Value of Green Urban Spaces III Extension and transfer of the economic valuation of ecosystem services from urban green

Urban green spaces offer a variety of ecological benefits beyond recreational areas, particularly concerning the impacts of climate change. During heatwaves, they contribute to cooling and mitigate flooding during heavy rains. These effects of regulating and cultural ecosystem services have been captured in the projects “Value of Green Urban Spaces” and “Value of Green Urban Spaces II”. 

For this purpose, an online assessment tool was developed to simulate potential scenarios for changing the number of street trees or green spaces. The impacts of these scenarios are quantified and economically evaluated concerning various urban ecosystem services.

In the project “Value of Green Urban Spaces III”, the tool will be expanded and applied to all 193 cities in Germany with more than 50,000 inhabitants. This enables the calculation of scenarios for enhancing climate resilience and quality of life for over 40 percent of the German population. Thanks to economic evaluation, administrations, political decision-makers, business actors, and interested citizens will receive well-founded data for evaluating city-wide green strategies.