Urban Ecosystem Services and Community Well-Being
One example of an urban forest in Los Angeles, viewed from Griffith Park.
Ecosystem services are the benefits that nature, including urban forests, provide to society. These benefits are not only environmental, but they are also social-ecological and economic as well. Although the environmental benefits of urban trees are well studied, we know less about how these factors drive changes to urban forest ecosystems and how the importance of urban forests to people changes over time.
This project is studying:
1) How urban forest ecosystems influence the well-being (e.g., property values, social values, health) of people.
2) How socio-ecological drivers like fire, policies, land use and climate change affect urban forests.
3) What value or importance do different communities place on urban forest attributes and services.
4) What are the costs or ecosystem disservices (e.g., allergies, crime, fire hazard) of urban forests and other ecosystems.
The different projects are being carried out in Los Angeles and other California communities, Florida, Latin America and elsewhere.
People
Project Team
-
University of Arizona
José Soto
-
UCLA
Edith de Guzman
-
Universidad del Rosario
Nicola Clerici
-
University of Alabama
Christina Staudhammer
-
ORISE Fellow
Kamini Yadav
-
ORISE Fellow
Sadie Sharma
Related Publications
- Nicola Clerici, Christina Staudhammer, Francisco J. Escobedo. 2024. Disentangling the deforestation-environmental crime nexus in Latin America
- Francisco J. Escobedo, Cynnamon Dobbs, Yuli Tovar, Paloma Cariñanos. 2023. Neotropical urban forest allergenicity and ecosystem disservices can affect vulnerable neighborhoods in Bogota, Colombia
- Tahia Devisscher, Camilo Ordóñez-Barona, Cynnamon Dobbs, Mariana Dias Baptista, Nuria Mónica Navarro, Luis Alberto Orozco Aguilar, Jose Felix Cercas Perez, Yolanny Rojas Mancebo, Francisco J. Escobedo. 2022. Urban forest management and governance in Latin America and the Caribbean: A baseline study of stakeholder views
- Matthew Sloggy, Francisco J. Escobedo, José J. Sánchez. 2022. The role of spatial information in peri-urban ecosystem service valuation and policy investment preferences
- Edith B. de Guzman, Francisco J. Escobedo, Rachel O'Leary. 2022. A socio-ecological approach to align tree stewardship programs with public health benefits in marginalized neighborhoods in Los Angeles, USA
- Giselle Toro, Maria Paula Otero, Nicola Clerici, Zoltan Szantoi, Andrés González-González, Francisco J. Escobedo. 2022. Interacting municipal-level anthropogenic and ecological disturbances drive changes in Neotropical forest carbon storage
- Sergio Alvarez, José R. Soto, Francisco J. Escobedo, John Lai, Abu S.M.G. Kibria, Damian C. Adams. 2021. Heterogeneous preferences and economic values for urban forest structural and functional attributes
- Maykol Rodriguez, Antonio Bodini, Francisco J. Escobedo, Nicola Clerici. 2021. Analyzing socio-ecological interactions through qualitative modeling: Forest conservation and implications for sustainability in the peri‑urban bogota (Colombia)
- Damian C. Adams, José R. Soto, John Lai, Francisco J. Escobedo, Sergio Alvarez, Abu S.M.G. Kibria. 2020. Public preferences and willingness to pay for invasive forest pest prevention programs in urban areas
- Yuli Paola Tovar Tique, Francisco J. Escobedo, Nicola Clerici. 2021. Community-based importance and quantification of ecosystem services, disservices, drivers, and neotropical dry forests in a rural colombian municipality
- Guibor Camargo, Andrés Miguel Sampayo, Andrés Peña Galindo, Francisco J. Escobedo, Fernando Carriazo, Alejandro Feged-Rivadeneira. 2020. Exploring the dynamics of migration, armed conflict, urbanization, and anthropogenic change in Colombia
- Alexandra Pineda-Guerrero, Francisco J. Escobedo, Fernando Carriazo. 2020. Governance, nature's contributions to people, and investing in conservation influence the valuation of urban green areas
- Cynnamon Dobbs, Francisco J. Escobedo, Wayne C. Zipperer. 2011. A framework for developing urban forest ecosystem services and goods indicators
- Francisco J. Escobedo, John E. Wagner, David J. Nowak, Carmen Luz De la Maza, Manuel Rodriguez, Daniel E. Crane. 2008. Analyzing the cost effectiveness of Santiago, Chile's policy of using urban forests to improve air quality