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Beyond the Parks – Exploring the Potential of Informal Green Spaces for Ecosystem Services Provisioning

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 14150

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Remote Sensing and Environmental Assessment; Institute of Environmental Engineering, Warsaw University of Life Sciences—SGGW, Nowoursynowska 166, 02-787 Warsaw, Poland
Interests: urban and eco-hydrology; ecosystem services; imaging spectroscopy; remote sensing, UAS
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Urban green spaces (UGS) have long been appreciated for their provisioning of multiple ecosystem services and their role in improving residents‘ health and well-being. However, in expanding cities, public parks and forests often remain underprovided; therefore, the role of other forms of green spaces, which would allow the citizens access and direct contact with nature, increases. Additionally, more attention has been given to the high cost of traditional UGS maintenance, e.g., frequent lawn mowing and its negative effects on biodiversity. Therefore, there is a need to promote more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly solutions to UGS that would allow decision-makers to expand the city’s green infrastracture, ensure UGS availability to residents, and boost ecosystem services provisioning by those areas.

The proposed Specials Issue aims at addressing research on urban green spaces beyond the typical intensively managed urban parks and forests. We are interested in the functioning of natural ecosystems in urban systems, particularly focusing on various neglected UGS, such as brownfields, wastelands, vacant lots, and other areas where natural succession processes in cities occur. As part of the Issue, we would like to include contributions regarding the adaptation of UGS to meet various goals and needs of residents and communities, including recreational needs and purposes. Studies on UGS management and innovative greenining initiatives, including public participation process, are also encouraged. Issues concerning the provision of ecosystem services, and the assessment of the cultural and ecological value of informal green spaces, will be particularly interesting. Our goal is to assess the role of informal green spaces in the process of building a model of resilient city in the face of threats resulting from climate change. Qualitative, quantitative studies, case studies, or examples of good practices will be welcome.

In this Issue, there is room for the presentation of the results of monitoring and inventory research, surveys, and modeling assessments, including stochastic and deterministic models; applications of new technologies such as aerial and satellite remote sensing; UAS photogrammetry and imaging; the use of ultrasound, geoinformation, CAD, and 3D; as well as research involving the acquisition of data from users in the crowdsourcing process on an open-call basis. There is also space for forecasting models and tools supporting the decision-making process in the field of management and protection of the natural environment of wastelands, and planning general social goals for them. We expect papers on the development of wasteland reclamation strategies and the estimation of the cost gradation of transforming them into urban green areas, and on the economic conditions increasing the level of satisfaction of users/residents with green areas located near residential buildings and in areas distant from housing estates.

By highlighting these outcomes, this Special Issue will be used to shed light on the significance of natural green spaces in urban areas to influence everyday policy and practice. The Special Issue also invites researchers of disciplines that focus on urban research, including but not exclusive to urban planning and social and environmental science.

Contributions will encompass new conceptual and empirical studies and case studies and methodological and analytical development, and will come up with particular practical implactions for UGS management and planning.

The contributions we can ensure to be submitted for the Issue cover research on informal urban green spaces particularly concerning the following:

  • Analysis of the perception of informal UGS in a social environment (studies of aesthetic preferences and assessment of the impact of the surroundings on the emotional well-being of users);
  • Pollution removal, in particular, the role of spontaneous vegetation in the absorption and removal of particulate matter;
  • Research identifying qualities that determine the recreation potential of informal UGS;
  • Examples and models of bottom-up initiatives (co-designing of space) of informal UGS into well-functioning community spaces;
  • The phytoremediation of heavy metal contamination by spontaneous vegetation (copper Cu, zinc Zn, lead Pb, cadmium Cd, chromium Ce , and nickel Ni);
  • Carbon dioxide absorption and related oxygen production in comparison to reference areas;
  • Ecological potential of informal UGS (biodiversity mapping and bioindicators, including ground beetles, bumblebees and birds, flora and plant communities, etc.);
  • The impact of invasive species on the delivery of ecosystem services;
  • The role of informal UGS in adaptation of urban areas to climate change.

Prof. Jarosław Chormański
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • urban green spaces
  • ecosystem services
  • green infrastructure

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 8207 KiB  
Article
Reading Urban Green Morphology to Enhance Urban Resilience: A Case Study of Six Southern European Cities
by Michèle Pezzagno, Barbara M. Frigione and Carla S. S. Ferreira
Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 9163; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13169163 - 16 Aug 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3951
Abstract
A loss of natural capital within cities and their surrounding areas has been noticed over the last decades. Increasing development associated with higher sealing rates has caused a general loss of Urban Green Spaces (UGS) within the urban environment, whereas urban sprawl and [...] Read more.
A loss of natural capital within cities and their surrounding areas has been noticed over the last decades. Increasing development associated with higher sealing rates has caused a general loss of Urban Green Spaces (UGS) within the urban environment, whereas urban sprawl and the improvement of road networks have deeply fragmented the surrounding landscape and jeopardized ecosystems connectivity. UGS are an essential component of the urban system, and their loss has a greater impact on, e.g., ecological and hydrological processes, threatening human well-being. Different types and spatial configurations of UGS may affect their own ability to provide ecosystem services, such as biodiversity support and water regulation. Nevertheless, the study of UGS spatial patterns is a research branch poorly addressed. Moreover, UGS analyses are mainly focused on public and vast green spaces, but seldom on informal, private, and interstitial ones, returning a myopic representation of urban green areas. Therefore, this study investigates the UGS spatial patterns within six Southern European cities, using the urban morphology analysis to assess all urban vegetated lands. Results revealed three main Urban Green Spatial Patterns (UGSPs): Fragmented, Compact, and Linear Distributions. UGSPs taxonomy represents a novelty in the urban morphology field and may have important implications for the ability to provide ecosystem services and, thus, human well-being. Full article
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16 pages, 650 KiB  
Article
Carabid Beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) Response to Soil Properties of Urban Wastelands in Warsaw, Poland
by Axel Schwerk, Marzena Wińska-Krysiak, Arkadiusz Przybysz, Ewa Zaraś-Januszkiewicz and Piotr Sikorski
Sustainability 2020, 12(24), 10673; https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410673 - 21 Dec 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2489
Abstract
Urban wasteland is of special interest to city planners. However, to integrate such areas into city space management with consideration of nature conservation aspects, a sound assessment of their ecological potential is necessary. The aim of this paper was to analyze whether carabid [...] Read more.
Urban wasteland is of special interest to city planners. However, to integrate such areas into city space management with consideration of nature conservation aspects, a sound assessment of their ecological potential is necessary. The aim of this paper was to analyze whether carabid beetle assemblages of the wastelands are affected by soil parameters, particularly trace element contamination. Therefore, we studied the carabid fauna in relation to selected soil parameters on 56 sampling plots situated in 24 wastelands located in the city of Warsaw (Poland). The results have confirmed our assumptions that the number of species, as well as the number of individual carabid beetles, are negatively affected by an increasing amount of pollutants in the soil. Particularly, the trace elements Pb, Cu, and Cd showed a significantly negative impact. The results are of value when it comes to the use of urban wastelands in the context of sustainable city development. Future use of urban wastelands will be faced with trade-offs between the use for public interests (e.g., housing space) and ecological interests. Phytoremediation and entomoremediation may be included in decontamination measures. The results of studies, such as the one conducted by us, may help to select the respective wastelands for certain purposes. Full article
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35 pages, 49171 KiB  
Article
Mapping Functional Urban Green Types Using High Resolution Remote Sensing Data
by Jeroen Degerickx, Martin Hermy and Ben Somers
Sustainability 2020, 12(5), 2144; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12052144 - 10 Mar 2020
Cited by 32 | Viewed by 6775
Abstract
Urban green spaces are known to provide ample benefits to human society and hence play a vital role in safeguarding the quality of life in our cities. In order to optimize the design and management of green spaces with regard to the provisioning [...] Read more.
Urban green spaces are known to provide ample benefits to human society and hence play a vital role in safeguarding the quality of life in our cities. In order to optimize the design and management of green spaces with regard to the provisioning of these ecosystem services, there is a clear need for uniform and spatially explicit datasets on the existing urban green infrastructure. Current mapping approaches, however, largely focus on large land use units (e.g., park, garden), or broad land cover classes (e.g., tree, grass), not providing sufficient thematic detail to model urban ecosystem service supply. We therefore proposed a functional urban green typology and explored the potential of both passive (2 m-hyperspectral and 0.5 m-multispectral optical imagery) and active (airborne LiDAR) remote sensing technology for mapping the proposed types using object-based image analysis and machine learning. Airborne LiDAR data was found to be the most valuable dataset overall, while fusion with hyperspectral data was essential for mapping the most detailed classes. High spectral similarities, along with adjacency and shadow effects still caused severe confusion, resulting in class-wise accuracies <50% for some detailed functional types. Further research should focus on the use of multi-temporal image analysis to fully unlock the potential of remote sensing data for detailed urban green mapping. Full article
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