Ecosystem services, green infrastructure and spatial planning

Ecosystem services and green infrastructure do not appear to inform spatial policies and plans. National governments hardly identify their ecological networks and made an effort to integrate them into their spatial policies and plans. Under this perspective, an important scientific and technical issue is to focus on preserving corridors for enabling species mobility and on achieving connectivity between natural protected areas. In this respect, this special issue takes a step forward insofar as it aims at proposing a theoretical and methodological discussion on the definition and implementation of ecological networks that, beside guaranteeing wildlife movements, also provide a wide range of ecosystem services. The social and economic profile of this question is also relevant, since, in the long run, savings on public spending (e.g., due to reduced need for grey infrastructures aiming at contrasting soil erosion or at managing flood risk), savings on private spending (e.g., on water treatment costs) and potential green jobs creation are foreseeable. Moreover, indirect and less easily quantifiable social and health benefits (e.g., due to improved natural pollution abatement) are likely to occur as well.