Value of Green Urban Spaces III
Value of Green Urban Spaces III
Extension and transfer of the economic valuation of ecosystem services from urban green
The project “Value of Green Urban Spaces III” is a cooperation project under the lead of the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW), in collaboration with Küsters Grün.Stadt.Klima and the working group Sustainable Environmental Health Sciences. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) for a period of 3 years (2023 – 2026).
- Project description
Urban green spaces have diverse impacts on the health of city populations. For example, urban green can provide numerous ecosystem services such as reducing inner-city temperatures, lowering air pollutants, and offering recreational opportunities. However, when weighing changes in the urban infrastructure like planting street trees or creating green spaces, the potential benefits of these ecosystem services are often difficult to quantify.
On the platform www.stadtgruen-wertschaetzen.de, scenarios can be tested that simulate the monetary benefits of changes in the proportion of green spaces or street trees on ecosystem services—such as air quality, water retention, or the productivity of urban populations through heat reduction. Currently, the platform is available for 23 German cities.
As part of the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary project “Value of Green Urban Spaces III”, the platform will be expanded to cover all 193 German cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants. Another aspect involves refining climate modelling through microclimate simulations and machine learning approaches.
The research group Sustainable Environmental Health Sciences is particularly focused on describing the health burdens of urban populations and the losses in work productivity caused by heat. Furthermore, health benefits provided by urban green spaces are assessed. This includes conducting a nationwide survey of approximately 9,000 city residents.
Through the expansion and refinement of the platform, the project contributes to providing administrations, policymakers, and other interested stakeholders with scientifically based information about the benefits of greening scenarios at the city level. This can serve as an economic basis for decision-making when considering different scenarios for urban green space design.- Project lead and Project team
Overall Project Lead:
Dr. Jesko Hirschfeld (IÖW)Lead working group Sustainable Environmental Health Sciences:
Univ.-Prof'in. Dr. Claudia HornbergProject Team:
Dr'in. rer. nat. Michaela Liebig-Gonglach
Julius Freymüller
Hannah-Lea Schmid
Susanne Lopez-Lumbi- Project funding & period
- Publications and Presentations
2025 | Kurzbeitrag Konferenz / Poster
Assessing and communicating the economic value of urban green in German Cities
Freymüller J, Schmid H-L, Liebig-Gonglach M, Hirschfeld J, Karzai T, Möllney T, Kogler M, Scharf B, Hornberg C (2025)
In: 18th European Public Health Conference 2025 Investing for sustainable health and well-being 12–14 November 2025 Helsinki, Finland Abstract Supplement. European Journal of Public Health , 35(Suppl. 4). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckaf161.1092