Urban green infrastructure: A review on valuation toolkits from an urban planning perspective
Abstract
As a response to increasing urbanization and changing weather and climatic patterns, urban green infrastructure (UGI) emerged as a concept to increase resilience within the urban boundaries. Given that implementing these (semi-) natural solutions in practice requires a clear overview of the costs and benefits, valuation becomes ever important. A range of decision-support tools for green infrastructure and ecosystem services exist, developed for various purposes. This paper reviews the potential of 10 shortlisted and existing valuation tools to support investment decisions of urban green infrastructure. In the assessment, the functionality is regarded specifically from the urban planning and decision-making viewpoint. The toolkits were evaluated on 12 different criteria. After analyzing the toolkits on these criteria, the findings are evaluated on the (mis)match with specific requirements in the urban planning and management context. Secondly, recommendations and guidelines are formulated to support the design of simple valuation tools, tailored to support the development of green infrastructure in urban areas. Approaching the valuation toolkits biophysically and (socio-)economically provides an integral overview of the challenges and opportunities of the capacities of each framework. It was found that most tools are not designed for the peculiarities of the urban context. Several elements contribute to the hampering uptake of GI valuation tools. Firstly, the limited effort in the economic case for green infrastructure remains a burden to use toolkits to compare grey and green alternatives. Secondly, tools are currently seldom designed for the peculiarities of cities: urban ecosystem (dis)services, multi-scalability, life-span assessments of co-benefits and the importance of social benefits. Thirdly, toolkits should be the result of co-development between the scientific community and local authorities in order to create toolkits that are tailor made to the specific needs in the urban planning process. It can be concluded that current tools, are not readily applicable to support decision making as such. However, if applied cautiously, they can have an indicative role to pinpoint further targeted and in-depth analyses.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Additional barriers for scaling up NbS include lack of systematic monitoring and evaluation schemes for assessing the multiple benefits of urban NbS.
“Additional barriers include lack of systematic monitoring and evaluation schemes for assessing the multiple benefits of urban NbS (97).”
From Global synthesis and regional insights for mainstreaming urban nature-based solutions (2025) · cites this paper as [97]
The Introduction says city-scale valuation is rare and that assessing and quantifying urban green infrastructure’s impacts is essential. The Discussion says current toolkits do not adequately assess multiple co-benefits over a project’s life span. These passages support an assessment gap as a barrier to wider uptake, but do not establish a lack of systematic monitoring and evaluation schemes specifically. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
1 retracted
DAVID, T. P., Briceño, T., & Ospina, G. (2016) · Ecosystem Services · doi:10.1016/j.ecoser.2016.02.005 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
RetractedEcosystem services in urban areas
Bolund, P., & Hunhammar, S. (1999) · Ecological Economics · doi:10.1016/s0921-8009(99)00013-0 · Cited by 2,942 · see citing works
Understanding relationships among multiple ecosystem services
Bennett, E. M., Peterson, G., & Gordon, L. J. (2009) · Ecology Letters · doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01387.x · Cited by 2,494 · see citing works
Ecosystem service bundles for analyzing tradeoffs in diverse landscapes
Raudsepp‐Hearne, C., Peterson, G., & Bennett, E. M. (2010) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0907284107 · Cited by 2,023 · see citing works
Adapting Cities for Climate Change: The Role of the Green Infrastructure
Gill, S. E., Handley, J. F., Ennos, A. R., & Pauleit, S. (2007) · Built Environment · doi:10.2148/benv.33.1.115 · Cited by 2,002 · see citing works
Classifying and valuing ecosystem services for urban planning
Gómez‐Baggethun, E., & Barton, D. N. (2012) · Ecological Economics · doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.08.019 · Cited by 1,874 · see citing works
Trade-offs across Space, Time, and Ecosystem Services
Rodrı́guez, J. P., Beard, T. D., Bennett, E. M., Cumming, G. S., Cork, S. J., Agard, J. B. R., Dobson, A. P., & Peterson, G. (2006) · Ecology and Society · doi:10.5751/es-01667-110128 · Cited by 1,432 · see citing works
Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities
Benedict, M. A., & McMahon, E. (2006) · Cited by 1,092 · see citing works
Demuzere, M., Orru, K., Heidrich, O., Olazabal, E., Geneletti, D., Orru, H., Bhave, A., Mittal, N., Feliú, E., & Faehnle, M. (2014) · Journal of Environmental Management · doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.07.025 · Cited by 980 · see citing works
Benefits of restoring ecosystem services in urban areas
Elmqvist, T., Setälä, H., Handel, S., van der Ploeg, S., Aronson, J., Blignaut, J., Gómez-Baggethun, E., Nowak, D., Kronenberg, J., & de Groot, R. (2015) · Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability · doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2015.05.001 · Cited by 895 · see citing works
Cities lead the way in climate–change action
Rosenzweig, C., Solecki, W., Hammer, S., & Mehrotra, S. (2010) · Nature · doi:10.1038/467909a · Cited by 723 · see citing works
Andersson, E., Barthel, S., Borgström, S. T., Colding, J., Elmqvist, T., Folke, C., & Gren, Å. (2014) · AMBIO · doi:10.1007/s13280-014-0506-y · Cited by 678 · see citing works
Roy, A. H., Wenger, S. J., Fletcher, T. D., Walsh, C. J., Ladson, A. R., Shuster, W. D., Thurston, H. W., & Brown, R. R. (2008) · Environmental Management · doi:10.1007/s00267-008-9119-1 · Cited by 613 · see citing works
Matthews, T., Lo, A. Y. H., & Byrne, J. (2015) · Landscape and Urban Planning · doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2015.02.010 · Cited by 575 · see citing works
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Research Needs
Carpenter, S. R., DeFries, R., Dietz, T. M., Mooney, H. A., Polasky, S., Reid, W. V., & Scholes, R. J. (2006) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1131946 · Cited by 568 · see citing works
Hopping on one leg – The challenge of ecosystem disservices for urban green management
Lyytimäki, J. M., & Faehnle, M. (2009) · Urban forestry & urban greening · doi:10.1016/j.ufug.2009.09.003 · Cited by 533 · see citing works
Value of urban green spaces in promoting healthy living and wellbeing: prospects for planning
Lee, A. C., Jordan, H., & Horsley, J. (2015) · Risk Management and Healthcare Policy · doi:10.2147/rmhp.s61654 · Cited by 446 · see citing works
Green Infrastructure, Ecosystem Services, and Human Health
Coutts, C., & Hahn, M. B. (2015) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph120809768 · Cited by 439 · see citing works
Cascades of green: A review of ecosystem-based adaptation in urban areas
Brink, E., Aalders, T., Ádám, D., Feller, R., Henselek, Y., Hoffmann, A., Ibe, K., Matthey-Doret, A., Meyer, M., Negrut, N. L., et al. (2016) · Global Environmental Change · doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.11.003 · Cited by 398 · see citing works
Assessing benefit transfer for the valuation of ecosystem services
Plummer, M. L. (2009) · Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · doi:10.1890/080091 · Cited by 391 · see citing works
Dhakal, K. P., & Chevalier, L. R. (2017) · Journal of Environmental Management · doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.07.065 · Cited by 375 · see citing works
Alves, A., Gersonius, B., Kapelan, Z. S., Vojinović, Z., & Sánchez, A. (2019) · Journal of Environmental Management · doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.03.036 · Cited by 364 · see citing works
Planning multifunctional green infrastructure for compact cities: What is the state of practice?
Hansen, R., Olafsson, A. S., van der Jagt, A., Rall, E., & Pauleit, S. (2017) · Ecological Indicators · doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.09.042 · Cited by 354 · see citing works
Pauleit, S., Ambrose‐Oji, B., Andersson, E., Anton, B., Buijs, A. E., Haase, D., Elands, B. H. M., Hansen, R., Kowarik, I., Kronenberg, J., et al. (2018) · Urban forestry & urban greening · doi:10.1016/j.ufug.2018.10.006 · Cited by 341 · see citing works
Linking landscape and health: The recurring theme
Thompson, C. W. (2010) · Landscape and Urban Planning · doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2010.10.006 · Cited by 339 · see citing works
Recognising barriers to implementation of Blue-Green Infrastructure: a Newcastle case study
O’Donnell, E. C., Lamond, J. E., & Thorne, C. R. (2017) · Urban Water Journal · doi:10.1080/1573062x.2017.1279190 · Cited by 278 · see citing works
Thorne, C. R., Lawson, E., Ozawa, C. P., Hamlin, S., & Smith, L. (2015) · Journal of Flood Risk Management · doi:10.1111/jfr3.12218 · Cited by 257 · see citing works
Jayasooriya, V. M., & Ng, A. W. M. (2014) · Water Air & Soil Pollution · doi:10.1007/s11270-014-2055-1 · Cited by 213 · see citing works
How important is green infrastructure in small and medium-sized towns? Lessons from South Africa
Shackleton, C. M., Blair, A., Lacy, P. D., Kaoma, H., Mugwagwa, N., Dalu, M. T. B., & Walton, W. (2017) · Landscape and Urban Planning · doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2016.12.007 · Cited by 141 · see citing works
Urban vacant land typology: A tool for managing urban vacant land
Kim, G., Miller, P. A., & Nowak, D. J. (2017) · Sustainable Cities and Society · doi:10.1016/j.scs.2017.09.014 · Cited by 137 · see citing works
van der Jagt, A., Smith, M. D., Ambrose‐Oji, B., et al. (2018) · Journal of Environmental Management · doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.09.083 · Cited by 137 · see citing works
Birch, J. C., Thapa, I., Balmford, A. P., et al. (2014) · Ecosystem Services · doi:10.1016/j.ecoser.2014.03.005 · Cited by 132 · see citing works
Energy Conservation Potential of Urban Tree Planting
McPherson, E. G., & Rowntree, R. A. (1993) · Arboriculture & Urban Forestry · doi:10.48044/jauf.1993.051 · Cited by 123 · see citing works
Wild, T., Henneberry, J., & Gill, L. W. (2017) · Environmental Research · doi:10.1016/j.envres.2017.05.043 · Cited by 122 · see citing works
Wihlborg, M., Sörensen, J., & Olsson, J. A. (2019) · Journal of Environmental Management · doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.12.018 · Cited by 121 · see citing works
Valuing urban ecosystem services in sustainable brownfield redevelopment
Valck, J. D., Beames, A., Liekens, I., et al. (2018) · Ecosystem Services · doi:10.1016/j.ecoser.2018.12.006 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Arcidiacono, A., Ronchi, S., & Salata, S. (2016) · Procedia Engineering · doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2016.08.831 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
Can urban greenspace combat climate change? Towards a subtropical cities research agenda
Byrne, J., & Jinjun, Y. (2009) · Australian Planner · doi:10.1080/07293682.2009.10753420 · Cited by 63 · see citing works
Liu, P., Jiang, S., Zhao, L., Li, Y., Zhang, P., & Zhang, L. (2017) · Ecosystem Services · doi:10.1016/j.ecoser.2017.05.014 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
Including uncertainty in valuing blue and green infrastructure for stormwater management
Ashley, R., Gersonius, B., Digman, C., Horton, B., Smith, B., & Shaffer, P. (2018) · Ecosystem Services · doi:10.1016/j.ecoser.2018.08.011 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Global to Local: Ecological Land Classification
(1996) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-94-009-1653-1 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Accounting for substitution and spatial heterogeneity in a labelled choice experiment
Lizin, S., Brouwer, R., Liekens, I., et al. (2016) · Journal of Environmental Management · doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2016.06.038 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Demonstrating and Monetizing the Multiple Benefits from Using SuDS
Ashley, R., Gersonius, B., Digman, C., et al. (2017) · Journal of Sustainable Water in the Built Environment · doi:10.1061/jswbay.0000848 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Isely, E. S., Isely, P. N., Seedang, S., et al. (2010) · Journal of Great Lakes Research · doi:10.1016/j.jglr.2010.04.003 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Valuing and mapping cork and carbon across land use scenarios in a Portuguese montado landscape
von Essen, M., Rosário, I. T., Santos‐Reis, M., et al. (2019) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0212174 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
Martino, S., & Muenzel, D. (2018) · Journal of Rural Studies · doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2018.04.002 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Ecosystem service valuation framework applied to a legal case in the Anchicaya region of Colombia
DAVID, T. P., Briceño, T., & Ospina, G. (2017) · Ecosystem Services · doi:10.1016/j.ecoser.2017.02.022 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Spatial scale-dependent policy planning for land management in southern Europe
Papadimitriou, F., & Mairota, P. (1996) · Environmental Monitoring and Assessment · doi:10.1007/bf00396135 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Greening Rail Infrastructure for Carbon Benefits
Blair, J., Roldan, C., Ghosh, S., et al. (2017) · Procedia Engineering · doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2017.04.334 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Maebe, L., Claessens, H., & Dufrêne, M. (2019) · One Ecosystem · doi:10.3897/oneeco.4.e34769 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
American Association for the Advancement of Science
(1853) · Scientific American · doi:10.1038/scientificamerican09031853-403 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Foster, J., Lowe, A., & Winkelman, S. (2011). The value of green infrastructure for urban climate adaptation. Center for Clean Air Policy, 750 (1), 1-52.
- Liekens, I., Broekx, S., Smeets, N., Staes, J., Van der Biest, K., Schaafsma, M., . . . Cerulus, T. (2013). Chapter 19 - The Ecosystem Services Valuation Tool and its Future Developments ∗∗ Based on Environmental Impact Assessment Review, Broekx S., et al., 'Environmental Impact Assessment Review,' 65 -74 © 2013 with permission of Elsevier. In S. Jacobs, N. Dendoncker, & H. Keune (Eds.), Ecosystem Services (pp. 249-262). Boston: Elsevier.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Global synthesis and regional insights for mainstreaming urban nature-based solutions
McPhearson, T., Frantzeskaki, N., Ossola, A., Diep, L., Anderson, P. M. L., Blatch, T., Collier, M. J., Cook, E. M., Culwick Fatti, C., Grabowski, Z. J., et al. (2025) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2315910121 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
“For example, in the European Union, a significant amount of financial investment has gone into research on the innovation potential of NbS as demonstrated by the review conducted by NetworkNature (120, 121).”
- Authors
- Van Oijstaeijen, W., Van Passel, S., & Cools, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Antwerp (BE)
- ORCID
- Cools, Jan
- Venue
- Journal of Environmental Management
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2020-08
- Volume
- 267
- Pages
- 110603
- ISSN
- 0301-4797 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3019534486
- Cited by
- 239
- References
- 51
- Citations by year
- 2026: 27 · 2025: 54 · 2024: 47 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 35 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 6
- FWCI
- 10.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Environmental Management (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
- European Regional Development Fund
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Urban Arborization and Environmental Studies
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Urban Stormwater Management Solutions
- Keywords
- urban green infrastructure, valuation methods, ecosystem services, urban planning, decision support, urban resilience, co-benefits, social benefits, urban ecosystem services, multi-scale assessment, tool evaluation criteria
- MeSH terms
- Cities, City Planning, Color, Conservation of Natural Resources, Urbanization, Ecosystem
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
