Biodiversity and ecosystem services of small forest fragments in European landscapes

The majority of the human population lives in cities and more than 75% in Europe.The understanding of how urban ecosystems work, how they change, and what limits their performance, can add to the understanding of ecosystem change and governance in general in an ever more human-dominated world. Today, cities are facing enormous challenges, such as climate change and transformation to a future beyond fossil fuels. Ecosystems may play an important role in facilitating this transformation. Ecosystems provide flexibility in urban landscapes and help build adaptive capacity to cope with problems such as increased risk of heat waves and flooding. To address these challenges, urban social-ecological systems analyses represent an emerging promising research field but where big knowledge gaps are, however, still present. This knowledge gap needs to be bridged rapidly to increase the pace of development towards a sustainable planet that is increasingly urban. Recent literature indicate that urban biodiversity contributes to multiple ES of very large importance for the citizens’ well-being and urban biodiversity may also be part of decreasing the ecological footprint. Research challenges and questions The consortium will focus on functional diversity, urban ecosystem services, institutions, economics and resilience science and strive to translate research insights into principles, landscape designs and applications. We will develop a tool box intended to promote sustainable management of urban biodiversity and ecosystem service generation and communicate this to important stakeholders. Cluster I: Urban biodiversity and ecosystem services What are the drivers behind loss/enhancement of urban ecosystem services and how do they interact across scales? What are the impacts of climate and other environmental changes versus impact of growth and/or decline-driven land use change on ecosystem functioning and urban ecosystem services? What are the roles of species interactions and functional diversity for generation of urban ecosystem services? Cluster II. Valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services What are the methods suitable for monetary and non-monetary valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the urban landscape? How can monetary and non-monetary ecosystems service values be integrated for decision-making support? Cluster III. Governance and management of ecosystems and ecosystem service What are the most effective mechanisms for the governance of non-marketed ecosystem services? What is the role of formal versus informal institutions (institutional conditions and preconditions) for ensuring effective governance of ecosystem services and facilitating needed urban transformations? Cluster IV Communication and training Urban Europe has entered a critical development stage where the ability of cities to sustain current levels of quality of life is questioned. Climate change, natural resource shortage and patterns of urban growth and decline linked to demographic and economic structural change have revealed the narrow limits of the established development model and imply substantial risks for the environmental, social and economic balance of urban societies already in the near future. Therefore, the proposed project activities have not been conceived to only fill scientific knowledge gaps but also to influence the local, regional and international policy arenas through a communication and training programme.