Evaluating Cultural Ecosystem Services of Urban Residential Green Spaces From the Perspective of Residents' Satisfaction With Green Space.

Green spaces in residential areas provide multiple cultural ecosystem services (CES), which can contribute to human health by increasing the frequency of residents' visits. We evaluated the CES of residential green spaces by assessing residents' satisfaction with these spaces in the city of Zhengzhou, China. The data reveal the supply capacity of CES in residential green spaces: the results suggest that the level of recreational services is low, whereas the residents' satisfaction with the sense of place and neighborhood relations is high. The lower the frequency of residents who visit a park outside the residential area, the higher the satisfaction with the CES. This suggests that residential green spaces can effectively compensate for the lack of nearby parks owing to their proximity to residents' living quarters. The CES in residential communities increased as vegetation coverage increased, indicating that natural vegetation is a source of CES. In addition, the results showed that residents' perceptions of plant decoration, landscape patterns, and management and infrastructure in particular can effectively improve the level of CES, and this could compensate for CES that have shrunk owing to low green space coverage. This study has practical significance and value for the planning and design of residential green spaces, offering suggestions for urban landscape planners and decision makers. Future research should combine the residents' perception of demand and supply of CES and should clarify the gap and trade-off between them.

[Urban ecosystem services: A review].

Maintaining and improving ecosystem services in urban areas and human well-being are essential for sustainable development and therefore constitute an important topic in urban ecology. Here we reviewed studies on ecosystem services in urban areas. Based on the concept and classification of urban ecosystem services, we summarized characteristics of urban ecosystem services, including the human domination, high demand of ecosystem services in urban areas, spatial heterogeneity and temporal dynamics of ecosystem services supply and demand in urban areas, multi-services of urban green infrastructures, the socio-economic dimension of ecosystem services supply and ecosystem disservices in urban areas. Among different urban ecosystem services, the regulating service and cultural service are particularly indispensable to benefit human health. We pointed out that tradeoffs among different types of ecosystem services mostly occur between supportive service and cultural service, as well as regulating service and cultural service. In particular, we emphasized the relationship between landscape design (i.e. green infrastructure) and ecosystem services supply. Finally, we discussed current gaps to link urban ecosystem services studies to landscape design and management and pointed out several directions for future research in urban ecosystem services.

Variations of soil lead in different land uses along the urbanization gradient in the Beijing metropolitan area.

Understanding the spatial pattern of soil lead (Pb) levels is essential to protecting human health. Most previous studies have examined soil Pb distributions by either urbanization gradient or land-use type. Few studies, however, have examined both factors together. It remains unclear whether the impacts of land use on soil Pb levels are consistent along the urbanization gradient. To fill this gap, we investigated variations in soil Pb level under different land-use types along the urbanization gradient in Beijing, China. We classified the degree of urbanization as the urban core, transitional zone, or suburban area and the land-use type as industrial area, roadside, residential area, institutional area, road greenbelt, park, or forest. Our results showed that the range of soil Pb levels in Beijing is <1 mg/kg-292 mg/kg, with a mean of 22 mg/kg. Along the urbanization gradient, the mean soil Pb level increased from the suburban area to the urban core. Land-use types have an impact on soil Pb levels, however, when the degree of urbanization is considered, the impact from land use on soil Pb level was only significant in the transitional zone. Parks and road greenbelts were found to have lower soil Pb, primarily due to soil restoration. Roadside and residential areas were found to have higher soil Pb because of traffic emissions, leaded paint, and previous industrial contamination. In the urban core and suburban area, the soil Pb level showed no significant differences among various land-use types. Given the results of soil Pb in various land-use types, we suggest that future studies consider the urbanization gradient in which different land-use samples are located.

[Content trends of pollutants in street dust of Beijing along the urban-rural gradient and road density gradient].

In the article, pollutant content of 220 road dust samples within the sixth ring road of Beijing have been investigated by using grid stationing sampling method. The changing characteristics of road nude number per unit area, road network density and pollutant content within buffering areas along urban to rural gradient were also studied. Three following variation trends are presented as each index varies widely within the research areas. Firstly, road nude number per unit area, road network density and Cu, Cr, Pb content decrease along urban to rural gradient, and they decrease sharply in the beginning. Secondly, Mn, Cd content change a little along urban to rural gradient, and mean value remains stable. Thirdly, the content of Ni, TOC, TN decreases along with the distance fluctuations in the beginning and their mean values are then rising slowly in the suburbs. The turning point of pollutant content are found in places 15-20 km away from city center. The article shows that the road index and Cd content are irrelevant, and weak correlations are found between road index, TS, Mn and pH. And other relevance ranking are described as follows: Cu > TN > TOC > Pb > Ni > Cr. In contrast with road network density, higher correlations between road nude number per unit area and each element are fond, and element pollution of Cu, TN, TOC, Pb, Ni and Cr could be indicated by these indicators.