scholarly journals Toward an Evaluation of Cultural Ecosystem Services Delivered by Urban Micro-Farms

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Giacchè ◽  
Jean-Noël Consalès ◽  
Baptiste J-P. Grard ◽  
Anne-Cécile Daniel ◽  
Claire Chenu
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Urban Agriculture ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Qualitative Evaluation ◽  
Cultural Ecosystem Services ◽  
Allotment Gardens ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Rooftop Farming ◽  
The City ◽  
Soil Level

Since two decades, urban agriculture has been booming and a wide range of forms, from urban allotment gardens to rooftop farming under greenhouse, is developing. Various benefits are recognized for urban agriculture integration within the city and a specific consideration is dedicated to ecosystem services. In this article, we have focused on cultural ecosystem services provided by urban micro-farms. The state of the art reveals that urban agriculture delivers cultural ecosystem services that are well perceived and evaluated by users, but there are still few studies on this topic. Based on the analysis of specific literature on cultural ecosystems and micro-farms in parallel to a period of observation and documentary research of five urban micro-farms either on rooftop or at soil level, located in Paris and its surroundings, we proposed a specific methodology. This methodology aimed at quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the cultural ecosystem services provided by urban micro-farms and is based on a framework, which distinguishes exogenous and endogenous cultural ecosystem services.

#urbanforest: cultural ecosystem services of urban trees through the lens of Instagram

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Speak ◽  
Mark Usher ◽  
Hilary Solly ◽  
Stefan Zerbe
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Media Analysis ◽  
Urban Trees ◽  
Cultural Ecosystem Services ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Image Sharing ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
The City

Purpose The non-material benefits which people derive from ecosystems, cultural ecosystem services (CES), can be difficult to measure and quantify. This study aims to demonstrate the usefulness of social media analysis. Design/methodology/approach The widespread use of social media applications has provided a novel methodology for obtaining crowd-sourced data, which can reveal patterns in how social media users interact with urban greenspace and participate in place-making activities. This study explores how urban trees are represented in images tagged with the city of Bolzano, Italy, and uploaded over the course of a year to the image-sharing application Instagram. Findings A third of all the images contained some elements of green nature, with 3.1% of the images portraying urban trees as the main subject and 11% with urban trees as background features. Seasonal preferences for winter and summer scenes emerged. Accompanying text, in the form of hashtags and image descriptions, was mostly positive and showed how enthusiastically people describe urban nature. An assessment of the images in terms of CES revealed that beyond aesthetic factors and the inspiration to take photographs of nature, a wide range of CES are represented, reflecting the recognition of the benefits of urban trees by Instagrammers. The collection of images provided a unique snapshot of the city of Bolzano. Practical implications This reinforces the importance of urban trees within planning policy for providing sense of place, recreation and stress relief for residents and tourists. Originality/value The study builds on recent advances in social media research, focussing on the important field of urban CES.

scholarly journals A Framework for Addressing Multiple Ecosystem Services in Forest Management Planning

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emin Zeki BASKENT ◽  
Jose Guilherme BORGES ◽  
Jan KASPAR
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Forest Management ◽  
Ecosystem Management ◽  
Forest Ecosystem ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Management Planning ◽  
Forest Management Planning ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Forest Ecosystem Management

Abstract Background: Forest policy and decision makers are challenged by the need to balance the increasing demand for multiple ecosystem services while addressing the impacts of natural disturbances (e.g. wildfires, droughts, wind, insect attacks) and global change scenarios (e.g. climate change) on its potential supply. This challenge provides the motivation for the development of a framework for incorporating concerns with a wide range of ecosystem services in multiple criteria management planning contexts. Thus, the paper focused on both the analysis of the current state-of-the art in forest management planning and the development of a conceptual framework to accommodate various components in a forest ecosystem management planning process.Results: Based on a thorough recent classification of forest management planning problems and the state-of-the-art research, the key dimensions of that framework and the process were defined. The emphasis is on helping identify how concerns with a wide range of ecosystem services may be analyzed and better understood by forest ecosystem management planning. This research discusses the potential of contemporary management planning approaches to address multiple forest ecosystem services. It highlights the need of a landscape-level perspective and of spatial resolution to integrate multiple ecosystem services. It discusses the importance of methods and tools that may help support the involvement of stakeholders and public participation in hierarchical planning processes. Conclusions: The research addressed the need of methods and tools that may encapsulate the ecological, economic and social complexity of forest ecosystem management to provide an efficient plan, information about tradeoffs between ecosystem services as well as the sensitivity of the plan to uncertain parameters (e.g. prices, climate change) in a timely manner.

scholarly journals AGRICULTURE IN URBAN ECOSYSTEMS: A STEP TO CITIES SUSTAINABILITY1

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
THAYZA DE OLIVEIRA BATITUCCI ◽  
ERIKA CORTINES ◽  
FÁBIO SOUTO ALMEIDA ◽  
ÂNGELA ALVES DE ALMEIDA
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Urban Agriculture ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Urban Ecosystems ◽  
Urban Ecosystem ◽  
Agricultural Activities ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Environmental Considerations ◽  
The City

Abstract Urban Agriculture (UA) has emerged as an alternative capable of fostering sustainable relations among the economic, social and environmental spheres in cities. It consists of growing and processing traditionally rural food products in urban zones in consonance with the environmental considerations to promote sustainability. This study set out to analyze the interactions of agricultural activities and the urban ecosystem. A review of the literature and a case study of an Urban Agriculture program developed in the metropolitan area of the city of Rio de Janeiro showed that Urban Agriculture provides considerable ecosystem services, generates income, increases biodiversity conservation and fosters social inclusion, functioning as a mechanism for achieving equilibrium among the components of the urban ecosystem.

scholarly journals DeepSTN+: Context-Aware Spatial-Temporal Neural Network for Crowd Flow Prediction in Metropolis

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 1020-1027 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ziqian Lin ◽  
Jie Feng ◽  
Ziyang Lu ◽  
Yong Li ◽  
Depeng Jin
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Control ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
Context Aware ◽  
Training Process ◽  
Flow Prediction ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The City ◽  
Historical Flow

Crowd flow prediction is of great importance in a wide range of applications from urban planning, traffic control to public safety. It aims to predict the inflow (the traffic of crowds entering a region in a given time interval) and outflow (the traffic of crowds leaving a region for other places) of each region in the city with knowing the historical flow data. In this paper, we propose DeepSTN+, a deep learning-based convolutional model, to predict crowd flows in the metropolis. First, DeepSTN+ employs the ConvPlus structure to model the longrange spatial dependence among crowd flows in different regions. Further, PoI distributions and time factor are combined to express the effect of location attributes to introduce prior knowledge of the crowd movements. Finally, we propose an effective fusion mechanism to stabilize the training process, which further improves the performance. Extensive experimental results based on two real-life datasets demonstrate the superiority of our model, i.e., DeepSTN+ reduces the error of the crowd flow prediction by approximately 8%∼13% compared with the state-of-the-art baselines.

scholarly journals Future cities: Speculation on the case for vertical biophilic cities

Ecocycles ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-80
Author(s):  
Benz Kotzen
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Urban Agriculture ◽  
Central City ◽  
Current Model ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Land Uses ◽  
Below Ground ◽  
City Core ◽  
The City ◽  
Future Growth

As the world’s population increases and as populations of cities increase there is a real need to find solutions to accommodate these people. Vertical cities may provide a solution. Whilst megastructures have been built as individual buildings, thus far there are no vertical cities, but the existing megastructures indicate this is possible. The skyscrapers of vertical cities can be integrated in the skies as well as below ground as earthscrapers and host all the functions of the city including green spaces such as parks and gardens and urban agriculture. The current model of a central city core area and expansive suburbs does not provide a solution for future growth. Past and future losses in ecosystem services through extensive horizontal development cannot be sanctioned. This is an ‘ideas paper’ which speculates on the forms of future vertical cities and the necessity of integrating biophilia into the vertical city as not only do vertical cities provide an answer to accommodating the world’s burgeoning population, but the compact footprint of the city allows for an increase in nature, access to nature, allowing land that would be swamped by development to be used for farming, water collection, forests and other land uses that host the ecosystem services that are required by people and the planet.

scholarly journals Ecosystem Services of Urban Agriculture: Perceptions of Project Leaders, Stakeholders and the General Public

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 10446
Author(s):  
Esther Sanyé-Mengual ◽  
Kathrin Specht ◽  
Jan Vávra ◽  
Martina Artmann ◽  
Francesco Orsini ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Urban Agriculture ◽  
General Public ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Community Supported Agriculture ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Determining Factors ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Rooftop Garden ◽  
The City

Within the scholarly debate, Urban Agriculture (UA) has been widely acknowledged to provide diverse environmental and socio-cultural ecosystem services (ESs) for cities. However, the question of whether these potential benefits are also recognized as such by the involved societal groups on the ground has not yet been investigated. This paper aims at (1) assessing the perceived ESs of UA, comparing the views of different societal groups in the city of Bologna, Italy (namely: UA project leaders, stakeholders and the general public) and (2) to identify differences in the evaluation of specific UA types (indoor farming, high-tech greenhouses, peri-urban farms, community-supported agriculture, community rooftop garden and urban co-op). In total, 406 individuals evaluated 25 ESs via a standardized Likert-scale survey. The study unveiled similarities and divergences of perceptions among the different societal groups. The statistical analysis indicated that the general public and UA stakeholders agree on the high relevance of socio-cultural ESs, while provisioning ESs was considered as less significant. UA types focusing on social innovation were expected to provide higher socio-cultural ESs whereas peri-urban activities were more closely linked to habitat ESs. We assume that involvement and knowledge of UA are determining factors for valuing the provision of ESs through UA, which needs to be considered for ES valuation, particularly in a policymaking context.

Environmental and socio-economic factors influencing the use of urban parks in Coimbra (Portugal)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Valença Pinto ◽  
Carla Sofia Ferreira ◽  
Paulo Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Urban Parks ◽  
Cultural Ecosystem Services ◽  
Monthly Income ◽  
Emotional Wellbeing ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Average Monthly Income ◽  
Physical Interactions ◽  
The City

<p>Urban green spaces (UGS) are considered by the United Nations a fundamental component to achieve some of the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs), namely good health and wellbeing (Goal 3) and sustainable cities and communities (Goal 11). Urban parks, a type of UGS, provide a large and diverse number of regulating, provisioning, and cultural Ecosystem Services (ES), particularly relevant to face emerging challenges driven by increasing population and climate change. Furthermore, the cultural ecosystem services (CES) provided by urban parks can have a positive impact on human health and wellbeing. This study aims to identify the most relevant environmental and socio-demographic factors influencing the use of different urban parks in the city of Coimbra, Portugal. Five parks with different biophysical characteristics (e.g. park size, location within the city, tree coverage, available sport and social facilities) were selected for the study. Data were collected through personal interviews which took place in August 2020, performed on working days and weekend days. The activity performed by respondents was recorded, as well as its relevance for the user (in a 5-point Likert scale) and the associated perceived value of its benefits, regarding physical and emotional wellbeing and social interactions. Several motivation options were assessed, as well as the user perception of a set of possible disservices. Socio-demographic data were collected, including age, gender, education level, average monthly income, visitation frequency, mean of transportation to the park, and distance traveled to reach the park. Activities performed by respondents were aggregated into three groups of cultural ecosystem services: Physical interactions, Aesthetical and experiential interactions, and Social interactions. The results showed that physical interactions (e.g. walking, running, biking) dominate CES use identified in all the parks. A factor analysis was performed to investigate the association between the different variables. Perceived physical and emotional wellbeing benefits were always associated with the relevance of the activity attributed by the users, which is common to all the parks. Differences between parks emerge regarding both socio-demographic and motivation variables. Tranquility of space and landscape beauty form detached groups of variables in three of the five parks, with two of them with similar size and including the presence of a water element. Age group, average monthly income, and frequency of visits tend to be associated in three of the parks. Such is also the case of transport type and distance to park, which form clear groups in two of the parks. As for perceived disservices, no relevant limitations were considered by the users, with plagues (e.g. mosquitoes) and dangerous animals being the only ones registering average concerns (the latter associated with dogs without a leash). Findings can help UGS managers to better understand users’ needs and expectations, with potentially positive implications for UGS design and management.</p>

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document