Description
The main objective of the project is to perform spatially explicit mapping of the full range of cultural ecosystem services as perceived by local people in Oslo Municipality. The PhD project promoter from University of Girona evaluates social perceptions of cultural ecosystem services, and the donor partner, the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, is immersed in a European project (Openness Project) on the assessment of ecosystems in the Municipality of Oslo. The project promoter is searching for a real case study to apply an innovative methodology for evaluating cultural ecosystem services, and the donor partner is interested in integrating data on social assessment of ecosystem services in the case study of Oslo. The results of the project will be analysed using GIS techniques to obtain a spatially explicit participatory map of the complete range of cultural ecosystem services perceived by people living in Oslo Municipality. Oslo municipality will be a beneficiary in terms of data available on perception of the cultural ecosystem services of their community and the opportunity to use them for conservation planning purposes
Summary of project results
NINA is a partner in the EU project Opennes (
www.openness-project.eu), about assessment and operationalization of ecosystem services. Within the Oslo case study NINA is assessing and valuating the ecosystem services the city’s green and blue infrastructure. Emma Soy Masoni’s contribution referred to the valuation of recreational value of the green areas of Oslo, as one of the specific ecosystem service included in the Oslo case study of the European research project. Main achievements have been: 1 To strengthen and culminate existing collaboration. During her stay at NINA, Emma Soy Massoni has culminated (a) the statistical analysis in collaboration with Graciela Rusch, (b) the discussion of the results with other researchers and (c) the final version of the manuscript to be sent to a high impact factor journal (AMBIO) by mid-November, entitled “Bigger, more diverse and better? Mapping structural diversity its recreational value in urban green spaces”. The researcher, NINA scientists and Oslo City Council technical experts and planners have performed a daily collaboration. The possibility of further on-site collaboration will allow for first-.hand highlighting and dissemination of methods and results amongst the 26 remaining Openness Project case studies. 2. To disseminate results. Besides meetings with Oslo City Council, a bilateral activity funded by NILS programme was organized in Girona and a book has been published, entitled “Ecosystem services. Concepts, methodologies and instruments for research and applied use”. 3. To explore future research collaborations: several opportunities emerged, on hedonic price analysis, and favourite green spaces and structural diversity. The main benefit of the research project developed is the method that is being created, to classify green areas depending on their structural diversity. The method shall be used in scoring ecosystem services systems at local level and for planning purposes. Beneficiaries of the project are: Oslo municipality; future projects within Oslo case study of Openness project; research community working on urban green spaces planning, social perception methods and/or ecosystem services assessment.
Summary of bilateral results
A great exchange resulted from the collaboration, where the combination between Emma Soy Massoni’s GIS skills and experienc3e on non-monetary valuation of ecosystem services, and the experience of researchers at NINA on statistical analysis an urban ecosystem services assessment has been the key of the project outcome and outputs. The interest of applying GIS participatory tools into the ecosystem services assessment field has brought to have a common interest in the topic of the research developed during the stay. The collaboration has been developed within the Openness project, an international project of 27 study cases in Europe and outside. This context has been optimal for the establishment of future collaborations and contacts with other partners of the Openness project consortium working in the field of ecosystem services. The specific study developed during the stay is proposing a new method of recreational service valuation of the green areas, with a great potential to be applied in other contexts. Thanks to be part of Openness study case, the project will be disseminated among other case studies, where a lot of researchers and institutions working on ecosystem services are involved.