Analysis of integrated studies on ecosystem service, human well-being, and urban planning: regional trends and recommendations for future studies

Abstract For effective urban planning, it is necessary to understand the process of urban ecosystem services generation and analyze its effects on well-being. This process can be analyzed using the ecosystem service cascade framework. In this study, to detect the gaps in such integrated studies in the existing literature, we analyzed 91 peer-reviewed research articles pertaining to various aspects including target ecosystem service type. Furthermore, we reviewed the parts of the ecosystem service cascade that were analyzed in individual studies, and examined the associations between the target ecosystem service types and the parts of the ecosystem service cascade. The results indicated the common challenges in this approach include stakeholder engagement in research process, spatial analysis and mapping of ecosystem services, and exchange-value assessment of ecosystem services. Facilitating a comprehensive ecosystem service cascade analysis is another common challenge. We suggest that the studies that focus on regulatory and supporting services should expand their scope to include the impact assessments of ecosystem services on human well-being. Notably, the studies on cultural services tended to analyze multiple parts of the ecosystem service cascade, namely, ecosystem service generation through ecosystem structure and function and the impact of ecosystem services on human well-being. Future studies must conduct a cross-scale analysis of large cities in various regions and integrate cultural services in the target ecosystem services to cover various parts of the ecosystem service cascade.