Dr Anton Shkaruba of the Estonian University of Life Sciences and his doctoral student, Ruthi Veibiakkim, hosted a BETTER Life co-organised session at the 5th ESP (Ecosystem Services Partnership) Europe Conference, held in Wageningen, the Netherlands, from November 18th to 22nd, 2024.
The session titled Urban Form and Ecosystem Delivering Capacity – relations and Implications for Urban Planning and Governance was co-hosted by Dr. Stefano Salata of Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Total 12 papers were presented on the session, including 3 by Anton and Ruthi, who talked about the integration of urban residents’ perception of urban ecosystems into urban planning processes. They explored the aspects of nature that residents perceive negatively, which is also known as ecosystem disservices (EDS). EDS formed the foundation for the BetterLife Toolkit’ Integrating Citizens’ Perceptions of Urban Environmental Quality into Inclusive City Planning Processes, which features a decision-making tree and procedure for involving local communities in the planning co-creation exercise. The collection of session abstracts is available here.
