An unparalleled growth of urbanisation is putting under stress the already fragile equilibrium of natural resources: new solutions are required to address this change.
The workshop brings  together experts from different disciplines to discuss this crucial issue. Among these, Joachim Maes, Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission in charge for the EU project on mapping the ecosystem services and Riccardo Scarpa, Department of Business Economics, University of Verona, Durham University Business School, and Economics Department, Waikato Management School, one of the most globally mentioned researcher in the scientific literature on the issue.  

The ecosystem services concept is currently mainstreamed in science, policy and practice to highlight ecosystems’ contribution to societal development. Local, national and global initiatives are focusing on practically acknowledging the role of ecosystem services in planning policies, but the growing complexity of human-nature interactions asks for more transdisciplinary research efforts to assess the diversity of values (social, economic, ecological) and ultimately to provide better-informed decisions and to design effective instruments for ecosystems management.  During the workshop the following issues will be discussed:

– the mapping and assessment of the ecological flows of ecosystems
– the socio-economic valuation of the services produced by the ecosystems
– the institutional problems and solutions to achieve a better governance of ecosystems
– the contribution of ecosystems to the sustainability of urbanisation