Available online 3 February 2016
Highlights
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- Urban gardens provide manifold ecosystem services.
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- Cultural ecosystem services are most important in urban gardens.
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- Urban gardens enhance social cohesion, integration and healthy lifestyles.
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- Urban gardens provide nature-based solutions for urban policy challenges.
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- Urban planning can enhance ecosystem services by offering vacant land for gardening.
Abstract
In
many European cities, urban gardens are seen as increasingly important
components of urban green space networks. We adopt an ecosystem services
framework to assess contributions of urban gardens to the quality of of
their users. First, we identify and characterize ecosystem services
provided by urban gardens. Secondly, we assess the demographic and
socioeconomic profile of its beneficiaries and the relative importance
they attribute to different ecosystem services. Next we discuss the
relevance of our results in relation to critical policy challenges, such
as the promotion of societal cohesion and healthy lifestyles. Data were
collected through 44 semi-structured interviews and a survey among 201
users of 27 urban gardens in Barcelona, Spain, as well as from
consultation meetings with local planners. We identified 20 ecosystem
services, ranging from food production over pollination to social
cohesion and environmental learning. Among them, cultural ecosystem
services (non-material benefits people derive from their interaction
with nature) stand out as the most widely perceived and as the most
highly valued. The main beneficiaries of ecosystem services from urban
gardens are elder, low-middle income, and migrant people. Our results
about the societal importance of urban gardens were deemed highly
relevant by the interviewed green space planners in Barcelona, who noted
that our data can provide basis to support or expand existing gardening
programs in the city. Our research further suggests that ecosystem
services from urban gardens can play an important role in addressing
several urban policy challenges in cities, such as promoting stewardship
of urban ecosystems, providing opportunities for recreation and healthy
lifestyles, and promoting social cohesion. We conclude that urban
gardens and associated ecosystem services can play an important in
urban policies aimed at enhancing quality of life in cities,
particularly if access to their benefits is expanded to larger segments
of the population.
Keywords
- Barcelona;
- Ecosystem services;
- Green infrastructure;
- Nature-based solutions;
- Urbanism;
- Urban agriculture
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