Abstract
In the last decades, some European cities have undergone important changes in search of a more sustainable development. This is the case for the city of Bilbao (Bizkaia, Basque Country), where a Greenbelt has been maintained surrounding the urban areas allowing the periurban areas to deliver ecosystem services (ES) to society. However, the role of the different ecosystems in the provision of ES is not the same, which can lead to conflicts among them. The aim of this study is to analyze the synergies and trade-offs among the eight most important ES in the Bilbao Metropolitan Greenbelt (BMG) to orient their management strategies towards more multifunctional landscapes. We mapped the ES and overlapped them looking for the most relevant areas for the provision of multiple ES and areas that are mostly lacking ES provision. We identify also existing ES trade-offs and synergies between ES using correlations so that managers can prioritize preservation efforts of land use types in the rest of the area. The results show that provisioning ES had trade-offs with regulating and cultural ES and the latter showed synergies between them. The former are mainly delivered by semi-natural ecosystems, while regulating and cultural ES are delivered mainly by natural ecosystems. Moreover, the most relevant areas for the provision of multiple ES were proposed as potential components of a Green Infrastructure (GI). Their identification and ES bundles could help decision-makers to orient their management strategies towards sustainability in metropolitan areas.
Highlights
Multifunctional landscapes have the capacity to simultaneously produce multiple ecosystem services (ES) [1,2]
The results show that provisioning ES had trade-offs with regulating and cultural ES and the latter showed synergies between them
The location of the multifunctional areas based on ES is a good method to highlight the land use types providers of the ES needed or demanded in the area and those land use types not providing them
Summary
Multifunctional landscapes have the capacity to simultaneously produce multiple ecosystem services (ES) [1,2]. Human activities have modified many landscapes throughout the world to supply desired ES, such as food, timber, and fiber, maximizing their production, but resulting in substantial declines in the provision of other ES [3]. Trade-offs in ES arise when management choices entail the optimization of a single or a few ES, leading to the reduction or deterioration of other ES [2] this situation being inevitable when managing multiple ES [4]. ES synergies have been defined as ‘a situation where the use of one ES directly increases the benefits supplied by another service’ [5]. Understanding the synergies and trade-offs resulting from different management objectives may allow stakeholders and the public to conduct informed discussions about future management policies [8,9]
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