Abstract
Research to date on urban ecosystem services has mainly been conducted in large cities, particularly in China, the USA and some European countries. This study examined the provision of urban ecosystem services in a Swedish municipality context, based on interviews with municipal stakeholders in strategic management and planning from six municipalities and a review of existing publications readily available to practitioners. The analysis focused on (1) the ecosystem services explicitly covered, (2) whether multifunctionality was covered and specific synergies and trade-offs identified and, (3) the spatial scale and context used for ecosystem services (valuation/mapping, planning, design or maintenance) in practical application. The results showed that regulatory services are very much the focus in municipal operations as well as in publications available to practitioners. This is reflected in the implementation of the concept through problem solving often related to regulatory services, using multifunctionality and win-win situations in ecosystem service supply. These findings contribute to the growing body of work exploring how the concept of ecosystem services is adapted and utilised in practice.
Highlights
Urbanisation is increasing rapidly worldwide, putting pressure on the resources available to provide liveable cities (Kotzeva and Brandmüller 2016)
The field study resulted in six transcribed interviews of 60– 90 min covering a broad range of aspects in relation to ecosystem service implementation in municipal planning
Two interviewees explained the shift to integrating multifunctional urban ecosystem services provision more explicitly in planning: “... on, we will say: when we look at stormwater management, we will look at biodiversity and water quality management” (I6)
Summary
Urbanisation is increasing rapidly worldwide, putting pressure on the resources available to provide liveable cities (Kotzeva and Brandmüller 2016). Urban ecosystem services can make a visible and measurable contribution to human well-being, providing a valuable approach for safeguarding viable and healthy cities for the future. Urban ecosystem services have been the subject of much research, heavily dominated by studies carried out in large cities in China, the USA and some. Urban Ecosyst (2021) 24:1343–1357 services (37%) (Hölting et al 2019). Multifunctional green structure/green space is a useful concept for exploring tradeoffs and synergies within spatial planning, emphasising the multiple functions of the urban ecosystem and fitting well within the research discourse on ecosystem services (de Groot et al 2010; Hansen and Pauleit, 2014). There is a knowledge gap with regard to the specific synergies and trade-offs of ecosystem services occuring wihtin spatial planning (Sussams et al 2015)
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