Where did the ecosystem services value go? Adaptive supply, demand and valuation of new urban green spaces

The value of ecosystem services (ES) is typically presented as static 'snapshot' maps. Static maps have however limited value for urban planning since ES value is determined by the interplay of supply and demand of ES which vary over time and as a function of human behavior. To overcome these challenges, this paper presents a novel valuation framework that combines a choice experiment, the travel cost method and spatially explicit modeling of adaptive demand. The result of the choice experiment confirms that temperature reductions by green spaces are valued while travelling distance and crowdedness reduce the value of the green space, thus playing a role in the adaptive behavior of users. After factoring in green space visiting behavior and value losses due to crowdedness, the optimal new green space locations changed compared to those identified using static approaches. The results of this paper caution towards ES urban planning that does not incorporate the adaptive behavior of users.