Hopping on one leg - The challenge of ecosystem disservices for urban green management

The importance of ecosystem services for human well-being has been highlighted by several recent environmental studies and assessments. These assessments provide useful information for urban green management, but they largely exclude various nuisances and losses produced by ecosystem functions. Lack of attention to these ecosystem disservices may seriously hamper environmental management in general and urban green management in particular. Ecological, social and technological changes will affect both what kind of disservices will emerge and how they will be experienced and managed. Especially in urban areas, environmental, social and technological changes spanning from global to local levels are continuously altering urban ecosystems. Our ways of perceiving and valuing ecosystem functions are also undergoing rapid change. Here we discuss the concept of ecosystem disservices from the perspective of northern European urban ecosystems. It is concluded that perceptions about ecosystem disservices have an increasing influence on how urban green areas are experienced, valued, used, managed and developed. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier GmbH.