Alteration in land use is likely to be a major driver of changes in the distribution of ecosystem services
before 2050. In Europe, urbanization will probably be the main cause of land-use change. This increase
in urbanization will result in spatial shifts in both supplies of ecosystem services and the beneficiaries of
those services; the net outcome of such shifts remains to be determined. Here, we model changes in urban
land cover in Britain based on large (16%) projected increases in the human population by 2031, and the
consequences for three different services—flood mitigation, agricultural production and carbon storage.
We show that under a scenario of densification of urban areas, the combined effect of increasing population
and loss of permeable surfaces is likely to result in 1.7 million people living within 1 km of
rivers with at least 10 per cent increases in projected peak flows, but that increasing suburban ‘sprawl’
will have little effect on flood mitigation services. Conversely, losses of stored carbon and agricultural
production are over three times as high under the sprawl as under the ‘densification’ urban growth
scenarios. Our results illustrate the challenges of meeting, but also of predicting, future demands and
patterns of ecosystem services in the face of increasing urbanization
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