Importance, Utilization and Health of Urban Forests: A Review

Urbanization and development of cities are rapidly increasing across the world and urban forests constitute important tools that maintain the basic environmental and ecological functions of cities on which plant, animal and human existence depend. This paper presents a literature review on importance, utilization and health of urban forests that are important in providing ecosystem services for the sustainability of cities. Analysis of the literature from the main academic resources databases indicates that urban forest is a dynamic system which includes trees, shrubs, green space, soil and water that supports them. Urban forests provide many functions, services and benefits which are needed for the sustainable development of urban areas. In addition, health and appearance of trees’ composition are the most important factors in determining a city’s visual image and quality of life. Thus, urban forests are an important component of an ecosystem in any community development. Furthermore, management of urban forests can increase their potentials and therefore their functions, services and benefits. Green infrastructure and ecosystem services are the most efficient tools that cities can utilise to remain healthy, robust and liveable. Hence, the planners, architects, engineers, foresters, agriculturists and all those involved in decision making should be utilized the present literature review and incorporate the concept of urban forest in their plans and programs so as to achieve the sustainability of cities.

Download Full-text

EVALUASI KELAYAKAN HUTAN KOTA STUDI KASUS HUTAN KOTA SRENGSENG, JAKARTA BARAT

Jurnal Sains, Teknologi, Urban, Perancangan, Arsitektur (Stupa) ◽

10.24912/stupa.v2i2.8918 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 2731

Author(s):

Randy Kusuma Markho ◽

Suryono Herlambang ◽

Parino Rahardjo ◽

Suryadi Santoso

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Urban Communities ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Urban Forest ◽

Urban Forests ◽

Physical Development ◽

Field Observations ◽

Catchment Areas ◽

The Future ◽

Water Catchment

Urban forests are one of the most important parts in urban areas. With urban physical development that continues to occur makes it difficult and expensive to add urban forests. Whereas urban forests have important benefits for urban communities, such as providing a balance to ecosystems, as water catchment areas, and being a place of carbondioxide to oxygen cycles. One of the urban forests in Jakarta is Hutan Kota Srengseng. In this research, we want to find out whether Hutan Kota Srengseng meets the criteria so that it is worth mentioning as an urban forest. The method used in this research is qualitative, field observations and literature studies. The results of this study will find out the ecosystem services provided by the Hutan Kota Srengseng and the potential that exists in the Hutan Kota Srengseng so that they can make optimal plans for developing and managing Hutan Kota Srengseng in the future. Keywords: Ecosystem Services; Urban; Urban ForestAbstrak Hutan kota merupakan salah satu bagian terpenting di perkotaan. Dengan perkembangan fisik perkotaan yang terus terjadi membuat sulit dan mahal untuk menambah hutan kota. Padahal hutan kota mempunyai memberikan manfaat yang penting untuk masyarakat kota, seperti memberikan keseimbangan bagi ekosistem, sebagai areal resapan air, dan menjadi tempat daur karbondioksida menjadi oksigen. Salah satu hutan kota yang ada di Jakarta adalah Hutan Kota Srengseng. Pada penelitian kali ini ingin mengetahui apakah Hutan Kota Srengseng telah memenuhi kriteria sehingga layak disebut sebagai sebuah hutan kota. Metode yang digunakan pada penelitian ini adalah kualitatif, observasi lapangan dan studi literatur. Hasil penelitian ini akan mengetahui layanan ekosistem yang diberikan oleh Hutan Kota Srengseng dan potensi yang ada di Hutan Kota Srengseng sehingga dapat membuat rencana pengembangan dan pengelolaan Hutan Kota Srengseng yang optimal kedepannya.

Download Full-text

Green Infrastructures and the Consideration of Their Soil-Related Ecosystem Services in Urban Areas—A Systematic Literature Review

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13063322 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (6) ◽

pp. 3322

Author(s):

Pia Minixhofer ◽

Rosemarie Stangl

Keyword(s):

Content Analysis ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Literature Review ◽

Systematic Literature Review ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Soil Functions ◽

Wide Range ◽

Sustainability Issue ◽

Detailed Assessment

Although urban soils are strongly influenced by human activities, they provide a wide range of Ecosystem Services (ES) as long as they are not sealed off. This is a major sustainability issue as the loss of soil functions directly impacts ES and further on the possibility to adapt to the effects of the climate crisis. Green Infrastructure (GI) measures can be utilized to restore previously covered soil surfaces and compensate for lost soil functions. We conducted a systematic literature review to investigate the extent of peer-reviewed publications on GI measures in (peri-) urban areas covering soil-related ES. After identifying the relevant publications (n = 284), we generated an overview of the annual, spatial, and thematic distribution of the publications. Then, we employed an extended content analysis of the published focus topics to assess the representation of soil-related ES provided by GI. The content analysis revealed that the representation of soil-related ES in GI measures focused heavily on the contribution of soil to stormwater management. Detailed assessment of the interconnection of GI measures with key soil-related ES were missing. So far, the assessment of the loss of soil-related ES is not covered extensively in GI research publications.

Download Full-text

Integration of Ecosystem Services in Strategic Environmental Assessment of a Peri-Urban Development Plan

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13010122 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 122

Author(s):

Teodoro Semeraro ◽

Benedetta Radicchio ◽

Pietro Medagli ◽

Stefano Arzeni ◽

Alessio Turco ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Urban Development ◽

Environmental Assessment ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Strategic Environmental Assessment ◽

Development Plan ◽

Mitigation Measures ◽

The Sustainable Development ◽

South Italy ◽

Urban Plan

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) can support decision-makers in constructing more sustainable plans, programs, and policies (PPPs). To be more coherent with new frontiers of sustainable cities, PPPs need to include conservation objectives and to increase ecosystem service (ES) strategies. The ES concept is not intrinsic to the SEA process; therefore, it is necessary to develop an approach and methodology to include it. In this paper, we propose a methodology to integrate the concept of ecosystem services in all phases of the SEA process for a sub-urban plan, including the design of mitigation measures. The case study is represented by a peri-urban development plan in the municipality of Gallipoli in South Italy, characterized by a strong tourism economy and valuable agro-ecosystems. The analysis shows the priority ecosystem services that are selected considering the sustainable development and environmental goals, the context of referment, and the aims of the peri-urban plan. After, we highlight the potential ecosystem services developed considering the design of mitigation actions like green infrastructure, which could be implemented in the peri-urban plan. The capacity to develop green infrastructure in SEA processes can configure the SEA as a tool for ecological urban design that is integrated with urban planning. This requires the ability to transfer ecological and planning theories into practical actions and the capacity of different disciplines to work in a transdisciplinary approach.

Download Full-text

Beijing Resident’s Preferences of Ecosystem Services of Urban Forests

Forests ◽

10.3390/f12010014 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 14

Author(s):

Han Zhi-Ying ◽

Youn Yeo-Chang

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Air Quality ◽

Fresh Water ◽

Urban Forest ◽

Urban Forestry ◽

Urban Forests ◽

Wildlife Habitat ◽

Quality Regulation ◽

Water Provision ◽

Air Quality Regulation

This paper aims to investigate the Beijing resident’s preferences over various options of urban forest management strategies. The literature investigation and expert Delphi method were conducted to classify the ecosystem services of urban forests into six categories: (1) fresh water provision, (2) noise reduction, (3) moderation of extreme events, (4) air quality regulation, (5) species diversity and wildlife habitat, and (6) recreation and spiritual experience. To elicit the relative preferences to ecosystem service (hereafter referred to as ES) of Beijing residents, we employed the choice experiment method. The data were collected by interviews with questionnaires conducted in October 2017, and a total of 483 valid questionnaires were analyzed. The subjects of this experiment were residents older than 19 years old who have lived in Beijing for more than 1 year and have visited any one of the urban forests located in Beijing more than once during 2016. The results were as follows: Firstly, the air quality regulation ES was considered as the most important service for Beijing residents in terms of their choices of urban forest. In addition, Beijing residents regarded the fresh water provision ES as the second most important ES. Beijing residents were willing to pay up to 1.84% of the average monthly income of Chinese households annually to expand urban forest ecosystems in order to improve air quality. Secondly, apartment owners were willing to pay more municipality tax for forest ESs than residents who did not own an apartment. Thirdly, residents were more willing to pay for urban forest ESs as their income increases. The results indicated that Beijing residents were willing to pay more tax in support of urban forestry for air quality improvement. This research suggests that urban environmental policy makers in Beijing should pay more attention to the regulation function of forests (especially improving air quality) when designing and managing urban forests.

Download Full-text

Dynamic evaluation of small urban green areas at local level using GEOBIA

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-10374 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ana-Maria Popa ◽

Diana Andreea Onose ◽

Ionut Cosmin Sandric ◽

Simona Raluca Gradinaru ◽

Athanasios Alexandru Gavrilidis

Keyword(s):

Green Infrastructure ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Local Level ◽

Consumption Pattern ◽

Urbanization Process ◽

Dynamic Evaluation ◽

Urban Green ◽

Urban Green Areas ◽

Green Areas

<p>Urban green infrastructure has various benefits known as ecosystem services such as regulating, cultural, provisioning and supporting services. Among the provided benefits there are decrease of air temperature, increasing humidity and mitigating urban heat island as regulating services; human-nature relations as cultural services; improving air quality, carbon sequestration as provisioning services and photosynthesis, nutrient and water cycling as supporting services. The high intensity of the urbanization process across the last decades coupled with weak legislative frameworks resulted both in large areas affected by urban sprawl and densification of the existing urban fabric. Both phenomenon generated loss in open spaces, especially green areas. In the context of the sustainable urbanization promoted by HABITAT Agenda, the knowledge related with the distribution, size and quality of urban green areas represents a priority. The study aim is to identify small urban green areas at local level at different time moments for a dynamic evaluation. We focused on small urban green areas since they are scarcely analysed even if their importance for the urban quality of life Is continuously increasing given the urbanization process. We used satellite imagery acquired by Planet Satellite Constellations, with a spatial resolution of 3.7 m and daily coverage, for extracting green areas. The images were processed using Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) techniques implemented in Esri ArcGIS Pro. The spatial analysis we performed generated information about distribution, surfaces, quality (based on NDVI) and dynamic of small urban green areas. The results are connected with the local level development of the urban areas we analysed, but also with the population consumption pattern for leisure services, housing, transport or other public utilities. The analysis can represent a complementary method for extracting green areas at urban level and can support the data collection for calculating urban sustainability indicators.</p>

Download Full-text

An Effect of Urban Forest on Urban Thermal Environment in Seoul, South Korea, Based on Landsat Imagery Analysis

Forests ◽

10.3390/f11060630 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (6) ◽

pp. 630

Author(s):

Peter Sang-Hoon Lee ◽

Jincheol Park

Keyword(s):

South Korea ◽

Vegetation Cover ◽

Land Surface ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Vegetation Index ◽

Urban Forest ◽

Thermal Environment ◽

Urban Forests ◽

Cooling Effect ◽

Surrounding Areas

The urban heat island effect has posed negative impacts on urban areas with increased cooling energy demand followed by an altered thermal environment. While unusually high temperature in urban areas has been often attributed to complex urban settings, the function of urban forests has been considered as an effective heat mitigation strategy. To investigate the cooling effect of urban forests and their influence range, this study examined the spatiotemporal changes in land surface temperature (LST) of urban forests and surrounding areas by using Landsat imageries. LST, the size of the urban forest, its vegetation cover, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were investigated for 34 urban forests and their surrounding areas at a series of buffer areas in Seoul, South Korea. The mean LST of urban forests was lower than that of the overall city, and the threshold distance from urban forests for cooling effect was estimated to be roughly up to 300 m. The group of large-sized urban forests showed significantly lower mean LST than that of small-sized urban forests. The group of urban forests with higher NDVI showed lower mean LST than that of urban forests with lower mean NDVI in a consistent manner. A negative linear relationship was found between the LST and size of urban forest (r = −0.36 to −0.58), size of vegetation cover (r = −0.39 to −0.61), and NDVI (r = −0.42 to −0.93). Temporal changes in NDVI were examined separately on a specific site, Seoul Forest, that has experienced urban forest dynamics. LST of the site decreased as NDVI improved by a land-use change from a barren racetrack to a city park. It was considered that NDVI could be a reliable factor for estimating the cooling effect of urban forest compared to the size of the urban forest and/or vegetation cover.

Download Full-text

Green Infrastructure Planning Principles: An Integrated Literature Review

Land ◽

10.3390/land9120525 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (12) ◽

pp. 525

Author(s):

Renato Monteiro ◽

José C. Ferreira ◽

Paula Antunes

Keyword(s):

Literature Review ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Landscape Management ◽

Economic Benefits ◽

Infrastructure Planning ◽

Wide Range ◽

Recent Developments ◽

Sustainable Landscape Management ◽

Sustainable Landscape

Green infrastructure is a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas, including green and blue spaces and other ecosystems, designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services at various scales. Apart from the ecological functions, green infrastructure, as a planning tool, contributes to social and economic benefits, leading to the achievement of sustainable, resilient, inclusive and competitive urban areas. Despite recent developments, there is still no consensus among researchers and practitioners regarding the concept of green infrastructure as well as its implementation approaches, which makes it often difficult for urban planners and other professionals in the field to develop a robust green infrastructure in some parts of the world. To address this issue, an integrative literature review was conducted to identify which green infrastructure planning principles should be acknowledged in spatial planning practices to promote sustainability and resilience. As a result of this literature review, the most common eight green infrastructure planning principles were selected—connectivity, multifunctionality, applicability, integration, diversity, multiscale, governance, and continuity. These principles intend to promote and simplify the development and use of green infrastructure by different academic and implementation organizations and provide a more defined model for sustainable landscape management in order to help practitioners and decision makers during the conceptualization and planning of green infrastructure.

Download Full-text

Urban agriculture as a keystone contribution towards securing sustainable and healthy development for cities in the future

Blue-Green Systems ◽

10.2166/bgs.2019.931 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 1-27 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

S. L. G. Skar ◽

R. Pineda-Martos ◽

A. Timpe ◽

B. Pölling ◽

K. Bohn ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Urban Agriculture ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Food Systems ◽

Community Gardens ◽

Healthy Development ◽

Vertical Farming ◽

Integrated Agriculture ◽

Water Waste

Abstract Research and practice during the last 20 years has shown that urban agriculture can contribute to minimising the effects of climate change by, at the same time, improving quality of life in urban areas. In order to do so most effectively, land use and spatial planning are crucial so as to obtain and maintain a supportive green infrastructure and to secure citizens' healthy living conditions. As people today trend more towards living in green and sustainable city centres that can offer fresh and locally produced food, cities become again places for growing food. The scope of urban agriculture thereby is to establish food production sites within the city's sphere; for example, through building-integrated agriculture including concepts such as aquaponics, indoor agriculture, vertical farming, rooftop production, edible walls, as well as through urban farms, edible landscapes, school gardens and community gardens. Embedded in changing urban food systems, the contribution of urban agriculture to creating sustainable and climate-friendly cities is pivotal as it has the capacity to integrate other resource streams such as water, waste and energy. This article describes some of the current aspects of the circular city debate where urban agriculture is pushing forward the development of material and resource cycling in cities.

Download Full-text

Methods for identifying green infrastructure

SN Applied Sciences ◽

10.1007/s42452-020-03575-4 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2 (11) ◽

Author(s):

Erica Honeck ◽

Arthur Sanguet ◽

Martin A. Schlaepfer ◽

Nicolas Wyler ◽

Anthony Lehmann

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Literature Review ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Scientific Literature ◽

Landscape Connectivity ◽

Economic Benefits ◽

Integrative Approach ◽

Future Challenges ◽

Political Decisions

AbstractNature forms interdependent networks in a landscape, which is key to the survival of species and the maintenance of genetic diversity. Nature provides crucial socio-economic benefits to people, but they are typically undervalued in political decisions. This has led to the concept of Green Infrastructure (GI), which defines an interlinked network of (semi-)natural areas with high ecological values for wildlife and people, to be conserved and managed in priority to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem services. This relatively new concept has been used in different contexts, but with widely diverging interpretations. There is no apparent consensus in the scientific literature on the methodology to map and implement GI. This paper serves as an informed primer for researchers that are new to GI mapping understand the key principles and terminology for the needs of their own case-study, and as a framework for more advance researchers willing to contribute to the formalization of the concept. Through a literature review of articles on creating GI networks, we summarized and evaluated commonly used methods to identify and map GI. We provided key insights for the assessment of diversity, ecosystem services and landscape connectivity, the three ‘pillars’ on which GI identification is based according to its definition. Based on this literature review, we propose 5 theoretical levels toward a more complex, reliable and integrative approach to identify GI networks. We then discuss the applications and limits of such method and point out future challenges for GI identification and implementation.

Download Full-text

Effect of Urbanization on Ecosystem Service Values in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration of China from 2000 to 2014

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su122410233 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (24) ◽

pp. 10233

Author(s):

Shan Liu ◽

Mingxia Yang ◽

Yuling Mou ◽

Yanrong Meng ◽

Xiaolu Zhou ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Population Density ◽

Water Conservation ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Driving Forces ◽

Urban Agglomeration ◽

Natural Ecosystem ◽

Rapid Urbanization ◽

Construction Land ◽

The Sustainable Development

Rapid urbanization has led to the continuous deterioration of the surrounding natural ecosystem. It is important to identify the key urbanization factors that affect ecosystem services and analyze the potential effects of these factors on the ecosystem. We selected the Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration to investigate these effects, and designed three indicators to map the urbanization level: Population density, gross domestic product (GDP) density, and the construction land proportion. Four indicators were chosen to quantify ecosystem services: Food production, carbon sequestration and oxygen production, water conservation, and soil conservation. To handle the nonlinear interactions, we used a random forest (RF) method to assess the effect of urbanization on ecosystem services in the BTH area from 2000 to 2014. Our study demonstrated that population density and economic growth were the internal driving forces affecting ecosystem services. We observed changing trends in the effect of urbanization: The effect of population density on ecosystem services increased, the effect of the proportion of construction land was consistent with population density, and the effect of GDP density on ecosystem services decreased. Our results suggest that controlling the population and GDP would significantly influence the sustainable development in large urban areas.

Download Full-text