Urban Ecosystem Services and Climate Resilience: Trends and Challenges

Dear Colleagues,

Decision makers and planners are increasingly declaring their appreciation for the beneficial impact of green and blue infrastructure on the local climate in cities. At the same time, cities are an area of competition for space and pressure on land development intensified by the need to deal with complex social–ecological crises such as biodiversity loss, climate change and public health. For these reasons, it is essential to recognize the benefits urban ecosystems provide residents and that their well-being depends on healthy ecosystems. Current knowledge about urban ecosystem services and their potential for climate change mitigation remains incomplete. We encourage researchers to share their research results on the operationalization and dimensionality of this approach. The impetus for proposing this Special Issue is ECOSERV - 7th Symposium on Ecosystem Services in Transdisciplinary Approach (Poznań 14.- 16.09.2023).

We would like to collect papers (original research articles and review papers) that provide insights into various aspects of recognizing urban ecosystems as an essential adaptation factor of climate change. Among the important research questions relevant to climate alleviation, we see sets of ecosystem services in different urban areas depending on their size, climatic conditions, sociocultural circumstances and governance capacities. We appreciate works considering ecosystem services comprehensively as bundles characteristic of specific urban ecosystems and their land teleconnections. Inter- and transdisciplinary papers showing the practical applications of the ecosystem service approach and its pluralistic values, e.g., in spatial planning, environmental impact assessment and citizen science, will be very welcome.

This Special Issue will particularly focus on the following themes:

• Urban ecosystem services for climate adaptation—potential, supply and demand;
• Evidence regarding the impact of urban green/blue spaces on the local climate;
• Exploration of the link between climate change mitigation/adaptation and human health;
• Pluralistic perceptions of benefits for the local climate provided by urban ecosystems and associated instrumental, intrinsic and relational values;
• Urban ecosystem management for climate adaptation and its interlinkages with biodiversity protection.

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

Prof. Dr. Andrzej Mizgajski
Prof. Dr. Marek Degórski
Dr. Martina Artmann
Dr. Alina C. Hossu
Guest Editors

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