2014/04/16 by Dagmar Haase, Niki Frantzeskaki, Thomas Elmqvist · 3 citations
Environmental Science · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Land Use and Ecosystem Services #Urban Green Space and Health #Urban Agriculture and Sustainability
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s13280-014-0503-1
Urban landscapes are the everyday environment for the majority of the global population, and almost 80 % of the Europeans live in urban areas. The continuous growth in the number and size of urban areas along with an increasing demand on resources and energy poses great challenges for ensuring human welfare in cities while preventing an increasing loss of biodiversity. The understanding of how urban ecosystems function, provide goods and services for urban dwellers; and how they change and what allows and limits their performance can add to the understanding of ecosystem change and governance in general in an ever more human-dominated world. This Special Issue aims at bridging the knowledge gap among urbanization, demand creation, and provisioning of ecosystem services in urban regions on the one hand and schemes of urban governance and planning on the other.