ABOUT BOOK

This chapter argues that the discussion of urban sustainability is in urgent need of ~new understanding of how ecosystem services are generated in places where human ~and non-human stakeholders interact within the urban landscape. More than half of ~the world’s population currently lives in urban areas, and the rate of urbanisation is ~estimated to increase rapidly in the next three decades ( United Nations, 2014 ). This ~scale of urbanisation strains both urban and rural ecosystems, which are required ~to provide nutrition, clean water, fresh air, recreational opportunities, wellbeing and ~other life-supporting and life-enhancing opportunities to urban dwellers ( Chiesura ~and de Groot, 2003 ; Fischer and Eastwood, 2016 ; Standish, Hobbs, and Miller, 2013 ). ~Amidst such challenges as rapid urbanisation and abrupt climatic changes, ecosystem ~services are needed to provide the material and non-material benefi ts required ~to keep ever-growing cities liveable ( Alberti, 2016 ; Andersson et al., 2014 ; Finco and ~Nijkamp, 2001 ; Rees and Wackernagel, 1996 ). However, the current understanding ~of ecosystem services is inadequate, and the extant research has been criticised for ~both its anthropocentric bias and its focus on instrumental and monetary valuations ~of ecosystem services ( Pelenc and Ballet, 2015 ; Schröter et al., 2014 ). Moreover, the ~lack of a detailed elaboration of the socio-ecological interface of ecosystem services ~has resulted in the continued segregation of human and non-human processes in ~ecosystem service generation ( Andersson, Barthel, and Ahrné, 2007 ; Fischer and ~Eastwood, 2016 ; Maes et al., 2012 )