Ecosystem Services Approach for Landscaping Project: The Case of Metropolia Residential Complex

Abstract

Redevelopment of former industrial areas provides a great opportunity to consider the ecosystem services assessment in urban planning to improve sustainability of major cities worldwide as urban green infrastructure provides wide range of regulatory and supporting services. However, most of the landscaping projects in Russia does not use this approach due to both the lack of legislations and low level of interactions between science and practitioners. To meet this challenge an eco-hackathon (competition between projects) was organized to demonstrate the possibilities of using the ecosystem services concept to evaluate the effectiveness of project solutions. An existing landscaping project was chosen as a good example to assess several basic benefits that people will achieve from soils and green infrastructure after redevelopment of the industrial area in Moscow.