Mapping and Evaluating Ecosystem Service Provision in Urban Green Areas Through Functional Traits and Spatial Metrics

Dear Colleagues,

Urban Green Areas are increasingly seen as essential elements to support ecological functions, human health, and climate resilience; however, understanding and measuring the processes that enable ecosystem services in these complex environments remains a key scientific and policy challenge. Yet, the mechanisms that underlie how ecosystem structure and functioning translate into the provision of ecosystem services remain insufficiently understood. Addressing this gap requires approaches that explicitly link the biological traits of urban vegetation with their spatial configuration and the resulting ecological and social functions. Combining functional trait-based ecology with spatial assessment methods offers a promising way to improve both theory and practice in urban ecosystem management.

This Special Issue invites original research, methodological innovations, and critical reviews that explore these linkages through both conceptual and applied perspectives. We particularly encourage contributions that use field-based trait data, trait databases, remote sensing, and GIS-based landscape analysis to map and model the spatial distribution of ecosystem services. Studies that couple high-resolution spatial data (e.g., UAV, LiDAR, hyperspectral imagery) with trait-based models, or that employ advanced statistical and machine learning approaches to predict service provision, are especially welcome.

Submissions should aim to operationalize the traits → functions → services → benefits pathway, providing explicit analytical bridges between ecological mechanisms and measurable service indicators. Comparative or multi-scale analyses are strongly encouraged, from individual trees to neighbourhoods and city-wide networks, to better understand how scale influences trait–service relationships. Studies addressing temporal dynamics—such as phenological variation, seasonal cooling effects, or long-term responses to urbanization and climate change—will provide valuable insights into the resilience and adaptability of urban ecosystems.

Through this collection, we hope to foster interdisciplinary collaboration among ecologists, urban planners, geographers, data scientists, and policymakers, supporting evidence-based strategies to improve the ecological and social sustainability of urban areas.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that link the following themes:

• Functional trait-based assessment of urban tree species and their ecological performance;
• Linking plant functional diversity to multiple ecosystem services in urban contexts;
• Spatial modelling of ecosystem service provision and ecological connectivity using remote sensing;
• Development of new spatial and functional metrics for ecosystem service evaluation;
• Trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services in heterogeneous urban landscapes;
• Coupling ecological and social data to assess equity, accessibility, and human benefits;
• Integration of functional ecology and urban planning in green infrastructure design;
• The role of species composition and structure in microclimate regulation and carbon balance;
• Mapping biodiversity-supporting functions of urban forests through trait-based indicators;
• Joining ecological data with social and health metrics for holistic urban ecosystem assessment;
• Policy, governance, and adaptive management frameworks for resilient and multifunctional urban forests;
• Methods and technologies prototypes or ready to be applied procedures structuring urban analytics datasets towards deploying novel bridging approaches in urban ecology functional studies.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Marco Ottaviano
Dr. Fabio Salbitano
Dr. Francesco Zullo
Guest Editors

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• urban forests
• urban ecology
• ecosystem services
• functional traits
• spatial metrics
• earth observations
• GIS
• landscape ecology
• urban resilience
• sustainability
• ecosystem assessment