Chapter 7 Urban ecosystem services and stakeholders
Towards a sustainable capability approach
Abstract
This chapter argues that the discussion of urban sustainability is in urgent need of
new understanding of how ecosystem services are generated in places where human
and non-human stakeholders interact within the urban landscape. More than half of
the world’s population currently lives in urban areas, and the rate of urbanisation is
estimated to increase rapidly in the next three decades ( United Nations, 2014 ). This
scale of urbanisation strains both urban and rural ecosystems, which are required
to provide nutrition, clean water, fresh air, recreational opportunities, wellbeing and
other life-supporting and life-enhancing opportunities to urban dwellers ( Chiesura
and de Groot, 2003 ; Fischer and Eastwood, 2016 ; Standish, Hobbs, and Miller, 2013 ).
Amidst such challenges as rapid urbanisation and abrupt climatic changes, ecosystem
services are needed to provide the material and non-material benefi ts required
to keep ever-growing cities liveable ( Alberti, 2016 ; Andersson et al., 2014 ; Finco and
Nijkamp, 2001 ; Rees and Wackernagel, 1996 ). However, the current understanding
of ecosystem services is inadequate, and the extant research has been criticised for
both its anthropocentric bias and its focus on instrumental and monetary valuations
of ecosystem services ( Pelenc and Ballet, 2015 ; Schröter et al., 2014 ). Moreover, the
lack of a detailed elaboration of the socio-ecological interface of ecosystem services
has resulted in the continued segregation of human and non-human processes in
ecosystem service generation ( Andersson, Barthel, and Ahrné, 2007 ; Fischer and
Eastwood, 2016 ; Maes et al., 2012 )