The Trajectories, Trends, and Opportunities for Assessing Urban Ecosystem Services: A Systematic Review of Geospatial Methods

Abstract

Urban ecosystem services (UES) are indispensable for life. Stakeholders are improvising strategies for a more sustainable provisioning of UES. For this purpose and for identifying orientations towards geospatial data in UES studies, the “bibliometric analysis” technique was deployed. The inclinations facilitate assessments pertaining to spatio-temporal oscillations in the supply–demand equilibrium. The propensities are gaining recognition due to time and cost effectiveness. Besides this, Remote Sensing (RS) in conjunction with Geographic Information System (GIS), enables the conduct of synoptic and robust periodic evaluations. The study analyzes inclinations towards RS in contemporary research (2010–2020) focusing, particularly, on urban ecosystem services. It specifically focuses on methodological frameworks and major sources of remotely sensed data. Therefore, a total of 261 records of research articles were identified and retrieved. Subsequently, 79 articles were selected for further processing and content analysis. It transpired that approximately 30% of the selected publications deployed remotely sensed data for assessment purposes. The majority (96%) of such studies were conducted in economically developed and industrialized countries. However, the researchers from both developed and developing countries prefer open software and free data sources. Besides this, they prefer satellite-based optical sensors over image sensors such as TIR, SAR, or light sensors for acquiring data. The findings formulate that Land Use Land Cover (LULC)-based methodologies and inclinations for assessing regulating services are more frequently pursued. The findings revealed that enhanced research collaborations, access to data, and assessment gadgets are obligatory for capacity building in developing regions. Knowledge sharing and cost-effective access to RS and GIS based platforms are incumbent for ensuring urban environmental sustainability in developing economies.