Ecosystem Services, Green Infrastructure and Spatial Planning

Corrado Zoppi

doi:10.3390/su12114396

Abstract

Ecosystem services and green infrastructure do not appear to inform spatial policies and plans. National governments hardly identify their ecological networks or make an effort to integrate them into their spatial policies and plans. Under this perspective, an important scientific and technical issue is to focus on preserving corridors for enabling species mobility and on achieving connectivity between natural protected areas. In this respect, this Special Issue takes a step forward insofar as it aims at proposing a theoretical and methodological discussion on the definition and implementation of ecological networks that, besides guaranteeing wildlife movements, also provide a wide range of ecosystem services. The social and economic profile of this question is also relevant since in the long run, savings in public spending (e.g., due to the reduced need for grey infrastructures aiming at contrasting soil erosion or at managing flood risk), savings in private spending (e.g., on water treatment costs) and the potential creation of green jobs are foreseeable. Moreover, indirect and less easily quantifiable social and health benefits (e.g., due to improved natural pollution abatement) are likely to occur as well.

Highlights

With regards the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, ratified by Italy by Law no. 1994/124, an ecosystem is “a dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their nonliving environment interacting as a functional unit”
It has to be emphasized that the strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of management plans (MPs) for Natura 2000 sites has to be regarded as an assessment exercise concerning not merely a single node of the ecological network, but rather the network as a whole
The Commission puts in evidence how and how much the issue of green infrastructure (GI) relates to the Network of Sites of community importance (SCIs), Special areas of conservation (SACs) and Special protection areas (SPAs): “The work done over the last 25 years to establish and consolidate the network means that the backbone of the EU’s GI is already in place

Summary

Introduction

With regards the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, ratified by Italy by Law no. 1994/124, an ecosystem is “a dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their nonliving environment interacting as a functional unit”. At the regional and urban levels, is an important and effective perspective to address the complex issue of defining, implementing and managing networks of ecosystem services and GI [10].

Results

Conclusion