The impact of land use/land cover scale on modelling urban ecosystem services

Context Urbanisation places increasing stress on ecosystem services; however existing methods and data for testing relationships between service delivery and urban landscapes remain imprecise and uncertain. Unknown impacts of scale are among several factors that complicate research. This study models ecosystem services in the urban area comprising the towns of Milton Keynes, Bedford and Luton which together represent a wide range of the urban forms present in the UK. Objectives The objectives of this study were to test (1) the sensitivity of ecosystem service model outputs to the spatial resolution of input data, and (2) whether any resultant scale dependency is constant across different ecosystem services and model approaches (e.g. stock- versus flow-based). Methods Carbon storage, sediment erosion, and pollination were modelled with the InVEST framework using input data representative of common coarse (25 m) and fine (5 m) spatial resolutions. Results Fine scale analysis generated higher estimates of total carbon storage (9.32 vs. 7.17 kg m−2) and much lower potential sediment erosion estimates (6.4 vs. 18.1 Mg km−2 year−1) than analyses conducted at coarser resolutions; however coarse-scale analysis estimated more abundant pollination service provision. Conclusions Scale sensitivities depend on the type of service being modelled; stock estimates (e.g. carbon storage) are most sensitive to aggregation across scales, dynamic flow models (e.g. sediment erosion) are most sensitive to spatial resolution, and ecological process models involving both stocks and dynamics (e.g. pollination) are sensitive to both. Care must be taken to select model data appropriate to the scale of inquiry

Introducing the Research Setting: Four Countries and Two Local Services

In comparative analysis of public management reforms, the general characteristics of countries and service contexts wherein reforms are implemented are important when examining and interpreting similarities and differences in the outcomes of reforms (Christensen and Lægreid, 2007; Greve et al., 2016; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011). When taking a comparative perspective, key characteristics of the politico-administrative system, such as Local Government structure, can provide a filter shaping the mix of policy instruments and organizational possibilities for implementing marketization within various services sectors. Similarly, the characteristics of the services sectors, such as…, are expected to provide a second filter shaping the outcomes from marketization. The country context of the book is represented by England and the three Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden while the service context is represented by local park and road services. In the comparative perspective of the book, the country context varies while the service sector context is invariant. This chapter provides an overview and comparison of the general characteristics of the four countries and service context. The overview of the countries and service context focuses on relatively stable characteristics and their differences and similarities across the countries. The chapter is organised in two main sections. The first section provides an overview of the general characteristics of Local Governments in the four countries. The second section provides an overview of local park and road services in the four countries

Towards Equity in the Distribution of Ecosystem Services in Cities

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Knowledge and environmental citizenship

This chapter examines the relationship between knowledge and Environmental Citizenship. Knowledge has been attributed to have an essential role in influencing pro-environmental behaviour and as such in the development of Environmental Citizenship. We argue that the ‘right’ kind of environmental knowledge is a necessary precondition for pro-environmental behaviour and thus for Environmental Citizenship. In this chapter, we focus on knowledge, but we also emphasise that efforts on fostering knowledge alone in education for Environmental Citizenship, without links to real life, competencies and values, are insufficient for the sake of a sustainable world. We explore which knowledge is needed in order to cultivate the coherent and adequate skills, values, attitudes and competences that we think an Environmental Citizen should have. We identify three different types of knowledge: (i) environmental systems knowledge, (ii) action-related knowledge and (iii) effectiveness knowledge. Finally, we suggest a process of co-production of new knowledge between experts and key citizens as central to the idea of a participatory approach towards developing Environmental Citizenship.Hadjichambis AC, Reis P, Paraskeva-Hadjichambi D, Činčera J, Boeve-de Pauw J, Gericke N, Knippels M-C, editors. Conceptualizing Environmental Citizenship for 21st Century Education. Springer Nature Switzerland AG; 2020. p. 69–82. (Environmental Discourses in Science Education; Vol. 4)