Assessing the contribution of urban green spaces in green infrastructure strategy planning for urban ecosystem conditions and services

Maintaining ecosystem services is a key adaption option towards sustainable cities and adaptive societies in securing citizens’ health and wellbeing. This research investigates the contribution of using urban green space components as the basic units in green infrastructure strategy planning for urban ecosystem conditions and services. A total of 9 types of urban green spaces are selected and delineated from the high-resolution data. A combination of the quantification method of 6 common urban ecosystem services based on urban green spaces and the MAES framework in reference to literature data is used. A case study of Cheltenham, a typical urban town in England, is studied to present the new approach for local green infrastructure strategy development for urban ecosystem conditions and respective services in improving the resilience of a city in facing global climate change. Results show that changing the composition and spatial arrangement of urban green space components, synergy or trade-off of various services can be stimulated easily. The small scale of urban green space components allows local detail planning and potential integrated planning among other urban settlements.