Mapping spatiotemporal dynamics in regulating ecosystem services of urban green-blue infrastructure

Summary

Synoptic citywide maps of green-blue infrastructure (GBI) and associated regulating ecosystem services can be valuable to highlight priority locations for GBI investment to build urban resilience to climate hazards. However, current approaches typically take a static view and may fail to consider change in ecosystems and their associated services over different temporal cycles. Planned GBI investment may not offer optimal ecosystem service solutions when considering seasonal fluctuations in climate and ecological conditions, or environmental change due to future urban development. In response, this research aimed to develop a range of spatiotemporal analysis methods to improve the usefulness of current ecosystem services map information.

The research sought to: 1) Assess how spatial scale and proxy-based methods in current ecosystem services mapping approaches can be improved 2) Map seasonal dynamics in regulating ecosystem services and explore if they present a concern for planning green-blue infrastructure 3) Examine whether the amount of change in green-blue infrastructure over time varies for different land uses 4) Assess how the research can inform scenario planning of GBI and regulating ecosystem services.

The research provides a multi-stage analysis workflow to investigate long-term changes in green and blue infrastructure, and how this varies between different land uses. This provides the basis to explore various GBI and ecosystem services management scenarios within the context of planned and unplanned urban development within the case study, City of Manchester, UK.

GBI loss is a common urban trend across the globe, whilst cyclical variation in regulating ecosystem services may prove more important for cities with greater seasonal extremes in climate conditions. The ecological modelling, map classification and change analysis methods developed here can be adapted to a range of urban conditions. Indicators are mapped at scales (100m grid) suitable to investigate GBI retrofits of existing built infrastructure and can accommodate different data assumptions regarding proxy model parameterisation.

Research highlights

• Findings for the case study area, the City of Manchester, UK, highlight that the city lost approximately 11% of existing GBI between the years 2000 – 2017, although net GBI increases were recorded in a minority of areas.
• GBI declines were recorded for most land uses, with losses of between 5.7% and 28.3% a concern for residential land uses where residents live and need regulating ecosystem services.
• In response, scenario analysis indicates that concerted land use targeted GBI conservation (i.e. street tree and residential gardens) policies are the minimum action required to prevent significant future declines in GBI and ecosystem services.     
• Seasonal variation in regulating ecosystem services is of limited concern for the case study city. Incorporation of seasonally adjusted indicators for temperature regulation and stormwater storage, against typical assumptions of static year-round ecosystem services functions, result in less than 5% discrepancy in identified ecosystem service deprived areas.
• Cyclical variation in regulating ecosystem services may prove more important for cities with greater seasonal extremes in climate conditions.

Project team

Dr Fraser Baker, Dr Gina Cavan, Graham Smith, Professor Stuart Marsden

RESEARCH OUTPUTS

Academic papers

• Baker, F., Smith, G., Marsden, S., Cavan, G. (2021) ‘Mapping regulating ecosystem service deprivation in urban areas: a transferable high-spatial resolution uncertainty aware approach.’ Ecological Indicators, 121pp. 107058-107058