Environmental Restoration, an Ecological Approach to Enhance Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity in Urban Areas Magnuson Park Seattle/Washington

Abstract

People’s life has been always determined by the importance of their basic needs. From time to time, the world has made significant progress in terms of infrastructure and technology, pathways to good living conditions. Urban areas house most of the world’s population, and there has been a surge in interest in researching urban ecosystems. For many, urban areas are sometimes viewed as concrete jungles, with limited fauna and flora dominated by nonnatives and homogenous taxa across regions. This settlement in urban areas creates rapid urbanization which in return has harmful impacts on the environment. There is growing awareness that cities affect almost every ecosystem on earth, significantly contribute to the loss of biodiversity, which are increasingly vulnerable to environmental change. Urban areas can also be healthy natural environments when mixed with blue and green infrastructures, which operations perform a range of benefits known as ecosystem services. Ecosystem services include but are not limited to pollution reduction, soil protection, carbon sequestration, cooling effect, and air purification. Healthy ecosystems are the foundation for sustainable cities, influencing and affecting human well-being and most economic activity. To better understand the growing concerns and find key actions to be able to fight against them, this study uses different scenarios to evaluate the restoration effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services through a typology with two main categories. One part describes the structure of different ecosystems, which are the compound of blue and green infrastructures along with their respective biodiversity.