Bottom-up thinking-Identifying socio-cultural values of ecosystem services in local blue-green infrastructure planning in Helsinki, Finland

Sustainable urban storm-water management is a key policy of the European Union. Increasing populations, densification and global climate change cause major challenges for the management of urban run-off waters. Small urban aquatic ecosystems (ponds, brooks, wetlands) are important, because they support human health and well-being through water regulation, mitigating urban run-off waters and providing recreational benefits. Ecosystem functions, which arise from interactions between biotic and abiotic processes and which benefit society, are called ecosystem services. The ecosystem service concept can be useful in estimating the impacts of land-use and resource management on ecosystem functions, and to support decision-making. However, many researchers claim that measuring or valuing ecosystem services in land-use planning may fail to recognize intangible or non-monetary values. We studied a local environmental conflict related to a storm-water management plan in Helsinki, Finland. By using integrated value mapping of ecosystem services, we assigned socio-cultural values of local blue-green infrastructure, and evaluated how these values could be taken into account at the early stage in green area planning. Stakeholders (locals, managers and politicians) expressed a total of 47 perceived values related to the urban brook and the public park. We divided these values into four types: (1) use and experience, (2) existence, (3) symbolic, and (4) bequest and moral. We show great differences between the meanings and values of locals, managers and politicians. Managers expressed negative values towards the park, while locals more commonly expressed symbolic values. Exhaustive value mapping could help to identify mutual values and understand disagreements between stakeholders. We introduced a model for a transdisciplinary adaptive planning by using integrated value mapping within ecosystem service concept. Often local protests towards development projects or the management of green areas are seen in a negative light by considering them as NIMBY. Instead of dismissing plurality of meanings and values that emerge from strong place identity, we call for the sustainable management of place-attached values as part of a techno-economic planning strategy of urban ecosystems.