Creating Value Through Ecosystem Service Management in Urban and Suburban Landscapes

This issue brief by the World Resources Institute and Cardno ENTRIX argues that the $40 billion US landscape management industry fails to capture the full economic, social, and environmental value of ecosystem services. It identifies seven key services—including carbon sequestration and water retention—and proposes a conceptual framework to standardize the quantification and valuation of these services in urban and suburban landscapes.

• Managed landscapes, including parks, golf courses, and residential lawns, provide critical ecosystem services such as air quality improvement, climate moderation, and stormwater retention that impact the well-being of populous communities. Despite the landscape management industry in the United States being valued at $40 billion, conventional business practices and sustainability efforts typically fail to account for the full range of these services, leaving significant value untapped.
• The World Resources Institute and Cardno ENTRIX identify seven specific ecosystem services derived from managed landscapes that can be quantified and economically valued: soil retention, water retention, local climate control, carbon sequestration, air quality, water quality, and aesthetic and recreation opportunities.
• The brief introduces a conceptual ecosystem service framework designed to operationalize and standardize these considerations in landscape management. The authors suggest that stakeholders should test this framework to develop an elaborated standard for evaluating managed landscapes and their services, supported by a detailed white paper titled 'A Framework to Quantify and Value Turfgrass Ecosystem Services (MacNair et al. 2013)'.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Creating Value Through Ecosystem Service Management in Urban and Suburban Landscapes. https://www.wri.org/research/creating-value-through-ecosystem-service-management-urban-and-suburban-landscapes

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Creating Value Through Ecosystem Service Management in Urban and Suburban Landscapes. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/creating-value-through-ecosystem-service-management-urban-and-suburban-landscapes.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Creating Value Through Ecosystem Service Management in Urban and Suburban Landscapes |url=https://www.wri.org/research/creating-value-through-ecosystem-service-management-urban-and-suburban-landscapes |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendcreating, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Creating Value Through Ecosystem Service Management in Urban and Suburban Landscapes}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/creating-value-through-ecosystem-service-management-urban-and-suburban-landscapes}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }