetric, temporal, and spatial dimensions for urban and peri-urban land cover classification using Landsat and SAR data , 2012 .

[53]  Kevin J. Gaston,et al.  The impact of proxy‐based methods on mapping the distribution of ecosystem services , 2010 .

[54]  Ryan T. Howell,et al.  Engagement with natural beauty moderates the positive relation between connectedness with nature and psychological well-being , 2014 .

[55]  Garry D. Peterson,et al.  Ecosystem service bundles for analyzing tradeoffs in diverse landscapes , 2010, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[56]  Garry D. Peterson,et al.  Understanding relationships among multiple ecosystem services. , 2009, Ecology letters.

[57]  F. Canters,et al.  Comparing Different Approaches for Mapping Urban Vegetation Cover from Landsat ETM+ Data: A Case Study on Brussels , 2008, Sensors.

[58]  Michael W. Strohbach,et al.  The carbon footprint of urban green space—A life cycle approach , 2012 .

[59]  T. Conway,et al.  Variations in municipal urban forestry policies: A case study of Toronto, Canada , 2007 .

[60]  Jacek P. Siry,et al.  Urban forests' potential to supply marketable carbon emission offsets: A survey of municipal governments in the United States , 2010 .

[61]  C.Y. Jim,et al.  Ecosystem services and valuation of urban forests in China , 2009 .

[62]  M. Fortin,et al.  Spatial statistics, spatial regression, and graph theory in ecology , 2012 .

[63]  Taylor H. Ricketts,et al.  The consequences of urban land transformation on net primary productivity in the United States , 2004 .

[64]  W. T..  Use of response functions in selecting lodgepole pine populations for future climates , 2006 .

[65]  Erle C. Ellis,et al.  Putting people in the map: anthropogenic biomes of the world , 2008 .

[66]  A. McMichael,et al.  Ecosystems and Human well-being , 2003 .

[67]  R. McDonald.  Global urbanization: can ecologists identify a sustainable way forward? , 2008 .

[68]  C. Woodcock,et al.  Compact, Dispersed, Fragmented, Extensive? A Comparison of Urban Growth in Twenty-five Global Cities using Remotely Sensed Data, Pattern Metrics and Census Information , 2008 .

[69]  N. Heynen,et al.  Urban forest and environmental inequality in Campos dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil , 2002, Urban Ecosystems.

[70]  Peter Vogt,et al.  Mapping Spatial Patterns with Morphological Image Processing , 2007, Landscape Ecology.

[71]  Nu. Escap,et al.  Are we building competitive and liveable cities?: Guidelines for developing eco-efficient and socially inclusive infrastructure , 2011 .

[72]  F. Mayer,et al.  The connectedness to nature scale: A measure of individuals’ feeling in community with nature ☆ , 2004 .

[73]  Russell G. Congalton,et al.  Assessing the accuracy of remotely sensed data : principles and practices , 1998 .

[74]  O. Bastian,et al.  Ecosystem properties, potentials and services – The EPPS conceptual framework and an urban application example , 2012 .

[75]  Peter Vogt,et al.  Key structural forest connectors can be identified by combining landscape spatial pattern and network analyses. , 2011 .

[76]  Xiao-jun Wang,et al.  Analysis of problems in urban green space system planning in China , 2009, Journal of Forestry Research.

[77]  Carrie V. Kappel,et al.  Non‐linearity in ecosystem services: temporal and spatial variability in coastal protection , 2009 .

[78]  G. Kuchelmeister.  Urban forestry in the Asia-Pacific Region: status and prospects , 1998 .

[79]  K. Seto,et al.  Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities , 2013, Springer Netherlands.

[80]  Kevin J. Gaston,et al.  What are the Benefits of Interacting with Nature? , 2013, International journal of environmental research and public health.

[81]  R. Moss,et al.  Ecosystems and human well-being: a framework for assessment , 2003 .