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Urbanization is increasingly compromising residents’ connection to natural habitats and landscapes. With established relationships between human–nature connection (HNC) and pro-environmental behaviour and human well being, there are calls for effective interventions to strengthen HNC in urban settings. However, much of this research has operationalised HNC in narrow psychological terms. Based on an embodied framework of urban human–food connection (HFC) as a specific dimension of HNC, this article explores the role of active urban gardening in promoting different types of internal and external HFC and their link with pro-environmental food behaviour (PEFB). Based on a quantitative survey in Germany addressing vegetable gardeners in Munich (N = 254), a principal component analysis extracted four components of HFC comprising external body-related HFC (i.e. immediate urban garden-body activities: food harvesting and experiential food interaction) and internal mind-related HFC (i.e. immediate urban garden-mind activities including food discovery as well as food consciousness). These were found to be statistically related to one another. Furthermore, regression analysis revealed that food consciousness through concerns on food consumption and environmental impacts as well as food as part of life attitude as an internal HFC is the sole predictor of PEFB. The study suggests an embodied HFC model emphasizing the need for local body- and mind-based nature connections for fostering earth stewardship. Future research should explore the relationship between inner dimensions of nature connectedness and external behavioural change to enable transformations towards sustainability.

While urban systems are expanding at very fast rates all over the world, understanding their spatial development remains a complex and controversial issue, burdened with confusion in the literature. A common understanding of the spatial behavior of expanding urban systems needs robust conceptualization and empirical evidence. The physical growth of cities assumes different spatial patterns, usually in the form of urban sprawl resulting from multi-dimensional drivers and causing multi-dimensional economic, social and ecological impacts. The need to manage urban sprawl and its manifold adverse consequences by promoting compact urban development and urban densification/re-utilization has been widely promoted in science and policy-making. However, ensuring a high quality of life for urbanites demands integrative points-of-view for the types of compact development to promote, in particular regarding urban green spaces within densification processes. It is essential to consider the effects of compact development not only at larger scales, but also at neighborhood and household scales to pursue moderated and qualified densification, securing and (re-)developing urban green spaces and their multi-dimensional positive impacts. Urban sprawl and compact green cities require adequate and robust multi-dimensional spatially explicit indicators to support urban planners and policy makers. Through articles of this special issue, we explore in this synthesis paper the current international state of the art in developing, testing and implementing multi-dimensional ecological, economic, social and multi-scale regional, city, neighborhood indicators characterizing urban sprawl and compact green cities. The articles provide concepts and international case studies for land monitoring and planning recommendations for sustainable urban development. Such indicators give light to capture the social, economic and environmental dimensions of urban development while assessing the degree and extent of sprawl and compact green cities in a global context.

The production of food within cities through urban agriculture can be considered as a nature-based solution and is argued to be an important response to the current COVID-19 pandemic as well as to climate change and other urban challenges. However, current research on urban agriculture is still fragmented, calling for a systematic and integrative assessment of different forms of urban agriculture and the drivers and constraints for their effective realization. In this context, the Special Issue presents conceptual and empirical research articles from around the world on the impact and implementation potential of various types of urban agriculture. The studies of this Special Issue cover a broad range of impact and implementation dimensions, asssessment methods and geographical backgrounds that can support future studies to develop a systemic perspective on urban food production. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung Czech Science Foundation

Within the scholarly debate, Urban Agriculture (UA) has been widely acknowledged to provide diverse environmental and socio-cultural ecosystem services (ESs) for cities. However, the question of whether these potential benefits are also recognized as such by the involved societal groups on the ground has not yet been investigated. This paper aims at (1) assessing the perceived ESs of UA, comparing the views of different societal groups in the city of Bologna, Italy (namely: UA project leaders, stakeholders and the general public) and (2) to identify differences in the evaluation of specific UA types (indoor farming, high-tech greenhouses, peri-urban farms, community-supported agriculture, community rooftop garden and urban co-op). In total, 406 individuals evaluated 25 ESs via a standardized Likert-scale survey. The study unveiled similarities and divergences of perceptions among the different societal groups. The statistical analysis indicated that the general public and UA stakeholders agree on the high relevance of socio-cultural ESs, while provisioning ESs was considered as less significant. UA types focusing on social innovation were expected to provide higher socio-cultural ESs whereas peri-urban activities were more closely linked to habitat ESs. We assume that involvement and knowledge of UA are determining factors for valuing the provision of ESs through UA, which needs to be considered for ES valuation, particularly in a policymaking context. Horizon 2020 Framework Programme Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Many of the outcomes of environmental plans are difficult to measure. Therefore, little is known as to whether such plans achieve their goals, whether outcomes are reached and lessons learned to influence future plans. Our study aims to address this gap by systematically evaluating the implementation of Local Environmental Action Plans (LEAPs) of 29 counties in Romania and the factors affecting it. We draw on both quantitative (official statistical data) and qualitative (planners’ assessments) evaluation methods and two conceptions of plan implementation success (conformance and performance based) to assess LEAP implementation. Our findings indicate mixed levels of conformance and performance. While the implementation of LEAPs conforms with the plans from the perspective of progress of overall policy implementation, this does not conform with the plans in terms of positive changes on the ground. LEAPs perform well in mitigating local environmental problems and coordinating with other planning initiatives but badly in terms of their usefulness in the decision-making process, having little influence on lower-level plans. Furthermore, the quality of LEAPs may not be important in relation to their implementation, while investments in the capacity of planning agencies, as well as local political support and participatory approaches, may improve the implementation of LEAPs in the future. The results of our study may assist the devising bodies in enhancing the implementation of future versions of LEAPs by revealing the main opportunities and constraints influencing implementation.

Literature on urban ecosystem services (UESS) is vast, particularly on cultural ecosystem services. However, due to a lack of knowledge on individual urban green spaces on the site level, further research on enhanced methods is needed to underpin existing assumptions about the reasons why people are visiting urban green spaces and what kinds of ecosystem services they can expect, with a focus on recreational activities. We argue for enhanced methods to assess supply of and demand on cultural UESS that should include the direct work with urban green space users. With the overall aim of developing a Spatial Decision Support System for visiting urban green spaces, we are applying a set of different quantitative methods to gather information on peoples’ needs and perceptions as well as data on what existing green spaces offer them. We present a two-step approach 1) linking green space criteria with recreational activities (demand-side) based on a linear series of three online surveys and 2) conducting a spatial mapping of urban green space criteria based on activity-driven indicators (supply-side). In the course of exemplified indicators operationalized by using open and local authorities′ geospatial data in an explorative study in Dresden and Heidelberg (Germany), we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the approach.

Urban green infrastructure is considered to be a key element in improving quality of life and creating an appropriate framework for sustainable cities. The most used quantitative indicator to assess urban green infrastructure is urban green space (UGS) per capita. This papeŕs aim is to analyze whether UGS is a valuable target to achieve cities’ sustainability goals. We used Romania as a case study, which should meet the target of 26 m2 of UGS per inhabitants in all cities. Aerial images were used to extract the surface of the UGS categories for a sample of 38 cities in Romania. We compared our data with three other databases (National Institute of Statistics, Environmental Protection Agencies and Urban Atlas) to check for differences. To understand the contribution of geographic and socio-economic factors to the dynamic of the UGS per capita in Romania’s cities, we used a multiple linear regression. To identify differences between cities in terms of their proportions of UGS, multiple correspondence analysis was performed. We found significant differences between the surface of UGS reported by the administrative offices and that resulting from the spatial analysis. The process of reporting UGS data currently has methodological and perspective shortcomings. Moreover, the density of the built-up space, the proximity to major transport infrastructure, the cities’ founding period and the geomorphology criteria are important predictors for the UGS. The target of 26 m2 of green area per inhabitant in all Romanian cities is not feasible and it should consider the cities’ characteristics, if you want to achieve sustainability goals. Urban green planning should focus more on the development of urban green infrastructure models that are adapted to each type of urban area.

Managing urban soil sealing is a difficult venture due to its spatial heterogeneity and embedding in a socio-ecological system. A systemic solution is needed to tackle its spatial, ecological and social sub-systems. This study develops a guideline for urban actors to find a systemic solution to soil sealing management based on two case studies in Germany: Munich and Leipzig. Legal-planning, informal-planning, economic-fiscal, co-operative and informational responses were evaluated by indicators to proof which strategy considers the spatial complexity of urban soil sealing (systemic spatial efficiency) and, while considering spatial complexity, to assess what the key management areas for action are to reduce the ecological impacts by urban soil sealing (ecological impact efficiency) and to support an efficient implementation by urban actors (social implementation efficiency). Results suggest framing the systemic solution to soil sealing management through a cross-scale, legal-planning development strategy embedded in higher European policies. Within the socio-ecological system, the key management area for action should focus on the protection of green infrastructure being of high value for actors from the European to local scales. Further efforts are necessary to establish a systemic monitoring concept to optimize socio-ecological benefits and avoid trade-offs such as between urban infill development and urban green protection. This place-based study can be regarded as a stepping stone on how to develop systemic strategies by considering different spatial sub-targets and socio-ecological systems.

Cities have become major contributors to sustainability problems and, in the meantime, seedbeds for sustainability transformation. Urban nature-based solutions, such as greening strategies that foster urban food production as a cross-cutting issue, promise to have multidimensional benefits for sustainable urban development. However, a conceptual understanding of interlinkages between nature-based solutions and their contribution to sustainability transformation is lacking. The goals of this study are twofold. First, to develop a conceptual model for testing multi-dimensional impacts of urban nature-based solutions supporting social-spatial, social-ecological and individual sustainable transformation. The model has been developed based on the concepts of place attachment, human-food connection and pro-environmental food behaviour. Second, the conceptual model is applied to the example of edible cities. Edible cities can be considered an innovative nature-based solution that provides multiple co-benefits by offering (free) food for urban residents in public spaces. A Principal Component Analysis of a survey among residents of Andernach (N = 380), one of the first edible cities in Germany revealed, in contrast to the conceptual three-dimensional model, a four-dimensional model with high construct validity and reliability. The model comprises a) place attachment, b) experiential and c) material human-food connection as well as d) pro-environmental food consumption. Items of internal emotional and philosophical human-food connection included within the pro-environmental food consumption scale suggested their important role in fostering sustainability. Results suggest that the edible city can be considered a strategy for increasing urban attractiveness and place identity, supporting social bonding and experiential human-food connection by using the edible areas for nature observation and recreation. However, although the residents are well informed about the edible city concept, most residents are not actively involved and rarely use the food provided by the edible city. Thus, they also could not answer questions related to cognitive human-food connection such as estimating the food’s taste and health quality. To strengthen material and cognitive human-food connection, policy implications of the results propose the implementation of accompanying information and participation activities. By linking nature-based solutions with sustainability transformation, this study provides conceptual and practical implications for the multidimensional benefits of innovative urban greening strategies such as edible cities.

Environmental action plans are important instruments intended to provide sustainable solutions for the most pressing environmental issues. As they should be updated regularly, efforts to evaluate their quality are essential for enabling incremental improvements in upcoming versions. The aim of our study was to systematically evaluate the quality of Romania's Local Environmental Action Plans (LEAPs) by following a theoretical framework that includes principles from both rational and communicative approaches to assessing plan quality. We selected 32 LEAPs and applied an evaluation protocol that enabled a comprehensive assessment of the plans. Our results showed an overall moderate quality of the LEAPs. Although most plans identify many environmental problems in need of solutions, in reality additional urgent environmental problems often exist. Furthermore, LEAPs perform only moderately in identifying tools for implementation provisions and ensuring the participation of the public in the planning process, and they are even weaker in establishing goals and achieving coordination across different governmental levels. Overall the assessment reveals that plans are rarely able to craft an appealing policy message. Our findings could be used as guidance for LEAP coordinating agencies to improve the plans in the upcoming updating processes, as they identify plan weaknesses and suggest ways to achieve high quality environmental plans. Furthermore, our novel plan assessment method based on rational comprehensive and communicative approaches to plan quality evaluation can be adapted easily to other studies.

Urbanization and achieving sustainable agriculture are both major societal challenges. By reducing food miles and connecting people with nature, food cultivation in cities has several major advantages. However, due to further urban development (peri-) urban agriculture (UPA) is under threat. To strengthen UPA, we argue for considering UPA as a nature-based solution (NbS) supporting systemic approaches for societal challenges. However, academic knowledge on UPA’s contribution to various societal challenges of urbanization is still fragmented. This study addresses the gap by conducting a systemic literature review, incorporating 166 academic articles focusing on the global north. The results of the review show that UPA contributes to ten key societal challenges of urbanization: climate change, food security, biodiversity and ecosystem services, agricultural intensification, resource efficiency, urban renewal and regeneration, land management, public health, social cohesion, and economic growth. The value of UPA is its multifunctionality in providing social, economic and environmental co-benefits and ecosystem services. When implementing UPA, social, institutional, economic, technical, geographical, and ecological drivers and constraints need to be considered. To upscale UPA successfully, the study develops an integrative assessment framework for evaluating the implementation and impact efficiency of UPA. This framework should be tested based on the example of edible cities.

Ecosystem services (ES) are gaining increasing attention as a promising concept to more actively consider and plan for the varied benefits of the urban environment. Yet, to have an impact on decision-making, the concept must spread from academia to practice. To understand how ES have been taken up in planning discourses we conducted a cross-case comparison of planning documents in Berlin, New York, Salzburg, Seattle and Stockholm. We found: (1) explicit references to the ES concept were primarily in documents from Stockholm and New York, two cities in countries that entered into ES discourses early. (2) Implicit references and thus potential linkages between the ES concept and planning discourses were found frequently among all cities, especially in Seattle. (3) The thematic scope, represented by 21 different ES, is comparably broad among the cases, while cultural services and habitat provision are most frequently emphasized. (4) High-level policies were shown to promote the adoption of the ES concept in planning. We find that the ES concept holds potential to strengthen a holistic consideration of urban nature and its benefits in planning. We also revealed potential for further development of ES approaches with regard to mitigation of environmental impacts and improving urban resilience.

International audience; In contrast to the ongoing worldwide uncontrolled expansion of urban development resulting in sprawled cities, compact cities have been argued by planners and researchers to be the more sustainable urban form. However, in compact cities, it has been shown that a low proportion of green spaces jeopardizes the sufficient supply of urban ecosystem services. This suggests that there remains a deficiency in clear visions for operationalizing compact and green cities. To remediate this, this paper introduces a systemic conceptual framework for compact and green cities by combining the concepts of smart growth and green infrastructure. The indicator-based, smartcompact-green city framework includes two aspects: 1) smart compact cities (considering the need to limit urban sprawl through smart growth) and 2) smart green cities (reflecting the preservation and (re-)development of urban green infrastructure). The paper suggests that there is the need to balance these two aspects to develop a systemic approach towards smart-compact-green cities. A hierarchical target system grounded on four characters for smart compact and smart green cities is developed. Smart-compact-green cities can be characterized through a 1) smart environment of compact and green cities, 2) smart multifunctionality of compact and green cities (economic, social, environmental), 3) smart government for compact and green cities and 4) smart governance for compact and green cities. The characters comprise twelve factors defined by 39 indicators for smart compact cities and 44 indicators for smart green cities, respectively. The systemic framework can support researchers and practitioners to develop visions of how existing or future cities can approach smart-compact-green cities in mainstreaming the ecology of and for cities by better understanding the complexity of urban systems and providing a basis for a systematic spatial monitoring.

In the light of ongoing global urbanization and the high pace of resource consumption, there is an urgent need to foster compact cities. Currently, however, we lack integrative guidelines on how to manage trade-offs between urban densification and the provision of green space. Against this background, this study applies the concepts of green infrastructure and ecosystem services to develop a guideline for landscape planning to foster compact and green cities. The guideline was tested on the example of the landscape plan of Dresden (Germany), which foresees a compact city in a green network. Results show that the concepts of ecosystems services and green infrastructure can support urban practitioners in structuring the complex interrelations between landscape planning and compact and green cities. The developed guideline provides an integrative framework for modular landscape planning that: (1) reflects the spatial heterogeneity and properties of urban ecosystems and landscapes; and (2) considers cities as integrated socio-ecological systems. The case study indicates that a more comprehensive perspective of cities and their ecosystem is required, one that connects green with grey infrastructure. Further research should focus on how the green infrastructure concept can be refined to incorporate strategic planning for compact cities.

Urban green spaces (UGS) are increasingly acknowledged for their importance for the well-being of urban populations. However, studies are lacking the consideration of the demand and use of UGS by different population groups and connecting UGS with social infrastructure. In an era of worldwide urbanization and ageing, this European study sheds light on the role of UGS for care facilities for elderly. 126 care facilities from 17 cities in Austria, Germany, Norway, Poland, Romania and Slovenia took part in an online survey. Administrations of care facilities gave insights on the (1) importance of gardens related to care facilities for the quality of life for the seniors, (2) importance of UGS outside of care facilities for the quality of life for the seniors and (3) the consideration of natural and age-friendly designs and management of ecosystem disservices of UGS. The results emphasize not only the importance of UGS for the quality of life of seniors residing in care facilities, but also for the staff and visitors. UGS contribute to physical activities, recreation, and social interactions. The study found that in particular facilities with an own garden are highly aware of the benefits UGS provide. The study holds important lessons for urban green space planning, management and design not only to focus on the quantitative supply of UGS, but also to consider age-sensitive amenities in and access to UGS of high quality for seniors. social infrastructure, urban green space design, urban green space access, healthy ageing, urban green space management, quality of life

As part of the planned expansion work of the motorway A8 between Rosenheim and Salzburg and the associated legal opportunity to develop new traffic noise protection measures, this study investigated properties of sustainable noise abatement in a community next to the A8. A two-stage empirical survey was conducted integrating a citizen and an expert Delphi survey. The results show that the noise from the motorway heavily affects the quality of life in health, economic and ecological respects. Sustainable noise abatement should take into consideration ecological and social aspects like landscape integration and contribution to local development due to the unique location of the municipality. Enclosed motorway canopies are particularly beneficial to meet these criteria. The costs for sustainable noise abatement measures should be weighted as less important; however, financial costs are crucial for the federal government due to the requirements of the Federal Pollution Control Act. Hence, residents and experts assume that noise barriers as the cheaper noise abatement measures will be implemented. However, the results of the study and the latest developments in the expansion plans suggest that the implementation of enclosed motorway canopies, which go beyond the legal requirements, is feasible through extensive citizen participation and community-specific planning.

Determining the performance of ecosystem services at the city or regional level cannot accurately take into account the fine differences between green or gray structures. The supply of regulating ecosystem services in, for instance, parks can differ as parks vary in their land cover composition. A comprehensive ecosystem service assessment approach also needs to reflect land use to consider the demands placed on ecosystem services, which are mostly neglected by current research yet important for urban planning. For instance, if a sealed surface is no longer used, it could be unsealed to improve ecosystem service supply. Because of these scientific shortcomings, this article argues for a conceptual framework for the non-monetary assessment of urban ecosystem services at the site scale. This paper introduces a standardized method for selecting representative sites and evaluating their supply of and demand on ecosystem services. The conceptual design is supplemented by examples of Salzburg, Austria.

Although a number of comprehensive reviews have examined global ecosystem services (ES), few have focused on studies that assess urban ecosystem services (UES). Given that more than half of the world’s population lives in cities, understanding the dualism of the provision of and need for UES is of critical importance. Which UES are the focus of research, and what types of urban land use are examined? Are models or decision support systems used to assess the provision of UES? Are trade-offs considered? Do studies of UES engage stakeholders? To address these questions, we analyzed 217 papers derived from an ISI Web of Knowledge search using a set of standardized criteria. The results indicate that most UES studies have been undertaken in Europe, North America, and China, at city scale. Assessment methods involve bio-physical models, Geographical Information Systems, and valuation, but few study findings have been implemented as land use policy. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-014-0504-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The paper analyses and evaluates approaches to the management of urban soil sealing to support the implemen tation of guidelines and sustainability targets, such as the European Commission's soil sealing guidelines and the sustain ability strategy in Germany which aims to reduce the daily land consumption and the associated soil sealing. Based on the assumption that only a mix of instruments can steer soil sealing the paper aims to answer the following questions: I) What are the spatial dimensions of urban sod sealing? II) Which strategies and management dimensions can control soil sealing on a macro-scale (regions, federal states, federal government), meso(city level) and a micro-scale (urban structural units)? Spa tial driving forces of and impacts of soil sealing are identified by urban structural units using a soil sealing gradient. Grow ing and shrinking cities in Germany were analyzed: Leipzig as a shrinking and Munich as a growing case study city. Results show that neither a growing nor a shrinking population drives the sealing development but the degree of re-use of urban brownfields. Overall, a holistic approach to soil sealing management comprises a multi-dimensional range of measures for the quantitative, qualitative and compensatory management of urban soil sealing and urban green areas, including basically the protection of soils. Economic and fiscal, planning and legal, informational and co-operative strategies have the potential to steer urban soil sealing. Further research is necessary to develop indicators to assess the efficiency of these strategies to achieve a holistic and efficient soil sealing management. This paper presents a framework showing how a set of instruments can be defined and their efficiency assessed by taking into account the identified spatial dimensions and strategies as well as their interconnections.

Nature-based solutions promoting green and blue urban areas have significant potential to decrease the vulnerability and enhance the resilience of cities in light of climatic change. They can thereby help to mitigate climate change-induced impacts and serve as proactive adaptation options for municipalities. We explore the various contexts in which nature-based solutions are relevant for climate mitigation and adaptation in urban areas, identify indicators for assessing the effectiveness of nature-based solutions and related knowledge gaps. In addition, we explore existing barriers and potential opportunities for increasing the scale and effectiveness of nature-based solution implementation. The results were derived from an inter- and transdisciplinary workshop with experts from research, municipalities, policy, and society. As an outcome of the workshop discussions and building on existing evidence, we highlight three main needs for future science and policy agendas when dealing with nature-based solutions: (i) produce stronger evidence on nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation and mitigation and raise awareness by increasing implementation; (ii) adapt for governance challenges in implementing nature-based solutions by using reflexive approaches, which implies bringing together new networks of society, nature-based solution ambassadors, and practitioners; (iii) consider socio-environmental justice and social cohesion when implementing nature-based solutions by using integrated governance approaches that take into account an integrative and transdisciplinary participation of diverse actors. Taking these needs into account, nature-based solutions can serve as climate mitigation and adaptation tools that produce additional cobenefits for societal well-being, thereby serving as strong investment options for sustainable urban planning.

More than 50% of the world population now lives in urban areas, and the urban population is projected to reach 6.3 billion in 2050, most of which will reside in less developed countries (United Nations 2012). Urban green infrastructure as parks, forests, street trees, green roofs, gardens, and cemeteries is especially in an urbanized world of crucial importance as it is the main carrier of ecosystem services and improves the quality of life for urban residents. For instance, it supports regulating ecosystem services by increasing water infiltration (Haase and Nuissl 2007; Pauleit and Duhme 2000) and has positive impacts on the microclimate regulation (Gill et al. 2007; Hamada and Ohta 2010). Furthermore, urban green provides recreational facilities and offers urban residents the possibility to get in touch with nature (Matsuoka and Kaplan 2008) and supports the local food supply through allotment gardens (Barthel et al. 2013). Green infrastructure as a concept has been developed within the last two decades. It commonly refers to the connective matrices of green spaces that can be found in and around urban and urbanfringe landscapes (Mell 2008) or is simply defined as urban and periurban green space systems (Tzoulas et al. 2007). Due to its provision of numerous complementary ecological, economic, and social benefits, green infrastructure not only enables planners to develop multifunctional, innovative, and sustainable places (Mell 2008), but also promotes ecosystem and human health and wellbeing (Tzoulas et al. 2007) and provides abiotic, biotic, and cultural functions to advance and contribute to urban sustainability (Ahern 2007). Urban green infrastructure is closely related to human wellbeing and biodiversity in urban areas (Gaston 2010; Richter and Weiland 2012) and plays an important part in urban ecology. In recent years, in some published books on urban ecology, urban green was factored into investigations regarding how cities and their sociocultural, economic, and environmental systems can be managed in a way that allows producing sustainable cities (Alberti 2008; Endlicher 2011; Gaston 2010; Niemela et al. 2010; Richter andWeiland 2012). However, urban green mostly plays just a minor part when talking about atmospheric processes such as urban heat islands or climate change (Alberti 2008; Endlicher 2011). The studies on urban green infrastructure also focus on human perception, educational values of urban wilderness as part of urban green or social benefits by urban gardening (Richter and Weiland 2012; Endlicher 2011). However, only a few papers have investigated the recreational services in developing countries (Jim and Chen 2006, 2009). In some regional case studies, for instance, designers have paid more attention to implementing theoretical principles and government requirements in urban planning or landscape architecture, but lack technical support from ecological and geographical perspectives (Li et al. 2005; Jim and Chen 2003). Therefore, it is urgently necessary to improve the research scope and methods linking function, ecosystem services, planning, and the design of urban green infrastructure in the pursuit of urban sustainable development (Mao et al. 2012; Chang et al. 2007).

Soil sealing has negative impacts on ecosystem services since urban green and soil get lost. Although there is political commitment to stop further sealing, no reversal of this trend can be observed in Europe. This paper raises the questions (1) which strategies can be regarded as being efficient toward ecologically sustainable management of urban soil sealing and (2) who has competences and should take responsibility to steer soil sealing? The analyses are conducted in Germany. The assessment of strategies is carried out using indicators as part of a content analysis. Legal-planning, informal-planning, economic-fiscal, co-operative, and informational strategies are analyzed. Results show that there is a sufficient basis of strategies to secure urban ecosystem services by protecting urban green and reducing urban gray where microclimate regulation is a main target. However, soil sealing management lacks a spatial strategically overview as well as the consideration of services provided by fertile soils.

In the field of environmental policy, it is widely accepted that the exploitation of the environment in a rapidly urbanising world needs intervention by policy to meet sustainable development. But which laws, incentives, and awareness raising actions support sustainable development? According to the European Environment Agency, policy-effectiveness can be assessed by evaluating changes in driving forces, pressures, states, responses and impacts. However, these changes can only be measured after implementing responses and often cannot be directly related to specific policies or instruments. Therefore, this article argues that a specific framework is necessary which is introduced by a Response-Efficiency-Assessment (REA). For the methodological approach, the framework is developed through a multi-attribute decision method (MADM) using an analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The framework will be presented using the example of soil sealing management including 48 indicators to assess the efficiency of soil sealing management; one main challenge facing the environmental policy.