Historic land-use and land-cover data are important inputs for assessing the impacts of human activity on the environment. Our goal was to reconstruct land-cover change from 1770 to 2010 and to evaluate its spatial determinants and underlying drivers for three study sites in diverse agroecological settings in Ryazan province in European Russia. We used historic maps and statistics as well as satellite imagery to reconstruct land-cover change and categorize it into six distinct land-management regimes. We applied spatially-explicit logistic regressions to assess which spatial determinants have had the strongest influences on land cover and how these influences have changed over time. Our results show how long-term land-cover trajectories can be modulated by broad political and economic alterations, rather than through gradual and local demand-side pressures from a rising population density and an increasing local demand for agricultural commodities.

Ongoing urbanization has led to a significant increase in the number of pets and has altered the relationships between pets and owners from primarily utilitarian to cultural (e.g., entertainment and health improvement). Existing classifications of ecosystem services (ES) (e.g., CICES) and nature’s contributions to people (NCP) explicitly consider only the ES provided by livestock and wild animals. This study attempted to translate perceived benefits and costs from owning pets (dogs or cats) in a megapolis into ES and disservices frameworks. The data were collected via an online questionnaire distributed through social media among residents of Moscow (Russia). The study showed that pets contribute to the well-being of city dwellers, for which owners are willing to put up with some potential risks and also bear monetary costs. Reasons for owning a pet have been translated into ES and NCPs ranging from regulating (4%) to provisioning (1%). However, cultural services linked to mental (26%) and physical (32%) health, spiritual, symbolic interaction (19%), and educational values (16%) have been the most prominent group. Considering an increase in pet owners, the interests and needs of this distinct stakeholder group need to be taken into account in urban planning and management. Pets’ integration into classifications and thus assessments of the urban ES can be a crucial step towards achieving this goal.

Research on urban ecosystem services (ES) covers many regions globally, yet significant gaps remain in several areas, including Russia. Furthermore, the number of publications on Russian ES is still very low, and most of them focus on ES assessment on the national level which results in an incomplete understanding of ES provision in Russian cities. To fill this gap, 197 publications on urban ES have been systematically reviewed. Those mostly included research on urban ES in Russia as well as in other cities of the world that represented case studies within international collaborations of Russian scientists with other partners. The paper presents the main aspects of the ES concept adoption and operationalizing in the Russian scientific discourse, by providing an overview of the current research on the relationships between humans and urban ecosystems. Spatially, the majority of studies focused on large cities; herewith field surveys, statistical analysis, expert evaluations, and mapping were often used as the main research methods. Four key challenge areas have been revealed: anthropogenic pressure on soils and vegetation, urban green spaces (UGS) and their quantity and quality for ES provision, the value of ES assessment for urban planning, and payments for ES. To address these challenges, future research should focus on the role of urban ES for city resilience and sustainability, ecosystem disservices, rural–urban interactions, broader testing and validation of ES mapping and assessment as well as better integration of ES in economic, regulatory and compensation mechanisms.

In the scientific community, ecosystem services (ESs) are well-recognized as a promising concept to more actively consider and plan for the multitude of benefits provided by the green environment and thus promote sustainable urban development. Yet, to have an impact on decision-making, the concept must spread from academia to practice. To understand to what extent ES have been adopted in practice and decision-making in Russia, we conducted a series of interviews and an online survey with both practitioners and scientists and complemented it by document analysis. Our results showed that ES are not adequately reflected in urban decision-making and planning processes. Moreover, we found no explicit references to ES in strategic urban planning and landscape development projects, although there are few implicit references in several reviewed documents. Among the identified challenges for better uptake of the concept in practice were many disagreements associated with the lack of a unified terminology, typology, and methods. Stakeholders understand the potential of applying ES valuation in practice, which includes a necessity to develop methodological materials and different tools based on real-life cases. Finally, a list of proposals on possible ways to better include ES in urban planning and in decision-making processes was formed by the respondents.