Cultural Ecosystem Services of Urban Green Spaces. How and What People Value in Urban Nature?

Abstract

This paper discusses the concept of cultural ecosystem services (CES) as a part of a broader framework of ecosystem services provided by urban green spaces. It is based on literature review and evaluation of results from two research projects of urban green spaces conducted in Russia (three public parks in Moscow) and China (six public parks in Xi’an). Both case studies conducted face-to-face interviews of park visitors and stakeholders (in Xi’an) and utilized questionnaires as well as observational studies of people’s activities within parks and their infrastructure. This paper aims to explore how urban dwellers perceive and value urban green spaces (parks) and what particular CES/benefits can be drawn as being most important. CES of urban green spaces (especially urban parks) are discussed from the following viewpoints: a) visitors’ perception and behaviour, b) indicators and methods adapted to CES research and c) identifying and understanding the ecosystem service capacity of an urban green space for attracting visitors of different cultural backgrounds. The results highlight the importance of CES which are provided by urban green spaces for quality of life and human health in cities, and the role of CES in raising environmental awareness and social cohesion and interaction. This paper also provides suggestions for a research framework and conceptual models that can be applied in future studies of CES and provides useful tools for indicators selection and assessment.