Balancing demand and supply of multiple urban ecosystem services on different spatial scales

The scientific community has been engaged for some time in valuing and measuring urban ecosystem services (UES). However, methods to value both demand and supply and to balance them on a fine scale are still lacking. The study presents a scheme to assess demand and supply of UES and derive respective budgets by using detailed environmental, urban structural and socio-economic data. We show heterogeneous demand and supply patterns for five highly relevant UES on the block, neighborhood and entire city scale in Berlin, Germany. We detect the most negative budgets along major city highways and in the most compact city structures, which calls for new and creative ways to introduce green and tackle high sealing rates especially in these areas. Due to the above-average green amount in Berlin the UES green space recreation and PM 10 removal showed to be unusually well balanced. The method is able to close a gap in methods for UES demand valuation and consequently develops a transferable methodology for informed planning processes. Furthermore we argue for the usability in planning processes due to its applicability on any relevant scale. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.