Artikel ansehen

The analysis of the environmental situation in urban areas is of higher importance than ever because of the altered urban ecosystem itself and its impacts on ecosystem services for the rapidly growing urban population. A major challenge remains in developing methods to assess and value ecosystem services and integrate them in urban decision-making processes. In this paper, the urban environmental indicator “Biotope Area Ratio” (BAR) is studied. We aim to analyse the benefits and limits of the BAR to assess and manage the urban ecosystem services using high resolution remote-sensing. We choose two urban environmental settings in Berlin and Seoul where the BAR has been already successfully applied. Results show that the BAR as is represents a valuable instrument and augments existing indicators but that there are modifications advisable to address recent challenges of ecosystem services in urban …