Benefits of the Biophilic City. Bridging research and policy by using the lens of ecosystem services

Abstract

As the global population expands, and an increasing proportion of humanity is projected to reside in urban areas, reimagining how nature is incorporated into the built environment is imperative to ensure resilient, healthy, and future-proof cities. The biophilic cities concept offers a solution. The potential benefits of biophilic cities are abundant. Yet, they are not widely recognized by relevant stakeholders, hindering implementation. To help overcome this problem, the reported benefits of biophilic cities in the current literature are analyzed through the lens of the well-known and commonly used ecosystem services framework. The results show that the ecosystem services framework is rarely used, and often incorrectly or incompletely. More frequently, general, overarching terms are used to describe the benefits of biophilic cities. When categorizing the specific reported benefits according to the ecosystem services framework, a clear preference towards cultural services was found, although regional differences occur. Additionally, when the ecosystem services framework is used, fewer gaps are found in the type of services that are reported compared to those articles that do not use the framework. The results indicate that the ecosystem services framework might serve as a common language, thereby acting as a bridge between both academia and implementation, and different research disciplines. Therefore, it is recommended that the ecosystem services framework is widely adopted when discussing the benefits of the biophilic city with two additional comments: care must be taken that nature is not treated as monetary capital inferior to humans, and the biophilic city should be seen as an ecosystem by itself delivering benefits to humans and its environment.