The importance and the effectiveness of cultural ecosystem services provided by parks in the city of Kyiv during the war in Ukraine

Abstract

In Ukraine, during the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war, rapid economic and social changes took place, the war caused a massive reduction and destruction of cities, and the environmental situation worsened due to which the cultural services of the ecosystem decreased. Such changes provide an opportunity for the remaining cities to improve the quality of the environment through urban green spaces and solve the problem of meeting the aspirations of the community. The purpose of the study was to identify the importance and effectiveness of eight cultural ecosystem services during the war for park visitors in Kyiv. The following methods were used in the study: field survey (route), analytical, systematisation, sociological, socio-psychological, statistical. The Likert psychometric scale was used to survey visitors of two parks in Kyiv to identify the importance and effectiveness of eight cultural ecosystem services provided by parks. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics. It was established that during the war, the visitors of the parks “Yunist” and “Sovky” noted the importance and effectiveness of such cultural ecosystem services as recreation, aesthetics, and nature awareness. It is determined that young people aged 16-30 and 51-60 are most in need of such services, and social relations in both Yunist and Sovky parks for all age categories are located in the reserve zone of service supply. The proven that effectiveness and importance of such services as cultural heritage and spiritual enrichment are the lowest for all age categories. Almost half of the visitors in the two parks provided suggestions for improving the quality of the environment, the greatest need was to increase the number of plantings and improve the improvement of territory, in the park “Sovky” respondents stated the need cultural heritage. It was established that the quality of plantings and the location of parks affected the overall satisfaction of visitors. Respondents’ satisfaction with the cultural ecosystem services of Sovky park is higher than that of Yunist park. The results of the studies can be used to improve the quality of cultural ecosystem services in the Sovky and Yunist parks