Assessing ecosystem services for evidence-based nature-based solutions
Mario V Balzan

TL;DR
This paper reviews recent efforts to map and assess ecosystem services in Malta, highlighting their role in supporting green infrastructure and informing evidence-based policies for sustainable landscape and urban planning.
Contribution
It provides an integrated assessment of ecosystem services in Malta, demonstrating multifunctionality and offering a scientific baseline for policy development and nature-based solutions.
Findings
Significant synergies between ecosystem services indicate multifunctionality.
Urban areas sometimes show higher ecosystem service flow per unit area.
Results suggest a mismatch between ecosystem service demand and capacity.
Abstract
The term nature-based solutions has often been used to refer to adequate green infrastructure, which is cost-effective and simultaneously provides environmental, social and economic benefits, through the delivery of ecosystem services, and contributes to build resilience. This paper provides an overview of the recent work mapping and assessing ecosystem services in Malta and the implications for decision-making. Research has focused on the identification and mapping of ecosystems, and ecosystem condition, the capacity to deliver key ecosystem services and the actual use (flow) of these services by local communities leading to benefits to human well-being. The integration of results from these different assessments demonstrates several significant synergies between ecosystem services, indicating multifunctionality in the provision of ecosystem services leading to human well-being. This…
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Taxonomy
TopicsLand Use and Ecosystem Services · Urban Green Space and Health · Urban Agriculture and Sustainability
Methodstravel james
