Ecosystem Service Toolbox developed from multi-scale Integrated Modelling of Urban Metabolism (ESTIMUM)

Goal: Ecosystem Service Toolbox developed from multi-scale Integrated Modelling of Urban Metabolism (ESTIMUM) aims to develop an integrated spatially-explicit operational instrument for simulating the value change (both monetary and physical) of ecosystem services over time at multiple urban scales, which run different scenarios of urban metabolism and implementation of nature-based solutions in cities. Because the proposed simulation framework evaluates changes in urban ecosystem service trends over time and different uses of land, a special focus is on improving the urban biodiversity and management of green spaces, while at the same time fostering the implementation of nature-based solutions in the cities.

A toolbox, called MIMES-TUM (Multiscale Integrated Model of Ecosystem Services Tailored for Urban Metabolism), will be created to evaluate ecosystem service trade-offs (e.g. air purification, noise reduction, urban cooling, runoff mitigation, food provision) in urban regions. A scenario analysis interface will be incorporated in MIMES-TUM to allow forecasting the environmental, physical and socio-economic benefits (and costs) of solutions designed to enhance the supply of ecosystem services in cities. Such a toolbox is built using a System Dynamics rationale, and is suited to characterise the complex relationships between biosphere and technosphere components in urban regions (assumed to represent dynamic UM patterns). This is innovative in the way that components of urban ecosystems are stocks and flows of infrastructure and commodities (goods and services produced, transformed and consumed in the city), mainly associated with life cycle product and input-output economic sectorial datasets.