IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v70y2018icp298-312.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ecosystem services in urban plans: What is there, and what is still needed for better decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Cortinovis, Chiara
  • Geneletti, Davide

Abstract

In cities, land-use decisions made during planning processes determine the availability of ecosystem services fundamental to the wellbeing of urban population. Hence, the inclusion of ecosystem services in planning is essential to promote sustainable urban development. This article investigates to what extent ecosystem services are currently included in urban plans. The ultimate objective is to understand what ecosystem service information is already used, and what is still needed to improve planning decisions. We developed a methodology to review the content of planning documents irrespective of the terminology adopted to refer to ecosystem services, and examined the inclusion of nine urban ecosystem services across three plan components. In our sample of 22 urban plans of Italian cities, we found a high number of actions to address urban ecosystem services and a variety of tools for implementation. However, a two-speed integration emerges: a set of ecosystem services (i.e. recreation and some regulating services linked to typical urban environmental problems) are widely addressed, while others are hardly considered. Shortcomings can be partly ascribed to gaps in the scientific literature. Usable methods to assess urban ecosystem services at the right scale and resolution while also accounting for the multi-functionality of urban green infrastructures are still needed. On the other hand, future urban plans would benefit from a further appropriation of the ecosystem service approach by practitioners and decision-makers. Acknowledging the whole range of urban ecosystem services, defining strategic objectives related to their provision, and explicitly identifying demand and beneficiaries could increase awareness of the values at stake, ensure long-term commitment in the implementation phase, and strengthen planning arguments against conflicting interests.

Suggested Citation

  • Cortinovis, Chiara & Geneletti, Davide, 2018. "Ecosystem services in urban plans: What is there, and what is still needed for better decisions," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 298-312.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:70:y:2018:i:c:p:298-312
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.10.017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837717302661
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.10.017?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hansen, Rieke & Frantzeskaki, Niki & McPhearson, Timon & Rall, Emily & Kabisch, Nadja & Kaczorowska, Anna & Kain, Jaan-Henrik & Artmann, Martina & Pauleit, Stephan, 2015. "The uptake of the ecosystem services concept in planning discourses of European and American cities," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 228-246.
    2. Beery, Thomas & Stålhammar, Sanna & Jönsson, K. Ingemar & Wamsler, Christine & Bramryd, Torleif & Brink, Ebba & Ekelund, Nils & Johansson, Michael & Palo, Thomas & Schubert, Per, 2016. "Perceptions of the ecosystem services concept: Opportunities and challenges in the Swedish municipal context," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 123-130.
    3. Maczka, Krzysztof & Matczak, Piotr & Pietrzyk-Kaszyńska, Agata & Rechciński, Marcin & Olszańska, Agnieszka & Cent, Joanna & Grodzińska-Jurczak, Małgorzata, 2016. "Application of the ecosystem services concept in environmental policy—A systematic empirical analysis of national level policy documents in Poland," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 169-176.
    4. Davide Geneletti, 2015. "A Conceptual Approach to Promote the Integration of Ecosystem Services in Strategic Environmental Assessment," Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 17(04), pages 1-27, December.
    5. Ellen Bassett & Vivek Shandas, 2010. "Innovation and Climate Action Planning," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 76(4), pages 435-450.
    6. Zhenghong Tang & Samuel Brody & Courtney Quinn & Liang Chang & Ting Wei, 2010. "Moving from agenda to action: evaluating local climate change action plans," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(1), pages 41-62.
    7. Gómez-Baggethun, Erik & Barton, David N., 2013. "Classifying and valuing ecosystem services for urban planning," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 235-245.
    8. Luederitz, Christopher & Brink, Ebba & Gralla, Fabienne & Hermelingmeier, Verena & Meyer, Moritz & Niven, Lisa & Panzer, Lars & Partelow, Stefan & Rau, Anna-Lena & Sasaki, Ryuei & Abson, David J. & La, 2015. "A review of urban ecosystem services: six key challenges for future research," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 14(C), pages 98-112.
    9. Posner, Stephen & Getz, Christy & Ricketts, Taylor, 2016. "Evaluating the impact of ecosystem service assessments on decision-makers," Environmental Science & Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 30-37.
    10. Kremer, Peleg & Hamstead, Zoé A. & McPhearson, Timon, 2016. "The value of urban ecosystem services in New York City: A spatially explicit multicriteria analysis of landscape scale valuation scenarios," Environmental Science & Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 57-68.
    11. Andersson, Erik & McPhearson, Timon & Kremer, Peleg & Gomez-Baggethun, Erik & Haase, Dagmar & Tuvendal, Magnus & Wurster, Daniel, 2015. "Scale and context dependence of ecosystem service providing units," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 157-164.
    12. Rall, Emily Lorance & Kabisch, Nadja & Hansen, Rieke, 2015. "A comparative exploration of uptake and potential application of ecosystem services in urban planning," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 230-242.
    13. Oliver Heidrich & Richard Dawson & Diana Reckien & Claire Walsh, 2013. "Assessment of the climate preparedness of 30 urban areas in the UK," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 120(4), pages 771-784, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cortinovis, Chiara & Geneletti, Davide, 2019. "A framework to explore the effects of urban planning decisions on regulating ecosystem services in cities," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-1.
    2. Pulighe, Giuseppe & Fava, Francesco & Lupia, Flavio, 2016. "Insights and opportunities from mapping ecosystem services of urban green spaces and potentials in planning," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 22(PA), pages 1-10.
    3. Kieslich, Marcus & Salles, Jean-Michel, 2021. "Implementation context and science-policy interfaces: Implications for the economic valuation of ecosystem services," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    4. Khoshkar, Sara & Hammer, Monica & Borgström, Sara & Dinnétz, Patrik & Balfors, Berit, 2020. "Moving from vision to action- integrating ecosystem services in the Swedish local planning context," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    5. Stępniewska, Małgorzata & Lupa, Piotr & Mizgajski, Andrzej, 2018. "Drivers of the ecosystem services approach in Poland and perception by practitioners," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 33(PA), pages 59-67.
    6. Rémi Jaligot & Jérôme Chenal, 2019. "Integration of Ecosystem Services in Regional Spatial Plans in Western Switzerland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-16, January.
    7. Thompson, Kate & Sherren, Kate & Duinker, Peter N., 2019. "The use of ecosystem services concepts in Canadian municipal plans," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-1.
    8. Adams, Clare & Frantzeskaki, Niki & Moglia, Magnus, 2023. "Mainstreaming nature-based solutions in cities: A systematic literature review and a proposal for facilitating urban transitions," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    9. Dennis, Matthew & James, Philip, 2017. "Ecosystem services of collectively managed urban gardens: Exploring factors affecting synergies and trade-offs at the site level," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 26(PA), pages 17-26.
    10. Maria Susana Orta Ortiz & Davide Geneletti, 2018. "Assessing Mismatches in the Provision of Urban Ecosystem Services to Support Spatial Planning: A Case Study on Recreation and Food Supply in Havana, Cuba," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-21, June.
    11. Zulian, Grazia & Stange, Erik & Woods, Helen & Carvalho, Laurence & Dick, Jan & Andrews, Christopher & Baró, Francesc & Vizcaino, Pilar & Barton, David N. & Nowel, Megan & Rusch, Graciela M. & Autune, 2018. "Practical application of spatial ecosystem service models to aid decision support," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 29(PC), pages 465-480.
    12. Schetke, Sophie & Lee, Heera & Graf, Wanda & Lautenbach, Sven, 2018. "Application of the ecosystem service concept for climate protection in Germany," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 29(PB), pages 294-305.
    13. Jaung, Wanggi & Carrasco, L. Roman & Bae, Jae Soo, 2019. "Integration of ecosystem services as public values within election promises: evidence from the 2018 local elections in Korea," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    14. Linrun Qiu & Yuxiang Dong & Hai Liu, 2022. "Integrating Ecosystem Services into Planning Practice: Situation, Challenges and Inspirations," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-21, April.
    15. Cimburova, Zofie & Berghauser Pont, Meta, 2021. "Location matters. A systematic review of spatial contextual factors mediating ecosystem services of urban trees," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    16. Grunewald, K. & Bastian, O. & Louda, J. & Arcidiacono, A. & Brzoska, P. & Bue, M. & Cetin, N.I. & Dworczyk, C. & Dubova, L. & Fitch, A. & Jones, L. & La Rosa, D. & Mascarenhas, A. & Ronchi, S. & Schla, 2021. "Lessons learned from implementing the ecosystem services concept in urban planning," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    17. Daniela Perrotti & Sven Stremke, 2020. "Can urban metabolism models advance green infrastructure planning? Insights from ecosystem services research," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 47(4), pages 678-694, May.
    18. Dave Guyadeen & Jason Thistlethwaite & Daniel Henstra, 2019. "Evaluating the quality of municipal climate change plans in Canada," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 152(1), pages 121-143, January.
    19. Maczka, Krzysztof & Chmielewski, Piotr & Jeran, Agnieszka & Matczak, Piotr & van Riper, Carena J., 2019. "The ecosystem services concept as a tool for public participation in management of Poland’s Natura 2000 network," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 173-183.
    20. Nekane Castillo-Eguskitza & María F. Schmitz & Miren Onaindia & Alejandro J. Rescia, 2019. "Linking Biophysical and Economic Assessments of Ecosystem Services for a Social–Ecological Approach to Conservation Planning: Application in a Biosphere Reserve (Biscay, Spain)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-23, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:70:y:2018:i:c:p:298-312. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.