Leena Kopperoinen

Using the ecosystem services approach for better planning and conservation of urban green spaces: a Finland case study

Ecosystem services are vital for humans in urban regions. However, urban development poses a great risk for the ability of ecosystems to provide these services. In this paper we first address the most important ecosystem services in functional urban regions in Finland. Well accessible and good quality recreational ecosystem services, for example, provided by urban nature, are an important part of a high-quality living environment and important for public health. Vegetation of urban regions can have a role in carbon dioxide sequestration and thus in climate change mitigation. For instance, estimates of carbon sinks can be compared to total CO2 emissions of an urban region, and the municipality can aim at both increasing carbon sinks and decreasing CO2 emissions with proper land-use planning. Large and contiguous core nature areas, smaller green areas and ecological connections between them are the essence of regional ecological networks and are essential for maintaining interconnected habitats for species and thus biological diversity. Thus, both local and regional level ecological networks are vital for maintaining ecosystem services in urban regions. The impacts of climate change coupled with land-use and land cover change will bring serious challenges for maintaining ecosystem services in urban areas. Although not yet widely used in planning practices, the ecosystem services approach can provide an opportunity for land-use planning to develop ecologically sustainable urban regions. Currently, information on ecosystem services of urban regions is lacking and there is a need to improve the knowledge base for land-use planning.

Using expert knowledge in combining green infrastructure and ecosystem services in land use planning: an insight into a new place-based methodology

Green infrastructure (GI) is a strategic planning instrument to achieve sustainable development. The main functions of GI are to protect biodiversity and safeguard and enhance the provision of ecosystem services (ES). In this paper we present the development of a semi-quantitative place-based method, aiming at assessing GI based on the provision potential of all main ES. Our method combines a wide spectrum of GIS data with expert assessments. Here we focus especially on how interaction with experts and local and regional actors impacted the method development. Our results showed that involving experts in dataset selection is very useful in compiling the most relevant data for the assessment of ES. Expert knowledge is also valuable in evaluating the actual coverage and quality of datasets. By involving both experts and local and regional actors in assessing ES provision potential we can add local knowledge to the general scientific understanding. Qualitative assessments can be complemented with quantitative data in our method. The resulting maps support land use planning, as they assist in identifying the multifunctional key areas of GI and in examining the provision potential of various ES. The group discussions involved in our method provided an additional benefit, as the experts and local and regional actors felt that this discussion platform enhanced their understanding of both GI and ES.

Learning and the transformative potential of citizen science.

The number of collaborative initiatives between scientists and volunteers (i.e., citizen science) is increasing across many research fields. The promise of societal transformation together with scientific breakthroughs contributes to the current popularity of citizen science (CS) in the policy domain. We examined the transformative capacity of citizen science in particular learning through environmental CS as conservation tool. We reviewed the CS and social-learning literature and examined 14 conservation projects across Europe that involved collaborative CS. We also developed a template that can be used to explore learning arrangements (i.e., learning events and materials) in CS projects and to explain how the desired outcomes can be achieved through CS learning. We found that recent studies aiming to define CS for analytical purposes often fail to improve the conceptual clarity of CS; CS programs may have transformative potential, especially for the development of individual skills, but such transformation is not necessarily occurring at the organizational and institutional levels; empirical evidence on simple learning outcomes, but the assertion of transformative effects of CS learning is often based on assumptions rather than empirical observation; and it is unanimous that learning in CS is considered important, but in practice it often goes unreported or unevaluated. In conclusion, we point to the need for reliable and transparent measurement of transformative effects for democratization of knowledge production.

Ecosystem Services Criteria For Sustainable Development In Urban Regions

The ecosystem services criteria for strategic decision-making combine conceptualisation and concretisation of ecologically sustainable development. A concrete basis for the measurement, valuation, and assessment of ecological sustainability was created through the development of two-level criteria for ecosystem services, which were linked to indicators based on spatial and statistical data from the Monitoring System of Spatial Structure (MSSS) and the CORINE Land Cover database. The criteria were designed for middle-sized urban regions because urban areas face the greatest land changes, threats, and management and co-operation needs related to maintenance of ecosystem services. Two urban regions were piloting the criteria in an iterative process between researchers and project groups of urban planners. Data availability and poor capacity to deliver data for the regions affected the choice of final indicators. This highlights the need for development of planning tools for practical planning and impact assessment for ecological sustainability of all urban regions.

Practical application of spatial ecosystem service models to aid decision support

Highlights • A structured protocol for adapting a spatial ecosystem service model to local contexts is proposed.• Decision context, the final users and uses of maps should drive the way the spatial ecosystem service models are structured.• Simply increasing spatial resolution is not sufficient to increase legitimacy and the ultimate utility of maps.• The type and level of stakeholders’ involvement is a determinant of spatial model usefulness.

How does biodiversity conservation argumentation generate effects in policy cycles

Arguments in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of biodiversity policy frame conservation in a range of ways and express interests that can be conflicting. Policy processes are cyclic and iterative by nature and as policies are constantly reformulated, argumentation has an important role at each policy stage. In this paper, we utilise the policy cycle model to shed light on biodiversity-related policy processes and the ways in which argumentation generates effects at different stages of these processes. The paper first draws on literature and the theory-driven assumptions are then illustrated with insights from four European case studies on different policy processes in which biodiversity conservation plays a role. The analysis shows that argumentation tends to evolve over the course of the policy cycle, and framing has a key role across the different policy stages. It is concluded that the ways in which arguments persist, accumulate, diffuse, and replace old arguments, should be the target of increased attention in policy analysis.

Environmental justice for the governance of aquatic environments

ABSTRACT Environmental justice sheds light on the distributive and procedural aspects of planning and decision-making. We examined the challenges arising from the perspective of environmental justice on multi-level and participatory environmental governance by exploring the governance of aquatic environments in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. We found three main challenges and potential responses to them. First, even though most of Helsinki’s shoreline is free and/or accessible by road and accordingly used actively by people for recreational purposes, many parts of the shoreline are perceived as inaccessible, reflecting a need to combine factual and perceived accessibility of aquatic environments in detail during the planning processes and to discuss reasons for possible discrepancies between these two. Second, there was a remarkable seasonal variation in the use of aquatic environments, so more attention should be paid to social-demographic factors explaining the distribution of the use of urban nature. Third, it seems to be difficult to capture the variety of perceptions of people and to integrate them into planning and decision-making processes even on a local scale, and this challenge is likely even more pronounced on higher levels of planning and governance. Thus, better integration of regional and local-scale planning procedures should be encouraged. Building on these observations, we conclude that integration of procedural and distributive environmental justice into the practices of the governance of aquatic environments could remarkably decrease unwanted trade-offs and potential conflicts in their use and management.

Balancing Urban Green Space and Residential Infill Development: A Spatial Multi-Criteria Approach Based on Practitioner Engagement

The objectives in consolidating the urban form and preserving green spaces are often in conflict in growing cities. The usability of spatial multi-criteria decision analysis (SMCDA) was tested as a tool for integrating residential infill development and urban green spaces in the City of Jarvenpaa, Finland. In collaboration with local practitioners, this study focused on the benefits and challenges of SMCDA. The results were based on two workshops with the practitioners along with comprehensive GIS analyses based on a wide range of available data. The practitioners saw SMCDA as a useful method to bring together a variety of factors related to infill development. They highlighted the importance of the method’s transparency, emphasising the comprehensive explanation of each step of the method. Better understanding of the impact of individual criteria weightings on the results was mentioned as one of the key future developments of the method.

Fair blue urbanism: demands, obstacles, opportunities and knowledge needs for just recreation beside Helsinki Metropolitan Area waters

ABSTRACT To shed light on fair blue urbanism, we studied the demands, obstacles and opportunities as well as knowledge needs of various citizen groups living in Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The perspectives were identified and explored by experts using an innovative ‘role chair’ method of opinion elicitation. The responses, aggregated as clusters, highlight the multiple roles of urban blue infrastructures and demonstrate that they constitute important parts of cultural processes and environmental justice. Commonalities and differences found between clusters of age and ethnic groups, challenged groups and groups engaged in particular forms of water-related activity suggest paths to inclusive actions for fair use of ecosystem services. Important unrecognized knowledge needs were also discerned. We conclude that environmental justice within engagement with water areas involves wide diversity. Facilitating the recognition of such diversity by experts and then by authorities, stakeholders and citizens concerned through interactive group methods is key to fair blue urbanism.