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The provision of urban ecosystem services throughout the private-social-public domain: A conceptual framework
Citation:
Ossola, A., L. Schifman, D. Herrmann, A. Garmestani, K. Schwarz, AND M. Hopton. The provision of urban ecosystem services throughout the private-social-public domain: A conceptual framework. Cities and the Environment. Berkeley Electronic Press, Berkeley, CA, 11(1):1-15, (2018).
Impact/Purpose:
We describe how a comprehensive framework focusing on the private-social-public domain could be used to advance ecosystem service research and leverage the provision of ecosystems services under urban socio-environmental change.
Description:
The assessment of ecosystem services has received marked interest among scholars. By recognizing that cities and towns are largely privately-owned systems, some investigations have assessed ecosystem service provision from the private realm, such as residential areas, private greenspaces, and other green infrastructure. However, these assessments are based on the concept of ownership (e.g., private vs public property) and fail to capture the intrinsic complexity of service provision mediated by the multiple interactions between people and urban ecological structures, such as vegetation, trees, and soil. People can, in fact, interact with these structures also in their vest of land tenants and stewards, further modulating the provision of ecosystem services at an extent that remains largely unexplored to date. In this manuscript, we devise a theoretical framework concurrently based on the concepts of ownership, tenancy, and stewardship, seen as dimensions in which people, as ecosystem service mediators, regulate service provision throughout the private-social-public domain. We firstly review relevant literature describing these dimensions in relation to urban ecosystem services. Then, we describe how a comprehensive framework focusing on the private-social-public domain could be used to advance ecosystem service research and leverage the provision of ecosystems services under urban socio-environmental change. The inclusion of the multiple roles people have in the mediation of ecosystem services could improve how these benefits are planned for, prioritized, and optimized across urban landscapes.
URLs/Downloads:
https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cate/vol11/iss1/5/
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