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Cited by 895Land Use and Ecosystem ServicesEconomic and Environmental ValuationUrban Arborization and Environmental Studies

Benefits of restoring ecosystem services in urban areas

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Elmqvist, T, Setälä, H, Handel, SN, van der Ploeg, S, Aronson, J, Blignaut, JN, Gómez-Baggethun, E, Nowak, DJ +2 more·2015·Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
DOI 10.1016/j.cosust.2015.05.001
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Abstract

Cities are a key nexus of the relationship between people and nature and are huge centers of demand for ecosystem services and also generate extremely large environmental impacts. Current projections of rapid expansion of urban areas present fundamental challenges and also opportunities to design more livable, healthy and resilient cities (e.g. adaptation to climate change effects). We present the results of an analysis of benefits of ecosystem services in urban areas. Empirical analyses included estimates of monetary benefits from urban ecosystem services based on data from 25 urban areas in the USA, Canada, and China. Our results show that investing in ecological infrastructure in cities, and the ecological restoration and rehabilitation of ecosystems such as rivers, lakes, and woodlands occurring in urban areas, may not only be ecologically and socially desirable, but also quite often, economically advantageous, even based on the most traditional economic approaches.

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  • Local communities may not easily recognize the value of ecosystem services resulting from green infrastructure changes.

    “but local communities may not easily recognize the value of ecosystem services resulting from these changes (Elmqvist et al. 2015;Coleman et al. 2018;Miller and Montalto 2019).”

    From Phase II MS4 challenges: moving toward effective stormwater management for small municipalities (2022) · cites this paper as Elmqvist et al. 2015

    The Conclusion (page not provided) says that many benefits of urban green infrastructure have not been captured in economic assessments and that more work is needed to visualize their value. This supports the idea that the benefits can be difficult to recognize, but the paper does not say that local communities specifically have difficulty recognizing them. (LLM, conf=0.78)

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Authors
Elmqvist, T., Setälä, H., Handel, S., van der Ploeg, S., Aronson, J., Blignaut, J., Gómez-Baggethun, E., Nowak, D., Kronenberg, J., & de Groot, R.
Affiliations
  • Stockholm Resilience Centre (SE)
  • University of Helsinki (FI)
  • Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
  • US Forest Service (US)
  • University of Łódź (PL)
Corresponding author
Elmqvist, T
ORCID
Venue
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2015-06
Volume
14
Pages
101-108
ISSN
1877-3435 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.cosust.2015.05.001
OpenAlex
W284025563
Cited by
895
References
79
Citations by year
2026: 81 · 2025: 98 · 2024: 76 · 2023: 90 · 2022: 89 · 2021: 152 · 2020: 107 · 2019: 78 · 2018: 58 · 2017: 39 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 3
FWCI
3.50
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
  • BIBSYS Brage (BIBSYS (Norway)) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja (submittedVersion)
  • UpSpace Institutional Repository (University of Pretoria) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
  • Biodiversa+
  • European Commission (603567)
  • Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic and Environmental Valuation
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Urban Arborization and Environmental Studies
Keywords
ecosystem services, urban ecosystems, ecological infrastructure, urban restoration, monetary valuation of ecosystem services, urban resilience, climate change adaptation, urban expansion, rivers and lakes, urban forests

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