How ecosystems services drive urban growth: integrating nature-based solutions

This paper examines interactions between human and natural systems that result in ecosystem services and changes in land use and land cover in urban areas. It develops a social-ecological model for land use and land cover change, and for ecosystems services that integrates nature-based solutions in urban planning. Findings of this study suggest that nature-based strategies, while place-specific, should be part of the planning process. Nature-based strategies should account for different relationships between accessibility to ecosystem services on the one hand, with urban development probabilities of different sites, on the other.