Ecosystem Services Accounting and AHP for Prioritizing Landscape Design Strategies in Urban Areas

The Ecosystem Services (ES) concept encourages research into a wide range of assessment techniques that may be used for planning and landscape design projects, particularly in urban settings. Starting with their categorization, a suitable evaluation technique might be linked to each of them to identify the highest inherent value that should be included in the decision-making processes. After considering the operations of ES accounting and the various ES types (cultural, supporting, provisioning and regulating) that a single area is able to supply in the context of reference, an inter-sectorial assessment approach is required to prioritize the primary design line when evaluating the primary ES delivery in urban zone. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is shown in this light as a useful tool for emphasizing the coherence of a mixed-set of ES supply and, concurrently, the relative relevance of each one compared to the ecological, socio-economic, and environmental aspects in urban region. An integrated evaluation method based on ES accounting and AHP is put forth in order to assist with the individualization of urban planning and environmental design strategies case-specific. The paper concludes with an explanation of the findings from the Italian case study that the proposed method has evaluated.