Combining an evaluation grid application to assess ecosystem services of urban green spaces and a socioeconomic spatial analysis

ABSTRACT

The complex interaction of ecological and social systems has shaped the cities through the time. This fosters the need to develop interdisciplinary approaches to urban issues by combining natural and social sciences. Cities, as the predominant mode of social organization, are vulnerable to social and environmental challenges which urban green spaces (UGS) can contribute to solve by the ecosystem services (ES) that can provide. The objective was to assess the quality of UGS framed by the ES classification and relate with the provision of these services in areas of distinct socioeconomic and environmental deprivation. An evaluation grid was applied in 25 UGS in the city of Porto. Socioeconomic and environmental deprivation index applied by the Porto City Hall in the Municipal Master plan to divide the city into 5 clusters of deprivation was used to select 5 UGS of each cluster. In the most deprived communities, namely in clusters of high and very high socioeconomic and environmental deprivation, the quality of UGS is lower than in the less vulnerable ones. Besides this, it was found that some UGS located in clusters with higher vulnerability have an overall good quality, namely those located in historic and touristic areas of the city. The evaluation grid may be useful to the local authorities to diagnose, monitor and evaluate the ES of UGS and to identify situations of environmental injustice contributing to pursue the implementation of sustainable development goals at a local level.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable development
• urban ecosystem services
• socioeconomic inequity
• urban planning
• inequalities

Acknowledgments

Diogo Guedes Vidal, Lilian Monteiro Ferrari Viterbo, Nelson Barros and Rui Leandro Maia would like to thank to UFP Energy, Environment and Health Research Unit (FP-ENAS), funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), in the scope of FCT Project UID/Multi/04546/2019.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

Diogo Guedes Vidal was funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, I.P.) through the Doctoral Grant SFRH/BD/143238/2019.