Integrating Ecosystem Services, Green Infrastructure and Nature-Based Solutions—New Perspectives in Sustainable Urban Land Management

Abstract

Global urbanisation comprises both urban sprawl and increasing densification of existing cities. Along with the heat waves, floods and droughts associated with climate change, urbanisation challenges our cities, and thus the places where soon 60% of the world's population will live. In addition to human beings and their health, nature and biodiversity are under extreme pressure to function and to survive in these growing urban systems. More and more key biodiversity areas (KBAs) are becoming urbanised, and wetlands are being sealed. However, ecosystems are crucial for a healthy and safe life in cities. So how should we save urban nature as a habitat for humans, flora and fauna? This chapter presents three concepts that provide different perspectives for sustainable urban land management. They represent complementary paths to increased urban sustainability. Nonetheless, implementation is still a long way off, and moreover, unsolved issues still exist, such as the social inclusiveness of the three approaches. Keywords Ecosystem services • Green infrastructure • Nature-based solutions • Complementary approaches for sustainable land use 16.1 Challenges in Urban Land Management: The Case of European Cities Urbanisation and urban growth are two overarching phenomena in land use development affecting areas around the planet. Worldwide, more than 55% of the population lives and works in cities, and this trend does not seem to be subsiding (Haase et al.

Estimating the Cooling Effect of Pocket Green Space in High Density Urban Areas in Shanghai, China

“…Among these, urban green space has been widely used to mitigate the UHI effect due to its cooling effects via evapotranspiration and shading (Kong et al, 2014b;Cheng et al, 2014;Jaganmohan et al, 2016;Sun and Chen, 2017). Urban green space has been considered as one of the nature-based solutions approaches to help improve climate change adaption and sustainable land management (Ferrari et al, 2019;Haase, 2021). Major findings from previous studies on the effects of urban green space on UHI can be summarized in the following: 1) the vast majority of urban green spaces have cooling effect on their surroundings, mitigating the UHI, but a few green spaces were warmer than their surroundings (Chang et al, 2007;Cao et al, 2010;Cheng et al, 2014); 2) linear relationships existed between land surface temperature and biophysical parameters such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), vegetation fraction at city scales (Weng et al, 2004;Li et al, 2011); 3) nonlinear relationship existed between the size of urban green spaces and their cooling effect when considering the local cool island intensity at patch and class scales (Cao et al, 2010;Cheng et al, 2014;Yu et al, 2017); 4) the landscape pattern of urban green space influenced urban land surface temperature (Li et al, 2011;Zhou et al, 2011;Kong et al, 2014a;Sun and Chen, 2017;Masoudi and Tan, 2019); 5) the surrounding landscape pattern of urban green space affected its cooling effect (Cao et al, 2010;Cheng et al, 2014).…”

Urban ecosystems assessment: An integrated approach to maintenance of habitats and their biodiversity

“…The ecosystem service 'maintaining nursery populations and habitats, including gene pool protection' can be a very important indicator of the sustainability of this chain. It is the path to the development of sustainable and flexible cities through the combination of the three concepts (green infrastructure, ecosystem services and nature-based solutions), which provides a different perspective for sustainable management of urban areas (Haase, 2021).…”

“…Global urbanization includes both urban sprawl and growing density of existing urban areas. Along with temperature anomalies, floods and droughts related to climate change, urbanization is a challenge for our cities and thus for the geographical concentrations, where about 60% of the world's population will soon live (Haase 2021). These problems lead to changes in the structure and functions of urban ecosystems, and therefore in the societal benefits and ecosystem services they provide.…”

“…The inclusion of ecosystem services in urban plans is considered a testament to their quality, and on this basis is an indicator of the ability to take strategic action towards more sustainable cities (Geneletti et al, 2020). Over the last year, we have witnessed innovative concepts integrating urban green infrastructure, ecosystem services and nature-based solutions for sustainable and flexible urban governance (Almenar, 2021;Haase, 2021).…”

Spatial analysis of infrastructure systems with remote sensing techniques: The case of Burdur Basin

“…Son yıllarda, ulusal ve uluslararası literatürde sürdürülebilirlik konulu planlama çalışmalarında arazi örtüsü/arazi kullanımı ve yeşil altyapı yaklaşımı öne çıkmıştır (Grabowski vd., 2022;Latasa vd., 2022;Marando vd., 2022;Yaralıoğlu ve Asilsoy, 2021). Bu doğrultuda ekoloji ve ekosistem hizmetleri çalışmaları doğanın sürdürülebilir kullanımını ve insanların refahını iyileştiren yeşil altyapı başta olmak üzere farklı altyapılarla ilgili hale gelmiştir (Haase, 2021;Sun vd., 2022). Kentler ve kırsal alanlarda yeşil altyapının yanında üst ölçekte arazi kullanımlarını tanımlamak için diğer arazi örtüsü türlerine de benzer terminoloji uygulanabilir.…”