A bottom-up approach to map land covers as potential green infrastructure hubs for human well-being in rural settings: A case study from Sweden

Green infrastructure (GI) policy encourages the spatial planning of natural and semi-natural areas to deliver biodiversity conservation and a wide range of ecosystem services (ES) important to human well-being. Much of the current literature relies on expert-led and top-down processes to investigate connections between landscapes' different land covers and ES. Little is known regarding the preferences of residents, and how they connect land covers with the delivery of ES important for their well-being. The aim of this study is to identify and locate such land cover types as GI that provide multiple ES important for human well-being in rural settings. First, we interviewed 400 urban and rural residents to identify ES important for personal well-being and the land covers that deliver multiple ES in three counties that best represent the existing rural-urban gradient in Sweden. Second, to support the inclusion of GI in spatial planning, we identified and located spatial concentrations of individual land covers providing multiple ES (GI hubs) and significant clusters of such land covers (GI hotspots). The majority of urban and rural respondents associated their well-being with lakes, mountains above the tree line, old-growth forests, wooded-pastures, mature pine forests and rural farmsteads. The areal proportion of each type of hub was low, on average 3.5%. At least three land management strategies are needed to sustain GI hubs: maintenance of the composition, structure and function of natural ecosystems in protected areas; support for traditional agroforestry and villages as social-ecological systems; and diversification of the current intensive forest management approach.