Selecting sustainable drainage structures based on ecosystem service variables estimated by different stakeholder groups

Scholz, M ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8919-3838, Uzomah, V ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3971-4206, Almuktar, S and Radet-Taligot, J 2013, 'Selecting sustainable drainage structures based on ecosystem service variables estimated by different stakeholder groups' , Water, 5 (4) , pp. 1741-1759.

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Abstract

In times of recession, expert systems supporting environmental managers undergo a revival. However, the retrofitting of sustainable water structures is currently undertaken ad hoc using engineering experience supported by minimal formal guidance. There is a lack of practical decision tools that can be used by different professions for the rapid assessment of ecosystem services that can be created when retrofitting water structures. Thus the aim was to develop an innovative decision support tool based on the rapid estimation of novel ecosystem service variables at low cost and acceptable uncertainty. The tool proposes the retrofitting of those sustainable drainage systems that obtained the highest ecosystem services score for a specific urban site subject to professional bias. The estimation of variables was undertaken with high confidence and manageable error at low cost. In comparison to common public opinion, statistically significant differences between social scientists and the general public for the estimation of land costs using the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U-test were found. It was also surprising to find no significant differences in the estimation of habitat for species by civil engineers and ecologists. The new methodology may lead to an improvement of the existing urban landscape by promoting ecosystem services.

Item Type:	Article
Schools:	Schools > School of Computing, Science and Engineering Schools > School of Computing, Science and Engineering > Salford Innovation Research Centre
Journal or Publication Title:	Water
Publisher:	MDPI
Refereed:	Yes
ISSN:	2073-4441
Related URLs:	Publication
Depositing User:	Institutional Repository
Date Deposited:	16 May 2014 16:51
Last Modified:	15 Feb 2022 18:33
URI:	https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/31834

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