Reflective Essay on Ecosystem Services as a Tool for Resilient Built Environments

Introduction

This course was presented by Katharina Hecht, a PhD in Environmental Sciences from Utrecht University, whose work connects ecological research with practice in the built environment. During this week, Katharina explained the concept of “Ecosystem Services as a Tool for Resilient Built Environments”. The lecture offered a deep dive into the concept of ecosystem services and how they can be applied to the built environment, exploring their potential for creating more regenerative and resilient urban environments.

The concept of Ecosystem Services (ES) is not contemporary. Early reflections on this idea can be found as far back as around 400 BC in Plato’s Critias. However, the term was only formally organized in recent decades through frameworks such as the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES). But what are ecosystem services? The latest version published by CICES (Version 5.2) defines ecosystem services as the contributions that ecosystems make to human well-being, and as distinct from the goods and benefits that people subsequently derive from them. This can also be understood as what ecosystems do for people (besides what we can obtain).

Although the concept is not new, what is new is how we can use it.  As the definition of resilience shifted from a purely engineering-based perspective to a socio-ecological approach, the way we perceive nature within the urban environment also changed. This shift helped us realize that resilience is shaped not only by socio-cultural systems but also by ecological ones. As a result, a broader conversation around urban resilience has emerged, focusing on the role of ecological processes and ecosystem services in urban systems.

Even though we know ecosystem services are well studied and applied in natural environments, the story differs when we look into urban contexts. Despite the existence of a solid scientific foundation, the research and applications of ecosystem services remain focused on non-urban ecosystems, creating a knowledge gap when trying to transfer these concepts to cities and built environments.

The class presented by Katharina Hecht introduces a powerful paradigm shift to address this gap, she invited us, as future resilient professionals, to reflect critically on our relationship and how we think about ecosystems, to change the way we understand this relationship from a hierarchical (where humans, and particularly urban environments, are placed above nature) to a mutual and interdependent relationship. In this perspective, ES are understood as benefits shared in and by nature, reflecting the connection between all living beings and their environment.

As we started discussing how ecosystem services can be used as a tool for resilient built environments, we first need to ask ourselves a series of fundamental questions:

• If we know cities are one of the main drivers of ecological degradation, why are ecosystem services still mostly discussed outside the urban environment? 
• What would it really mean to design buildings as part of living ecosystems rather than isolated technical objects?

And last but not least.

• What if buildings were not only consumers of resources, but active contributors to urban resilience?

These are some of the questions I asked myself during this course and will be discussing in this blogpost. 

Summary and Analysis

This class challenges the way we traditionally understand the role of ES within urban environments, by inviting us to shift our perspective in which urban systems (and particularly buildings) are seen as inherently negative elements, while ecosystem services are reserved almost exclusively for natural landscapes.

Throughout the class, Katharina proposed a different way of thinking, in which buildings were reframed as active components of urban ecological systems: not only as consumers of energy, water, and resources, but as elements within the urban scale with the potential to provide ecosystem services. What if instead of simply generating emissions and waste, these buildings could contribute to air purification, climate regulation, flood mitigation, or the creation of habitats that offer protection for other species? Changing the narrative that buildings are often a burden to the natural systems and turning them into opportunities to actively support them. But how do we do this? 

As someone trained in natural resources management, it’s easier for me to see why ES matter in cities. My work relied on figuring out ways to bring nature closer to human activities, and one of the main challenges was always to explain the importance of these issues to other professionals, and the task was not simple. 

In this course, however, we learned a concrete way to do so. By applying a design process and the tools introduced by Katharina, we analyzed existing buildings, considering their functions, patterns of use, climate context, and building regulations. We identified local problems such as flash flooding, air pollution, and urban heat islands, and selected nature-based solutions (NBS) that could respond to these challenges.

This approach is consistent with recent research showing that combining ecosystem services analysis with nature-based solutions can support urban planning and design at the neighbourhood scale (Semeraro et al., 2021). We used NBS because they are particularly effective in urban contexts, as they can address multiple challenges while generating a wide range of ecosystem services and co-benefits (Castellar et al., 2021).

Through this approach, buildings can move from just consuming resources and facing environmental or social problems to actually providing benefits for both people and the environment. 

My team applied this methodology on the UIC Delta & Gamma building in the Barcelona campus, where we identified noise pollution, summer heat, and drought as the key challenges we wanted to address. We then carried out a biophysical assessment of ecosystem services generation through building design, using ES assessment tools such as the Ecosystem Intelligence Tool  and by thinking of buildings as living systems.

After that, we selected the most appropriate strategies using tools such as  Kumu and ECOEVA, and we also developed a scorecard to evaluate the contribution of each strategy to ecological resilience and to the functionality of the urban context.

Some of the strategies selected were vegetation for noise insulation, xeriscaping (use of native or drought-resistant plants), oriented sound barriers (louvers), solar panels, green roofs, roof ponds, and underground water storage tanks. We also created a 3D render so we can see how these strategies may look like in the UIC buildings.

This kind of exercise can only be done by understanding that the implementation of ES in buildings is not an outcome, but a design process where a transdisciplinary approach is fundamental. This type of methodology is particularly powerful when applied from the first stages of the building process, not when the building is already created,  allowing the design decisions selected to be part of the design and not just modifications.  

At the same time, it is important to remember that real change at the city scale cannot rely only on new buildings. Most cities are made of existing structures, and if these are not progressively transformed, the introduction of ES in the urban environment will inevitably be slow and limited. This means that the transition is not only about designing new projects, but also about rethinking and upgrading the buildings that already shape our cities. 

Doing this can sound ambitious, and in some ways, it is. But while this may initially sound really complex to achieve, the course emphasized that such a transformation can be achieved through design and creativity.

 

Challenges and ways forward 

Despite the significant progress made in recent years, the implementation of ecosystem services as a tool for creating resilient urban environments faces several challenges. One of the main difficulties is that ecosystem services are still not a formalized concept within urban contexts, particularly at the scale of individual buildings. As a result, existing frameworks and assessment tools remain relatively new and are limited in real-world applications.

Another major challenge is the persistent gap between policy, design, and implementation. ES may appear in environmental policies, yet they often stop there, rarely making their way into urban planning rules, building standards, or design decisions. This makes it difficult for designers and practitioners to apply ecosystem services in a consistent and meaningful way.

However, I think these challenges should not be understood just as barriers, but rather as indicators of a paradigm shift that is still in progress. 

Despite all these challenges, the class also highlighted several promising ways forward. For example, the adoption of ecosystem services as a connecting framework across scales and disciplines. This means that by using ecosystem services to link buildings, neighborhoods, and urban systems, it becomes possible to move beyond isolated interventions toward a more integrated understanding of urban resilience where a transdisciplinary approach is needed. 

Lastly, bottom-up approaches play a key role as well, as we saw in this class; despite the importance of policies and formal frameworks, much of this transition will be in the hands of designers, architects, ecologists, urban practitioners, and communities. It is crucial to mention that this approach does not offer ready-made solutions. Instead, it asks for optimism, creativity, and to rethink conventional paradigms by experimenting, being creative, and considering ecosystem services from the very beginning of the design process. By doing this, buildings can slowly increase their ecological functionality and contribute to urban resilience.

Conclusion

Change is difficult and usually takes time, but it is already happening. We can see it in the assessment methods that are emerging, in the tools being developed, and in the first real applications in some cities. Little by little, the idea of applying ecosystem services in buildings is entering the conversation. This discussion is necessary so that more people can become aware of this paradigm shift.

In the end, this course made me realize that the question is not whether ecosystem services can be applied to buildings, but whether we are willing to change the way we design and think about cities. Moving from buildings as isolated technical objects to buildings as living parts of urban ecosystems requires more than new tools or methods; it requires a change in mindset.

For me, this course was not only about learning a new framework, but an invitation from Katharina to see things differently, and to take responsibility for the kind of cities we want to create. She challenged us to carry this way of thinking forward and to apply it in practice as future professionals working toward urban resilience.

I would love to see this approach applied more widely around the world. Most of the buildings that implement ecosystem services today are considered landmarks or beacons of change and sustainability. But what if this way of thinking became the norm? If enough buildings begin to change, then cities themselves can slowly begin to change as well, moving from places that mainly consume resources to places that also produce ecosystem services. 

This may sound idealistic, but not so long ago, people thought cities couldn’t achieve climate neutrality, and today they are already a reality in many parts of Europe. So yes, as difficult as it may be to implement, it can be done. And in the meantime, we can start this transition one building at a time.

 

Glossary of tools

Tools used:

•  Ecosystem Intelligence Tool: Ecosystem Intelligence is a platform that translates complex ecological relationships into measurable data to support nature-based decision-making and design.
•  Kumu: Kumu is a visual mapping platform that helps you organize and explore complex systems and relationships.
• ECOEVO: An experimental platform for exploring ecosystem services in the built environment.

 

Other tools of interest:

• InVEST:  Is a suite of free, open-source software models used to map and value the goods and services, the results are either in biophysical terms or economic terms.
• ARIES: AI-driven platform that links data and models to assess ecosystem services and inform sustainable environmental decisions
• i-Tree:  Delivers current, peer-reviewed tree benefits estimation science from the USDA Forest Service that provides urban and rural forestry analysis and benefits.

 

Reference

• Castellar, J. A. C., Popartan, L. A., Pueyo-Ros, J., Atanasova, N., Langergraber, G., Säumel, I., Corominas, L., Comas, J., & Acuña, V. (2021). Nature-based solutions in the urban context: terminology, classification and scoring for urban challenges and ecosystem services. Science of the Total Environment, 779, 146237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146237
• Haines-Young, R. (2023). Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) V5.2 and Guidance on the Application of the Revised Structure. Retrieved from https://www.cices.eu/content/uploads/sites/8/2023/08/CICES_V5.2_Guidance_24072023.pdf
• Semeraro, T., Scarano, A., & Pandey, R. (2022). Ecosystem services analysis and design through nature-based solutions in urban planning at a neighbourhood scale. Urban Sci, 6, 23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147106

By Salome Valencia de  la Peña
Student at UIC Barcelona
Urban Resilience for Sustainability Transitions Master’s Programme (2025-2026)