Ecosystem services potential is declining across European capital metropolitan areas

TL;DR

Ecosystem services in European capital cities are declining due to land use changes, with post-socialist and Fennoscandian cities being particularly affected.

Contribution

A new method for monitoring ecosystem services potential using open-source data and expert matrices is introduced.

Findings

Significant declines in ecosystem services potential were observed across European capital metropolitan areas between 2006 and 2018.

Post-socialist countries like Poland experienced high land use transformation, greatly impacting ecosystem services.

Fennoscandian cities, despite leading in cumulative rankings, faced the highest recent declines in ecosystem services.

Abstract

Ecosystem services (ES) are essential to sustainable development at multiple spatial scales. Monitoring ES potential (ESP) at the metropolitan level is imperative to sustainable cities. We developed a procedure for long-term monitoring of metropolitan ESP dynamics, utilizing open-source land use land cover (LULC) data and the expert matrix method. We compared the ESP results of 38 European Capital Metropolitan Areas (ECMA) regarding biodiversity integrity, drinking water provision, flood protection, air quality, water purification, and recreation & tourism. Our results show significant declines in ESP across ECMA due to LULC alteration between 2006, 2012, and 2018. We found that ECMA in post-socialist European countries like Poland (Warszawa) have experienced high rates of land use transformation with a remarkable impact on ESP. Surprisingly, we found that Fennoscandinan ECMA, like Helsinki, Stockholm, and Oslo which lead the cumulative ESP ranking, faced the ESP reduction of the highest impact in recent years. The correlation analysis of ESP dynamics to urban expansion and population growth rates suggests that inattentive urbanization processes impact ESP more than population growth. We unveil the implications of our results to the EU and global level agendas like the European Nature Conservation Law and the Sustainable Development Goals.

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