“In the lab, we’re very focused on working with nature-based solutions in urban environments. Since there was already a lot of data on how these solutions could improve the population’s quality of life, we came up with the idea of investigating how to prioritize and allocate these solutions to maximize their cost-effectiveness and positive impact on the entire population”, explained Gabriel Moreno Tarragô, a researcher at USP’s Laboratory of Landscape Ecology and Conservation (LEPaC) and one of the study’s authors.
In addition to recreation, the study analyzed two other essential and critical ecosystem services provided by urban parks in large cities such as São Paulo: climate regulation and water infiltration. The results obtained contribute to the body of information generated by the Biota Síntese project. “Ecosystem services are the benefits that nature provides to humans. Parks, in addition to their recreational role, have the potential to regulate temperature by reducing the effects of heat waves. They also improve water infiltration, which reduces the risk of flooding and waterlogging”, noted Tarragô.
According to the researcher, the creation of urban parks is influenced by various factors, including social pressure, political interests, and financial resources. However, without strategic planning, these factors can limit the social and environmental benefits these green spaces could provide. “When implementing parks, prioritizing one factor over another without a specific benefit in mind—such as merely reducing financial costs—may result in the squandering of various ecosystem services that a park could provide”, he explained. “That is why planning, prioritization, and efficient spatial optimization are important.”
Between science and public management
To find the best way to plan green spaces in urban areas and overcome these limitations, Gabriel Tarragô and a group of researchers and technicians from the São Paulo Municipal Department for Green Spaces and the Environment (SVMA) analyzed 211 park projects proposed by the agency. The researchers conducted several simulations of possible park implementation scenarios, quantifying the costs involved and the potential of each scenario to provide climate regulation, water infiltration, and recreational services.
“It’s a prioritization study. The goal was to test different scenarios for minimizing and maximizing benefits, as well as to evaluate the implementation costs of these parks and their potential to provide ecosystem services in each tested scenario”, said Tarragô. The research employed an approach that integrated the supply, demand, and flow of these three ecosystem services with a spatial optimization tool to simulate different scenarios of prioritization. The costs of the parks were assessed according to three criteria: land acquisition, park implementation, and park maintenance.
The researcher pointed out that the resulting dataset from the analyses provided an unprecedented quantification of the costs, benefits, and ecosystem services of each park studied. This allowed them to identify the priorities that these projects should consider based on their specific objectives. “If financial resources are available and the goal is to regulate the city’s temperature, we can determine which projects will provide the greatest climate benefits within the proposed budget”, Tarragô explained.
Furthermore, the results suggest that striking a balance between the costs and benefits of creating and maintaining these spaces is essential for offsetting ecosystem services. This balance also helps distribute these services and benefits more evenly throughout the city. Another important aspect of the research is its transdisciplinary nature. As Tarragô highlighted, the collaboration between science and public management in São Paulo generated a replicable optimization model that prioritizes the implementation of green spaces in cities. This tool integrates different scenarios, analyses, and ecosystem services, and it can be implemented in various cities around the world.
The research, developed by Brazilian researchers in collaboration with the Municipal Department for Green Spaces and the Environment (SVMA), serves as a tool for global climate adaptation. It can help different populations address the daily challenges of urban centers and the negative impacts of extreme weather events in a planned manner. The full study is presented in the article Integrating ecosystem services and optimization analyses to prioritize green spaces implementation in a Global South megacity, published in the scientific journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening.
Written by Tatiana Maria Soares de Araújo, Fapesp Scientific Journalism Fellow at the Biota Síntese Research Center. Adapted for Jornal da USP
English version: Nexus Traduções, edited by Denis Pacheco
