The objectives of urban forest strategies can influence ecosystem service supply and accessibility across urban landscapes

Urban forests are recognised as important for improving urban sustainability due to the multiple ecosystem services they provide. However, there remains limited knowledge on the variation in ecosystem service provision and accessibility among different urban forest spatial strategies. This study aims to assess the impact of different urban forest expansion strategies on the supply of, and accessibility to, urban heat mitigation and a co-benefit service, stormwater retention, using Melbourne, Australia, as a case study. We developed two urban forest expansion scenarios that both increase the urban forest by 15% across Melbourne but under different spatial strategies and used ecosystem service models to spatially quantify the supply and distribution of the two ecosystem services. We then assessed accessibility to each service among communities of different socio-economic status under each scenario. We identified negligible difference in total ecosystem service supply between the scenarios, but did identify variations in the spatial distribution of both ecosystem services. Furthermore, there was a 48.21% difference in the number of communities of low socio-economic status located within below average urban heat mitigation areas between the two scenarios. Our results demonstrate that not all strategies to expand the urban forest are equal in regards to improving ecosystem service provisioning. Developing urban forest strategies with multiple objectives, and integrating scenario analysis tools into urban forest planning, can aid in cost-effective decision-making to optimise urban forest contributions to urban sustainability.