Abstract
In 2006, the world’s population passed the threshold of being equally split between rural and urban areas. Since this point, urbanisation has continued, and the majority of the global population are now urban inhabitants. With this ongoing change, it is likely that the way people receive benefits from nature (ecosystem services; ES) has also evolved. Environmental theory suggests that rural residents depend directly on their local environment (conceptualised as green-loop systems), whereas urban residents have relatively indirect relationships with distant ecosystems (conceptualised as red-loop systems). Here, we evaluate this theory using survey data from >3000 households in and around Hyderabad, India. Controlling for other confounding socioeconomic variables, we investigate how flows of 10 ES vary across rural, peri-urban and urban areas. For most of the ES we investigated, we found no statistical differences in the levels of direct or indirect use of an ecosystem, the distance to the ecosystem, nor the quantities of ES used between rural and urban residents (p > 0.05). However, our results do show that urban people themselves often travel shorter distances than rural people to access most ES, likely because improved infrastructure in urban areas allows for the transport of ES from wider ecosystems to the locality of the beneficiaries’ place of residence. Thus, while we find some evidence to support red-loop–green-loop theory, we conclude that ES flows across the rural-urban spectrum may show more similarities than might be expected. As such, the impact of future urbanisation on ES flows may be limited, because many flows in both rural and urban areas have already undergone globalisation.
Highlights
Urbanisation is evident across the Global North and South, and, in some areas, dramatic
We aim to evaluate whether the ecosystem services (ES) flow patterns predicted by red-loop–green-loop theory are identifiable in the real-world and whether the “messy” peri-urban areas are best characterised by the red-loop, green-loop, or a unique blend of the red- and green-loop systems
Use of provisioning services may be higher in rural areas, but the use of cultural services is higher in urban areas, and, where these differences in quantities of ES use exist, peri-urban areas sometimes show an intermediate step between rural and urban systems
Summary
Urbanisation is evident across the Global North and South, and, in some areas, dramatic. Nearly 60% of the global population live in urban areas and there are 34 megacities (cities with over 10 million residents) across the world [1]. Whilst urban areas are predominantly artificial, nature still penetrates these concrete fortresses 4.0/). Multiple studies have highlighted the importance of ecosystem services (ES) (nature’s contributions to people) to both rural and urban wellbeing [2]. ES are intimately linked to human wellbeing [3]. ES provide us with the ability to develop our mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing; providing space for recreation, spiritual and aesthetic appreciation of nature (cultural services [6])
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