Urban cultural ecosystem service flows: a model connecting providers of multiple services and users of urban green spaces

© 20148 Dr Jinglong LiuUrban cultural ecosystem service flows are the values and benefits perceived by visitors from using urban green spaces. Usage and real experience become critical because physical interaction with nature can bring numerous benefits to urban life. This thesis explores the relationship between human-beings and urban greenery using the lens of cultural ecosystem services, with a case study of green spaces in the City of Melbourne. This research first provides an extended and refined classification framework of eight cultural ecosystem services (Recreation, History Appreciation, Environmental Understanding, Relaxation, Aesthetic Amenity, Social Interaction, Sense of Place, and Sense of Nature) in the built environment. From a literature review across urban planning, landscape architecture, public health, environmental psychology, and urban ecology, etc., six “latent variables” (Significance, Facility, Distance, Social-Economic Status, Visit Intensity, and Activity) potentially associated with urban cultural ecosystem service flows are identified and specified with observable data collected from field survey on urban green spaces and their users. The relationships between these latent variables and different cultural ecosystem service flows are examined with Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM), from which multiple significant flow paths are revealed. The results of structural equation modelling are compared across different user groups. “Activity”, “Significance” and “Visit Intensity” are the most evident influencing factors in most path models. Therefore, for the measurement of urban cultural ecosystem service flows, the indicator proposed by this research is time duration of visiting a certain green space, and another predictor can be the area of green space. The materiality of space matters in the flow of multiple urban cultural ecosystem services, countering concerns about robust measurement of cultural ecosystem services due to their immateriality and intangibility. Results suggest that encouraging activity and more time spent in urban green spaces may enhance the flow of multiple cultural ecosystem services. On the other hand, a well-connected urban green space network preserving significant parks is crucial in the provision of multiple cultural ecosystem services. For both providers and users, the material dimensions of culture become critical in the flow of urban cultural ecosystem services. In this sense, both place and nature can be physically represented and socially constructed and experienced through the human-nature interactions, which are embedded in people’s everyday lives