MEASURING CONTRIBUTION OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES TO URBAN QUALITY OF LIFE

Cities around the world are becoming more and more urbanized. The expected increase in the number of urban residents has a striking influence on their quality of life (QOL), thus it is imperative to understand the spectrumscontributing to it. Urban life depends largely on the goods and services that come from nature. These are what are known as ecosystem services (ES), which refer to the benefits from ecosystems that human populations directly enjoy, consume, or use to yield QOL. The links between ES and QOL are very complex and diverse, but it is important to explicitly recognize them to aid policy makers to make informed decisions. There are a number of studies done to measure the contribution of ES to QOL, however, how ES contribute specifically to urban QOL at basin-wide scale is not well explored yet. The aim of this paper is thus to review the existing methods used to identify the link between ES and QOL, and to propose a new framework that may be useful in recognizing the link between ES and urban QOL. The paper is divided into three parts: 1) ES that contribute to urban QOL were identified, 2) methods commonly used were reviewed, and 3) a new framework was proposed. Some of the commonly used methods in measuring the contribution of ES to QOL (objective and subjective) are: use of indicators, economic valuation techniques and use of surveys. The proposed method aimed to capture the total contribution of ES to urban QOL by integrating the three methods namely: ecological valuation, economic valuation and social valuation. The framework is not yet validated, thus pilot studies should be done to check its applicability and reliability.