Mapping and assessing ecosystem services: Methods and practical applications

The EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 called on EU member states to map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territory (European Commission 2011). This knowledge-base should be designed to be a primary resource for developing Europe’s green infrastructure, to identify areas for ecosystem restoration and to set a baseline against which the goal of ‘no net loss” of biodiversity and ecosystem services can be evaluated. Thus, appropriate methods, information and data are needed to know where and how, for example, food, water, clean air, other materials and recreation are provided, and how climate, nutrients, natural disasters, pests and diseases are regulated. Information and data on actual ecosystem services (ES) demands, beneficiaries and potential mismatches with their supply location as well as ES quality and quantity are essential to make informed decisions for appropriate management of natural resources. ES are a very complex topic and their integrative assessment and implementation asks for truly transdisciplinary approachesThe ESMERALDA project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme: grant agreement No 64200

Addressing cumulative effects in Strategic Environmental Assessment of spatial planning

Strategic environmental Assessment (SEA) is a decision support instrument for predicting and evaluating the likely environmental effects of implementing a policy, plan or programme. SEA can consider the cumulative impacts of more than one project or activity on the same environmen- tal component. This paper discusses the analysis of cumulative effects in SEA, with reference to spatial planning by: providing a review of key concepts and methods related to cumulative effects literature; presenting a rationale for the inclusion of cumulative effects in SEA of spatial plans; advancing a proposal to address cumulative effects in different SEA stages. The paper concludes that SEA offers the opportunity to support a better management of cumulative effects arising from many local-level spatial planning decisions. Three aspects emerged as critical to ensure good practices: the selection of valued environmental components, the adoption of future-oriented approaches, and the use of spatially-explicit information

Mapping and assessing ecosystem services to support urban planning: A case study on brownfield regeneration in Trento, Italy

This study explores the use of ecosystem service (ES) knowledge to support urban planning in the assessment of future scenarios. The case study concerns the prioritszation of brownfield regeneration interventions in the city of Trento (Italy). Alternative planning scenarios considering the conversion of existing brownfields into new urban parks are assessed and compared. The assessment focuses on two ES of critical importance for the city, namely microclimate regulation and nature-based recreation. The benefits of the different scenarios are quantified based on the number of expected beneficiaries broken down into different vulnerability classes and then compared through a multi-criteria analysis. Three combinations of criteria and weights reflect different planning objectives and related decision-makers’ orientations about what ES and beneficiary groups should be prioritised. The application demonstrates the potential for ES assessments to support urban planning processes in the specific phase of assessment and selection of alternatives, by meeting the requirements in terms of both sensitivity to small-scale changes in land uses or management activities and capacity to capture simultaneous variations in supply and demand of multiple ES. Being coherent with socially-orientated planning objectives, indicators based on ES demand and beneficiaries can effectively convey information about ES in planning decisions. Multi-criteria analysis is an effective way to integrate multiple ES assessments with other information about costs and benefits of planning scenarios, exploring diverse stakeholder perspectives and balancing competing objectives in a rational and transparent way

Integration of ecosystem services into a conceptual spatial planning framework based on a landscape ecology perspective

Context The study of ecosystem services has extended its influence into spatial planning and landscape ecology, the integration of which can offer an opportunity to enhance the saliency, credibility, and legitimacy of landscape ecology in spatial planning issues. Objectives This paper presents a conceptual framework suitable for spatial planning in human dominated environments supported by landscape ecological thinking. It seeks to facilitate the integration of ecosystem services into current practice, including landscape metrics as suitable indicators. Methods A literature review supported the revision of existing open questions pertaining to ecosystem services as well as their integration into landscape ecology and spatial planning. A posterior reflection of the current state-of-the-art was then used as a basis for developing the spatial planning conceptual framework. Results and conclusion The framework is articulated around four phases (characterisation, assessment, design, and monitoring) and three concepts (character, service, and value). It advocates integration of public participation, consideration of “landscape services”, the inclusion of ecosystem disservices, and the use of landscape metrics for qualitative assessment of services. As a result, the framework looks to enhance spatial planning practice by providing: (i) a better consideration of landscape configuration in the supply of services (ii) the integration of anthropogenic services with ecosystem services; (iii) the consideration of costs derived from ecosystems (e.g. disservices); and (iv) an aid to the understanding of ecosystem services terminology for spatial planning professionals and decision makers

Knowledge transfer and capacity building: an example from the urban water sector.

Rural-to-urban migration and sustained natural population growth in Africa, if not properly addressed, may pose serious threat to ecosystems and human wellbeing, both locally and afar. Novel concepts and operative approaches are needed to better frame these challenges and support local decision-making processes, to promote sustainable development. Indeed, this is a key area in which the Academia can make a significant contribution, for example, exploring innovative concepts and developing related approaches to support decision-making processes at a local scale. This paper focuses on the urban water sector as an informative example, ultimately aiming to highlight key areas in which research can provide concrete and valuable assistance. More specifically, we introduce two innovative concepts, i.e. ecosystem services and boundary work; hence propose an operative approach to support the process of design and assessment of the impact of watershed investments. To illustrate real-life implementation of the approach in a data scarce context in sub-Saharan Africa, we consider as a case study soil erosion and water scarcity-related challenges affecting Asmara, a medium-sized city in Eritrea. Accordingly, we adopt urban water security and rural poverty alleviation as two illustrative objectives, within a ten-year planning horizon. The case study application resulted in spatially explicit outputs that inform decision-making processes. By timely addressing stakeholders' concerns of credibility, saliency, and legitimacy, the proposed approach is expected to facilitate negotiation of objectives, definition of scenarios, and assessment of alternative watershed investments. Above all, and beyond the urban water sector, the case study application helps highlighting key areas in which the academic work can make concrete contribution mainly in terms of knowledge transfer and capacity building

Planning for Ecosystem Services in Cities

This open access book presents current knowledge about ecosystem services (ES) in urban planning, and discusses various urban ES topics such as spatial distribution of urban ecosystems, population distribution, and physical infrastructure properties. The book addresses all these issues by: i) investigating to what extent ecosystem services are currently included in urban plans, and discussing what is still needed to improve planning practice; ii) illustrating how to develop ecosystem services indicators and information that can be used by urban planners to enhance plan design; iii) demonstrating the application of ES assessments to support urban planning processes through case studies; and iv) reflecting on criteria for addressing equity in urban planning through ecosystem service assessments, by exploring issues associated with the supply of, the access to and demand for ES by citizens. Through fully worked out case studies, from policy questions, to baseline analysis and indicators, and from option comparison to proposed solutions, the book offers readers detailed and accessible coverage of outstanding issues and proposed solutions to better integrate ES in city planning. The overall purpose of the book is to provide a compact reference that can be used by researchers as a key resource offering an updated perspective and overview on the field, as well as by practitioners and planners/decision makers as a source of inspiration for their activity. Additionally, the book will be a suitable resource for both undergraduate and post-graduate courses in planning and geography

Assessing land take by urban development and its impact on carbon storage: Findings from two case studies in Italy

Land take due to urbanization triggers a series of negative environmental impactswith direct effects on quality of life for people living in cities. Changes in ecosystem services are associated with land take, among which is the immediate C loss due to land use conversion. Land use change monitoring represents the first step in quantifying land take and its drivers and impacts. To this end, we propose an innovative methodology for monitoring land take and its effects on ecosystem services (in particular, C loss) undermulti-scale contexts. The devised approach was tested in two areas with similar sizes, but different land take levels during the time-span 1990–2008 in Central Italy (the Province of Rome and theMolise Region). The estimates of total coverage of built up areaswere calculated using point sampling. The area of the urban patches including each sampling point classified as built up areas in the year 1990 and/or in the year 2008 is used to estimate total abundance and average area of built up areas. Biophysical and economic values for carbon loss associated with land take were calculated using InVEST. Although land take was 7–8 times higher in the Province of Rome (from 15.1% in 1990 to 20.4% in 2008) than in Molise region, our findings show that its relative impact on C storage is higher in the latter,where the urban growth consistently affects not only croplands but also semi-natural land uses such as grasslands and other wooded lands. The total C loss due to land take has been estimated in 1.6 million Mg C, corresponding to almost 355 million €. Finally, the paper discusses the main characteristics of urban growth and their ecological impact leading to risks and challenges for future urban planning and land use policies

Ecosystem services are inclusive and deliver multiple values. A comment on the concept of nature's contributions to people

A recent policy forum article in Science by Díaz et al. (2018) introduces nature's contributions to people (NCP) as an innovative approach to inform policy and decision-making. According to the authors, the NCP concept extends beyond the notion of ecosystem services by incorporating a more inclusive and interdisciplinary approach. Here this claim is challenged. Based on our experiences in Europe, we argue that the science, policy and practice of ecosystem services have progressed much beyond a mere economic and ecological rationale