Quantifying urban ecosystem services based on high-resolution data of urban green space: an assessment for Rotterdam, the Netherlands

1. The urban dimension of ecosystem services (ES) is underexposed, while the importance of ES for human well-being is nowhere as evident as in cities. Urban challenges such as air pollution, noise and heat can be moderated by urban green space (UGS), simultaneously providing multiple other services. However, available methods to quantify ES cannot typically deal with the high spatial and thematic resolution land cover data that are needed to better understand ES supply in the urban context. 2. This study derives methods to quantify and map a bundle of six ES as supplied by UGS, using land cover data with high spatial and thematic resolution, and applies these to the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Land cover data comprise eight classes of UGS. Methods are derived from an evidence base on the importance of UGS types for the supply of each of the six ES that was built using literature review. 3. The evidence base reveals that UGS types differ in their contribution to various ES, altho...