Analysing the Synergies and Trade-Offs between Ecosystem Services to Reorient Land Use Planning in Metropolitan Bilbao (Northern Spain)

Abstract

In the last decades, some European cities have undergone important changes in search of a more sustainable development. This is the case for the city of Bilbao (Bizkaia, Basque Country), where a Greenbelt has been maintained surrounding the urban areas allowing the periurban areas to deliver ecosystem services (ES) to society. However, the role of the different ecosystems in the provision of ES is not the same, which can lead to conflicts among them. The aim of this study is to analyze the synergies and trade-offs among the eight most important ES in the Bilbao Metropolitan Greenbelt (BMG) to orient their management strategies towards more multifunctional landscapes. We mapped the ES and overlapped them looking for the most relevant areas for the provision of multiple ES and areas that are mostly lacking ES provision. We identify also existing ES trade-offs and synergies between ES using correlations so that managers can prioritize preservation efforts of land use types in the rest of the area. The results show that provisioning ES had trade-offs with regulating and cultural ES and the latter showed synergies between them. The former are mainly delivered by semi-natural ecosystems, while regulating and cultural ES are delivered mainly by natural ecosystems. Moreover, the most relevant areas for the provision of multiple ES were proposed as potential components of a Green Infrastructure (GI). Their identification and ES bundles could help decision-makers to orient their management strategies towards sustainability in metropolitan areas.