Differences Between Perception and Reality  Green Infrastructure Related Cultural Ecosystem Services and Development Preferences under Peri-Urban Pressure

Sustainable development and maintenance of green infrastructure (GI) in municipalities is one of today's most important landscape architectural tasks. Most of the research on this topic focus on ecological aspects, however, there is a growing need to pay more attention also to the social aspects of it. Many documents and strategies emphasise the role of social inclusion in the GI development process (e.g Aarhus Convention, European Landscape Convection). This is particularly important in agglomeration-pressured settlements. Several researchers highlight that more attention should be paid to peri-urban ecosystem services and GI in order to elaborate the most effective resource management and policies to decrease the negative demographic and land use impacts. Among these research, the cultural ecosystem services (CES) of GI are the most neglected types. In order to regenerate efficiently landscapes in peri-urban areas, we need a deeper understanding of the CES provided by GI. In our research we focus on the differences between perception and reality of GI-related CES and development preferences, and took Vác from Budapest Metropolitan Region as a suitable peri-urban example. We applied public participation GIS (ppGIS) method for involvement of local communities and collected information about their CES perception and development preferences related to GI as well as sociodemographic data about the participants. Interviews were carried out with 375 locals, using paper maps and a basic questionnaire. The analyses were performed partly by GIS methods and partly by statistical analyses using the collected almost 5000 CES and development preferences points. Our results showed interesting relationships among CES and development preferences perceived by locals related to official (regulated) structure of GI and to the real GI (based on NDVI and green surface intensity). We found differences and similarities in needs and preferences of GI based on sociodemographic background and also on the neighbourhoods of participants. Our results can help for planners and decision makers to understand better the relationships between locals and GI in peri-urban areas.