Evidence of Similarities in Ecosystem Service Flow across the Rural-Urban Spectrum

Indunee Welivita, Simon Willcock, Amy Lewis, Dilshaad Bundhoo, Tim Brewer, Sarah Cooper, Kenneth Lynch, Sneha Mekala, Prajna Paramita Mishra, Kongala Venkatesh, Dolores Rey Vicario and Paul Hutchings
Additional contact information
Indunee Welivita: School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor LL57 2DG, UK
Simon Willcock: School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor LL57 2DG, UK
Amy Lewis: School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor LL57 2DG, UK
Dilshaad Bundhoo: Countryside and Community Research Institute, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham GL50 4AZ, UK
Tim Brewer: Cranfield Water Science Institute, Cranfield University, Cranfield MK43 0AL, UK
Sarah Cooper: Cranfield Water Science Institute, Cranfield University, Cranfield MK43 0AL, UK
Kenneth Lynch: Countryside and Community Research Institute, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham GL50 4AZ, UK
Sneha Mekala: Independent Researcher, Hyderabad 500046, India
Prajna Paramita Mishra: School of Economics, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad 500046, India
Kongala Venkatesh: School of Economics, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad 500046, India
Dolores Rey Vicario: Cranfield Water Science Institute, Cranfield University, Cranfield MK43 0AL, UK
Paul Hutchings: Cranfield Water Science Institute, Cranfield University, Cranfield MK43 0AL, UK

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-38

Abstract: In 2006, the world’s population passed the threshold of being equally split between rural and urban areas. Since this point, urbanisation has continued, and the majority of the global population are now urban inhabitants. With this ongoing change, it is likely that the way people receive benefits from nature (ecosystem services; ES) has also evolved. Environmental theory suggests that rural residents depend directly on their local environment (conceptualised as green-loop systems), whereas urban residents have relatively indirect relationships with distant ecosystems (conceptualised as red-loop systems). Here, we evaluate this theory using survey data from >3000 households in and around Hyderabad, India. Controlling for other confounding socioeconomic variables, we investigate how flows of 10 ES vary across rural, peri-urban and urban areas. For most of the ES we investigated, we found no statistical differences in the levels of direct or indirect use of an ecosystem, the distance to the ecosystem, nor the quantities of ES used between rural and urban residents ( p > 0.05). However, our results do show that urban people themselves often travel shorter distances than rural people to access most ES, likely because improved infrastructure in urban areas allows for the transport of ES from wider ecosystems to the locality of the beneficiaries’ place of residence. Thus, while we find some evidence to support red-loop–green-loop theory, we conclude that ES flows across the rural-urban spectrum may show more similarities than might be expected. As such, the impact of future urbanisation on ES flows may be limited, because many flows in both rural and urban areas have already undergone globalisation.

Keywords: cultural; provisioning; regulating; green-loop; red-loop; peri-urban; India; nature’s contributions to people; urbanisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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