Assessment of urban ecosystem services using a spatially explicit model of land use interfaces

While extensive research is dedicated to the assessment of ecosystem services at global and regional levels, considerably less effort is invested in the local level analysis of ecosystem services in urban areas. In a world where more than half of the population already live in cities, the management of urban locally provided ecosystem services (ULPES) is a pressing need. ULPES management represents both a great opportunity and a complex challenge. Land use allocation within urban areas and in their immediate periphery is the main factor behind the quality and quantity of ULPES available for their inhabitants. Since this is one of the areas of responsibility of the local government, it has a great opportunity to improve ULPES. However, the coexistence of different land uses in peri-urban areas is a well-known planning and managerial challenge: explicit analyses of the boundaries, interfaces, and mutual influences between different land uses are lacking. In turn, the quality and quantity of ULPES available in a certain place depend on the local specific land use configuration. This research suggests a method to explicitly quantify the spatial extent of the interfaces between different land uses, their edge effects, and the assessment of their associated ULPES. Using Dutch detailed geographical data, we study the evolution of the boundaries between residential, nature and agricultural land uses, their resulting interface areas and part of their associated ULPES. Our test case focuses on two types of services provided by “green” land uses (protected natural areas, agricultural zones, and parks). Recreational services available to nearby dwellers are used as an example of ecosystem services relevant at the local level, while carbon sequestration exemplifies the category of ecosystem services that are globally relevant. The share of the population and the extent of the geographical areas potentially affected by ULPES are large, but dispersed, calling for detailed tailor-made spatial planning tools at local levels. We also show that the distinction between both types of ecosystem services is useful for policy-making purposes: quantification of locally-provided services is well suited for spatial planning in general and urban planning in particular, but globally-relevant services assessment is more informative at national and supranational levels.