The Role of Urban Green Infrastructure: History
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Subjects: Environmental Sciences | Urban Studies
Contributor:
Rozalija Cvejić

The urban green infrastructure (UGI) is “an interconnected network of urban green spaces, including multiple types of natural or man-made systems, ranging from large-scale water or terrestrial ecosystems to small-scale pocket parks or green components, such as green walls in cities”. It provides ecosystems services that are highly important for human well-being in cities.

  • participatory ecosystem services assessment
  • well-being
  • urban ecosystem

1. Introduction

The urban green infrastructure (UGI) is “an interconnected network of urban green spaces, including multiple types of natural or man-made systems, ranging from large-scale water or terrestrial ecosystems to small-scale pocket parks or green components, such as green walls in cities” [1] (p. 5). In urban environments, people obtain from ecosystems, such as UGI, multiple benefits or, in other words, ecosystem services (ES) [2], which is increasingly recognized as a crucial factor contributing to human well-being (WB) in cities [3]. The ES of UGI are crucial for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of good health and well-being in cities. Though the importance of ES for various WB dimensions is poorly understood [2], it is believed that UGI provides WB relevant benefits, such as basic material for a good life, health, security and effects social relations [3]. The identification of links between ecosystems and WB is important for designing ecosystem-based approaches to WB [4]. Researchers, decision makers, and planners are increasingly becoming aware of UGI and its role in ensuring ES to increase WB [5]. Ecosystem assessment can influence policy decisions to address local needs better, improve living standards, or enable more effective climate change adaptation strategies [6].
ES gained recognition with the introduction of the millennium ecosystem assessment (MEA) [3]. According to it, there are four groups of ES: supporting, provisioning, regulating, and cultural. Additionally there are five WB components: (i) basic materials for a good life represent access to resources for a viable existence, including food and building material, or income to purchase them; (ii) security, including safe access to natural and other resources, security of people and property, and living in predictable and controllable environments safe from natural and man-made disasters, including those resilient to environmental stress, such as drought, heat island effects, floods, and pests; (iii) health, consisting of adequate food and nutrition, disease prevention, clean and safe drinking water, a healthy physical environment, and energy for comfortable temperature control; (iv) good social relations, including social cohesion, mutual respect, good gender and family relations, the ability to help others and care for children, the realization of aesthetic and recreational values, the ability to express cultural and spiritual values, the opportunity to observe and learn from nature, the development of social capital, and the avoidance of tension and conflict over diminishing resources; and (v) freedom and choice in terms of making decisions concerning ES and WB. The different ES groups affect WB components with different intensities [3].
UGI consists of different urban ecosystems contributing to various ES; each ES group has its intensity, affecting each individual WB component. For example, the regulating ES group has a strong influence on the health and safety component of WB but a weak influence on social relations [3].
Knowledge of stakeholder perception of ES in different UGI types could serve as a basis for improving the consideration of ES in urban planning processes and strategy development. Pauleit et al. [7] claim that knowledge regarding UGI and functional linkage to ES is insufficient. Despite the well-known positive correlation between green areas and health, the causality between different types of green areas and health components is still far from being explained. Perceptions of ecosystem connections and WB value can vary from person to person and context to context, depending on the level of knowledge and benefits that people value or need [8]. Ecosystems can provide benefits to WB only for specific stakeholder groups or at specific times and places [9]. Local knowledge, the involvement of stakeholders in the planning process, and constructive science–policy dialogue are options for improving planning processes and enhancing sustainability during implementation [10]. Planning and designing solutions that integrate people’s needs, WB, and the ecosystem functioning are more sustainable. Knowing ES supply and demand gaps are important for providing the WB of citizens [11][12]. The benefits provided depend not only on the ability of an ecosystem to provide services, but also on the demand for those services, which depends on many different factors, including cultural factors and the perceived value of the service [13]. For this reason, it is valuable to involve diverse stakeholders in ES assessment and UGI planning. At the same time, participatory ES assessment methods are also a process that raises the level of understanding of the need for the sustainable maintenance of urban ecosystems and their services. Such planning processes can be better facilitated using decision support approaches and tools [14].
There are numerous methods for assessing ES, and they differ in terms of how they involve stakeholders, whether they are qualitative or quantitative, dynamic or static, and which ES and ecosystem components they include [2][15]. Despite the various methods for mapping ES and assessing their provision and demand, there is still insufficient application in planning practice and policy formulation [16][17]. Burkhard et al. [18] claim that, in particular, the demand side of ES has not been adequately considered. Before creating a basis for incorporating the ES concept into local urban planning and further urban UGI planning with the stakeholders, to be cognizant of citizen perception and demand for different ES is needed[19]. Although a growing body of literature addresses links between UGI and ES, there is still a considerable gap in exploring its effect on WB.

2. Demand Supply across Different Well-Being Components

Higher ES demand over supply is not unusual in urban environments [20]. It only points to a deficit in ES supply and raises additional questions, most notably in terms of realistic stakeholder expectations, whether UGI can be enhanced to supply more ES.
It has been suggested that different ES affect WB components with varying degrees of intensity [3], with the WB component appearing to be more influenced by the social than the ecological system [21], which is consistent with the findings. In addition, different perceptions of the spatial distribution of ES and demand among different stakeholder groups were observed during the ES prioritization process. These could be related to factors such as the level of knowledge and benefits that people value or need, information, mental models, the connection to the landscape and the different stakeholders’ values [8][10][22][23]. On the other hand, Dumitru et al. [24] claim that the lack of evidence on the different uses of nature-based solutions (or in the case UGI) by different stakeholder groups makes it harder to assess differences in outcomes. Unequal distribution of UGI is the reason why assessing and evaluating actual ES perception of different stakeholder groups should be included in UGI planning and more detailed into the final design.

3. Demand Supply across Different Stakeholder Groups

The results refer to a population sample that is not statistically representative of Ljubljana residents. Nevertheless, the results could be extrapolated to the Ljubljana citizenship perceptions. In general, the results show that both the supply and demand of ES for the social relations component of WB are higher for all types of UGI. This is best illustrated by the relationships between health and sports areas and between basic materials for a good life and agricultural land, the main areas of provisioning the ES supply. These results can be attributed to the fact that the linkages between ES and social relations are weaker in the approach used in the research than for the other components of WB (column “social relations” in Table 1). Thus, the chosen approach may influence and preconcept the results, but on the other hand, other studies also show a greater need for the social ES/social WB component in urban environments [15][25]. It is difficult to predict a possible extrapolation of the actual results to the citizens of Ljubljana. Therefore, some studies that have addressed citizens’ perception of green spaces with the results will be compared.
Table 1. Linkage between groups of ecosystem services (ES) and human well-being (WB) components represented by weight factor.
Groups of ES Human WB Component
Basic Material Health Security Social Relation
Provisioning ES (nP = 6) fs = 3 fs = 3 fm = 2 fw = 1
Regulating ES (nR = 4) fs = 3 fs = 3 fs = 3 fw = 1
Cultural ES (nC = 6) fw = 1 fm = 2 fw = 1 fm = 2
Abbreviations used: fw = weak linkage between ES group and WB component, fm = medium linkage between ES group and WB component, fs = strong linkage between ES group and WB component, nP = number of provisioning ES, nR = number of regulating ES, nC = number of cultural ES.
 
By including Ljubljana in various European studies, a more comprehensive picture of the importance of UGI in the city can be gotten. In the survey conducted by Fischer et al. [26] on the importance of UGI and the related ES and activities in them, 558 Ljubljana residents participated. They named parks and forests as the most important UGI categories in the city for them and gave the greatest weight to culture ES in them. This result is consistent. Another research that focused on the recreational use of parks showed that Ljubljana residents (N = 543; mainly working population, aged between 30–59, predominantly university level education) visit parks mainly for physical use (walking, practicing sports for better health-related well-being), while social uses and nature-related uses were less represented but still essential [27]. If looking from the city policy-makers view, the city of Ljubljana attaches great importance to the preservation and improvement of the network of green spaces in the city. The city’s strategic goal is to create an interconnected network of high-quality public open spaces throughout the city that are equally accessible to all residents and that are safe, recognizable, well maintained, and respectful of cultural heritage, natural resources, and the environment [28]. Fischer et al. [26] argue that biodiverse green spaces provide people in cities with an added value in relation to simply green spaces. Ljubljana residents value high biodiversity in forests and medium biodiversity in parks most in terms of liking. The likeability of green spaces is associated with recreation and other social ES demand. With further planning and improvements of the UGI, the city of Ljubljana aims to preserve the multifunctionality of its UGI areas. With this vision, the city has placed a special emphasis on creating high-quality new public UGI areas. Because of the multiple functions these areas can perform within a city, such as recreational and ecosystem functions, the concept of multifunctionality is an important consideration in the planning and management of these areas. These areas are often characterized by a high number of ES, such as habitat function, high recreational attractiveness, and regulating services such as air and water purification and buffer areas [28].
Moreover, van der Jagt et al. [29] explain the establishment and development of a learning alliance in Ljubljana. The process of shared learning eventually evolved into a plan to engage and support young adults, including school dropouts and the unemployed, in a project to transform an underutilized UGI area into one that provides multiple ES, beneficial for WB from leisure to sports, culture, local food production and environmental education: all that contribute to increased food self-supply, better physical and mental health, an increased feeling of guidance (security) in life and improved social relations in young adults.

4. Method Application and Further Studies

The method used facilitates a gradual exploration and incorporation of the ES concept into the planning process. Quantification of relations between WB components provides a useful way to visualize existing and expected UGI services and a shared view among stakeholders. Identifying ES linked to different types of UGI based on pictures and UGI examples from Ljubljana is the first step in informing the process.
In a social–ecological system, such as the UGI, conceptualized through a widely accepted ES concept [21], the WB component is seen as one of the most important elements of human quality of life in urban areas [30]. Therefore, the links between ES, UGI, and WB should be better understood [2][7] to support the development of ecosystem-based approaches to UGI design [4][5][6]. Additionally, Dumitru et al. [24] underline the lack of explicit consideration of pathways through which the ES of UGI affect different WB aspects, especially those related to human health and the social fabric. In this respect, it is crucial to evaluate public perception and demand for different ES [19], which would support the integration of the ES concept into local UGI planning in environments where this has not been the case so far.
Different levels of knowledge and values of participants imply the requirement to compare the perception of stakeholders (perceived data) with empirical data [31] by combining different decision support approaches and tools, not only to inform the planning processes [14], but also to identify possible inaccuracies [31]. In this respect, stakeholder knowledge could serve as a basis for better consideration of the ES role on WB through the UGI, which could lead to better informed urban planning processes and strategy development [10].
Application of the presented method can also be useful in supporting decision makers responsible for urban planning in a variety of ways, including the following:
-Awareness raising where mismatches are identified between stakeholder perception and empirical data;
-Identifying areas of surplus or deficit in ES supply;
-Identifying WB components in need of greater enhancement through ES;
-Awareness raising among stakeholders involved in the processes of considering the ES provided by UGI.
There are various methods for engaging stakeholders in assessing ES [15], and some are considered important prerequisites for implementing the ES concept by environmental institutions and decision makers [25]. The precision of evaluation methods is also increasing [32]. Compared to other methods [15], the applied method, based on the identification of the links based on the provision and demand approach, focuses more on the UGI type than on the spatial diversity of ES; therefore, it emphasizes the functionality of the links between ES and WB more than the location. For this reason, it is better suited to achieve a strategic integration of the ES concept in the planning document than a method to be used in the detailed development planning of specific UGI in the city.

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/land11020299

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