R-ECO: An R script to measure the supply of urban ecosystem services in Europe

Abstract

Implementing Green Infrastructure (GI) can help achieve sustainable urbanism by addressing challenges such as land cover and climate changes through the supply of Ecosystem Services (ES). However, an accurate yet accessible means of determining the ES at small urban scales is lacking. In response, this research developed a tool to automate the measurement of ES supply at the district level, with a focus on the role of GI. This led to R-ECO, a script developed in the R's free software environment to process fifteen indicators representing provisioning (e.g., food supply, timber production), regulating (e.g., climate regulation, air purification, water flow control), supporting (e.g., biodiversity conservation, habitat connectivity) and cultural (e.g., recreation, noise management, aesthetic value) ES using spatial and statistical functions. Using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methods, the proposed indicators were combined to result in a single metric reporting the ES of urban districts. The tool was valid as designed for Europe as it is fed with data from open repositories on that continent. Still, it can be adapted internationally by incorporating region-specific or global datasets, thereby allowing for urban sustainability assessments in diverse geographical contexts. Testing R-ECO using Copenhagen (Denmark) as a case study proved its usefulness to identify areas that are deficient in ES due to various reasons such as poor climate regulation capacity or insufficiently accessible natural and seminatural areas. Therefore, public institutions concerned with the sustainability of their cities can turn to R-ECO to support the deployment of ES through the implementation of GI.