Applying urban ecosystem accounting to municipal policy and planning in Oslo, Norway

Summary

The system of environmental and economic accounts (SEEA) is compiled by Statistics Norway (SSB). SSB has no regular statistics production related to ecosystem accounts. The URBAN EEA project has encouraged work on a production line for land cover accounts combining register data and remote sensing data. Since 2019, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) and SSB participated in the EU H2020 MAIA project, aimed at demonstrating ecosystem accounting in the EU (and Norway). SSB predicts that regular production of land use accounts, including the detection of actual green cover in urban areas, will take place from 2021. At a national level, Norway is prioritizing the mapping of nature types and indicators for good ecological status. Mapping and accounting of ecosystem services (ES) is not prioritized by national environmental authorities. The work of URBAN EEA has focused on extending a set of green cover accounts (NDVI) produced by Oslo Municipality for the period 2011-2017 using orthophotos. The URBAN EEA project has invested most of its time in ecosystem condition accounting of urban vegetation using alternative remote sensing, including Lidar and Sentinel-1 and -2. We have explored the accuracy of remote sensing alternatives for the purpose of urban greenspace management, modelling down to individual tree canopy level. In addition, URBAN EEA has focused on mapping and valuing priority topics for the municipality of urban biodiversity, pollinator habitat, storm water mitigation and recreation. In addition, we have modelled the regulating services of urban tree canopy specifically. In this chapter we focus on urban ecosystem extent accounting, with a focus on classification error in an urban development context. We ask whether land cover classification error allows ecosystem accounts to fulfil one of its basic purposes – that of detecting significant trends in ecosystem extent as a basis for trends in ecosystem service supply. This is discussed in light of land cover change in Oslo.