Contribution of ecosystem services to air quality and climate change mitigation policies : the case of urban forests in Barcelona, Spain
Baró Porras, Francesc (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Chaparro, Lydia (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Gómez-Baggethun, Erik (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Langemeyer, Johannes (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Nowak, David J. (United States. Forest Service. Northern Research Station)
Terradas, Jaume (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Biologia Animal, de Biologia Vegetal i d'Ecologia)

Date:	2014
Abstract:	Mounting research highlights the contribution of ecosystem services provided by urban forests to quality of life in cities, yet these services are rarely explicitly considered in environmental policy targets. We quantify regulating services provided by urban forests and evaluate their contribution to comply with policy targets of air quality and climate change mitigation in the municipality of Barcelona, Spain. We apply the i-Tree Eco model to quantify in biophysical and monetary terms the ecosystem services "air purification," "global climate regulation," and the ecosystem disservice "air pollution" associated with biogenic emissions. Our results show that the contribution of urban forests regulating services to abate pollution is substantial in absolute terms, yet modest when compared to overall city levels of air pollution and GHG emissions. We conclude that in order to be effective, green infrastructure-based efforts to offset urban pollution at the municipal level have to be coordinated with territorial policies at broader spatial scales.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Ecologia urbana ; Air purification ; Cities ; Climate regulation ; Urban ecosystem services ; Urban forests ; Policy targets
Published in:	Ambio, Vol. 43, Num. 4 (May 2014) , p. 466-479, ISSN 1654-7209

DOI: 10.1007/s13280-014-0507-x
PMID: 24740618

Article 14 p, 2.2 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > CREAF (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles