Urban Ecosyst (2017) 20:277291
DOI 10.1007/s11252-016-0592-7
Singapore as a long-term case study for tropical urban
ecosystem services
D. A. Friess 1
Published online: 24 August 2016
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Abstract Ecosystem services have gained rapid interest for
understanding urban-environment interactions. However,
while the term Becosystem services^ is relatively novel, their
principles have influenced urban planning for decades. This
study assesses the wealth of urban ecosystem services re-
search conducted in the tropical city state of Singapore, in
particular their historical local use and implicit and explicit
incorporation into land use planning, and shows how
Singapore is exporting their experiences to other cities around
the world. Singapore is an important model for urban ecosys-
tem services research, as the nation has experienced rapid
urban development and has a 100 % urban population.
Singapore also historically utilized ecosystem services in ur-
ban decision making long before the concept was popularized.
For example, forests were conserved since 1868 for climatic
regulation and for the watershed protection services provided
to Singapores first reservoirs, and green spaces have been
conserved for cultural ecosystem services since the 1920s.
Urban ecosystem services were formally incorporated into
national planning in the 1960s through the BGarden City^
urban planning vision. Singapore is now a leading case study
for tropical urban climatology and carbon sequestration,
exporting its experiences globally through bilateral agree-
ments and the construction of eco-cities in China, and the
creation and promotion of a global City Biodiversity Index
to assess urban ecosystem service provision in cities across
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article
(doi:10.1007/s11252-016-0592-7) contains supplementary material,
which is available to authorized users.
* D. A. Friess
dan.friess@nus.edu.sg
1
Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, 1 Arts
Link, Singapore 117570, Singapore
the globe. Consolidating and understanding case study cities
such as Singapore is important if we are to understand how to
incorporate multiple ecosystem services into large scale plan-
ning frameworks, and provides an important tropical example
in a research field dominated by western, temperate case
studies.
Keywords Carbon . City biodiversity index . Cultural
ecosystem services . Garden city . Urban heat island
Introduction
Urban and peri-urban areas continue to expand in extent and
impact, with more than 50 % of the worlds population now
living in urban areas (UN DESA 2015). Urban areas may
expand by an additional 1.2 million km2 by 2030, predomi-
nantly in the tropics (Seto et al. 2012). Urbanization has myr-
iad impacts on the surrounding environment from local to
regional scales, including habitat loss (Li et al. 2010), poor
environmental sustainability (Estoque and Murayama 2014),
air and water pollution (Wang et al. 2008; Zhao et al. 2015)
localized extinctions and reductions in biodiversity (Brook
et al. 2003) and shifts in biodiversity towards urban exploiter
species (McKinney 2002; Taylor et al. 2013). The influence of
urban development on the global environment is so great that
urban areas are now considered a key and increasing contrib-
utor to global climate change (Grimm et al. 2008), with their
own chapter in the most recent assessment report by the
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2014).
Academic and applied research has increasingly addressed
the conflicts between environmental concerns and urban de-
velopment, with a recent emphasis on integrating or reconcil-
ing aspects of the natural and built environments in order to
utilize the benefits, or ecosystem services that natural habitats
278
can provide to human populations. This has led to a rapid rise
in interest in Burban ecology^ and Burban ecosystem services^
research (Fig. 1), with 88 % of articles on Web of Science
containing the phrase Burban ecology^ being published since
the year 2000. This recent uptake has been credited with
mainstreaming environmental concerns into decision making
and policy processes (Gmez-Baggethun et al 2010).
While there has been recent interest in aspects of urban
ecology and ecosystem services, these are to some extent Bold
concepts reworded^. Ecosystem services were popularized by
agenda-setting publications such as Costanza et al. (1997) and
the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA 2005), though
were previously known as Benvironmental services^ in the
1970s, where they were used as metaphors and a communi-
cation tool for the public and policy makers (Lele et al. 2013).
In the decades prior to this, ecosystem services were also
implicit in many examples of urban planning, such as the
provision of green spaces in cities (Swanwick et al. 2003).
Thus, the recent interest in urban ecosystem services does
not fully acknowledge the historical efforts that researchers
and decision makers have made to incorporate (the often im-
plicit) aspects of ecosystem services into urban planning and
design.
This review considers the tropical city state of Singapore as
a case study for historical and contemporary urban ecosystem
services research. In particular, this review focuses on a) the
historical use of ecosystem services in Singapore, and the
scope of their implicit and explicit incorporation into national
planning; b) contemporary research across the breadth of ur-
ban ecosystem services in Singapore; and c) the export of
urban ecosystem service knowledge gained in Singapore to
other tropical and temperate cities. Singapore is an important
Fig. 1 Recent increases in the
use of the terms Burban ecology^
and Burban ecosystem services^
in the peer-reviewed literature.
This graph was constructed using
a keyword search in the scholarly
database Web of Science in
December 2015
Urban Ecosyst (2017) 20:277291
case study through which to study tropical urban ecosystem
services, as it has experienced rapid urbanization in recent
decades, though its structured urban planning framework has
put urban ecosystem services central to decision making for
almost 150 years. There are also secondary reasons to high-
light Singapore as an important case study for urban ecosys-
tem services; Singapore provides an alternative case study in a
research field that is heavily dominated by a focus on temper-
ate ecosystem services in western urban locations (Haase et al.
2014; Ziter 2016); and the variety of research conducted in
Singapore provides a large-scale integrated and multi-service
case study in a field that is dominated by single ecosystem
service studies in single cities (Ziter 2016).
Singapore as a case study for tropical urban
ecosystem services
Rapid urban development in Singapore
Singapore is a tropical City State located close to the equator
(1.3000 N, 103.8000 E; Fig. 2) in Southeast Asia. At the
time of the founding of colonial Singapore in 1819, the island
was predominantly forested. However, rapid agricultural de-
velopment soon led to rapid deforestation (Hassan 1969).
Agricultural development transitioned to rapid urbanization,
especially after Independence in 1965. Urban areas now cover
39 % of contemporary Singapores land surface (Yee et al.
2011; though most other green spaces are either underlain by
urban surfaces or otherwise disturbed or modified), and 100 %
of Singapores population is considered urban (UN DESA
2015).
Urban Ecosyst (2017) 20:277291
Fig. 2 A map of planning
regions in Singapore, with the
Central Planning Region (main
Central Business District urban
area) highlighted in grey. The
central locations of Singapores 4
Nature Reserves are also shown
Rapid post-Independence urbanization has led to the severe
loss of terrestrial habitats in Singapore (Corlett 1992). In 2007,
only 1.57 % of Singapore remained covered by natural habi-
tats such as primary lowland dipterocarp rainforest, freshwater
swamp forest, freshwater marsh and coastal mangrove forest
(data from Yee et al. 2011). The loss of most of Singapores
natural terrestrial habitats has led to catastrophic rates of ex-
tinction of up to 87 %, depending on taxa (Brook et al. 2003).
Singapores coastal environment has also experienced rapid
and substantial change (e.g., Yaakub et al. 2013; Lai et al.
2015). As a land-challenged, small island nation, Singapore
has conducted extensive land reclamation around its coastline,
especially in the post-Independence period in order to accom-
modate increasing populations and industrial development,
such that Singapores land area has increased by 33.5 % be-
tween 1957 and 2007 (De Koninck et al. 2008). This has
required the direct conversion of intertidal and subtidal habi-
tats, causing a reduction in intertidal mangrove area from
63 km2 in 1953 (Hilton and Manning 1995) to 6.59 km2 in
2007 (Yee et al. 2010). Reclamation has continued up until the
present day, reducing coral reef extent by 44 % between 1993
and 2011 (Lai et al. 2015).
Urban planning of the BGarden City^
While Singapore is considered 100 % urban (UN DESA
2015) and only ~1.5 % of Singapores natural ecosystems
remain, approximately 61 % of Singapores current (2007)
land area is vegetated in some form (Yee et al. 2011). The
provision of managed green spaces (e.g., parks, street trees)
within the dense urban matrix has been an intrinsic feature of
the planning and development of post-Independence
Singapore (Ooi 1992). Most notably, a focus on green space
279
provision began during the beginning of the post-
Independence period, when a national tree planting campaign
along roads and new urban developments was initiated (Yuen
1996; Fig. 3). In 1967 this transitioned towards the BGarden
City 1 ^ vision (Yuen et al. 1999); a long-term, cross-
government planning philosophy with the aim of transforming
Singapore into a clean environment with abundant urban
greenery. This initiative required the planting of more than 5
million trees in the 1970s1980s alone (Khan 1988; Kuan
1988). This vision was implemented through top-down con-
trol on land use planning, such as the establishment of the
cross-government Garden City Action Committee, which co-
ordinated planning responses across multiple government
agencies with a mandate for urban development (Ooi 1992).
Top-down control was also implemented through legislation,
for example the 1975 Parks and Trees Act required large con-
crete urban areas to be comprised of 3040 % green areas (Ooi
1992). The Singapore Governments integrated and cross-
government green space planning philosophy led to a marked
increase in publicly accessible green spaces since
Independence (Table 1), and the Garden City continues to play
a key role in shaping national identity in contemporary
Singapore (Henderson 2013).
Planning philosophies such as the Garden City attempt to
resolve urban-environmental conflicts under the emerging
paradigm of reconciliation ecology, where biodiversity is con-
served in highly altered anthropogenic habitats (Lundholm
and Richardson 2010). Importantly, urban ecosystem services
were implicitly at the heart of Singapores green space urban
planning in the period after Independence, even if the
1
While originally named the BGarden City^ vision, government agencies
now refer to this as the BCity in a Garden^.
280 Urban Ecosyst (2017) 20:277291

1. Pre-Independence (from the time of the British colonial

government in 1819 to Independence from Malaysia in
1965)
2. Post-Independence (1965 to 2000, covering the launch
and development of the Garden City vision)
3. Contemporary (2000 to 2016. While this also encom-
passes the Post-Independence period, the last 16 years
of research are differentiated to highlight recent develop-
ments in ecosystem services research and
implementation).
4. Future (2017 to 2061, encompassing the longest time
scale of Singapore government planning documents).
Fig. 3 A government Minister officiates at a tree planting event for the
Garden City development vision, March 1964. Source: Ministry of
Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of
Singapore
Provisioning ecosystem services
ecosystem services concept was not yet formally articulated.
One of the key drivers for the Garden City vision was to Freshwater provision
increase the provision of cultural (e.g., recreational,
wellbeing), watershed protection and microclimate regulation Freshwater provision is important in Singapore due to varying
ecosystem services (Ooi 1992). These ecosystem services in- patterns of extremes in rainfall (Ziegler et al. 2014; Chow et al.
crease the liveability of rapidly urbanizing cities (Henderson 2016a) linked to regional scale climatic drivers such as the
2013; MND 2013) by increasing thermal comfort, securing Southeast Asian monsoons and El Nio-Southern
water supplies and providing opportunities for health and Oscillation; extremes that have been measured regularly in
recreation. Singapore since the mid 1800s (e.g., Wheatley 1885). Water
scarcity in Singapore and the wider region is correlated to such
climatic events; rainfall in Singapore was more than 50 %
lower than the long-term average during the 1998 El Nio
Urban ecosystem services research and usage event (NEA 2016), and Singapore experienced a 2 month me-
in Singapore teorological drought in early 2014 that caused major water
rationing and a State of Emergency in nearby countries such
While multiple definitions of Becosystem services^ exist, the as Malaysia and Thailand (Ziegler et al. 2014). Extreme low
framework posited by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment rainfall patterns continued in early 2016, with a strengthening
(MEA 2005) is most commonly used (Fisher et al. 2009). The El Nio causing Singapores driest March since records began
MEA categorized ecosystem services into the various roles (Straits Times 2016). Thus, Singapore is ranked as one of the
they provide to human populations, broadly defined as provi- most water stressed countries in the world due to its exposure
sioning services (products obtained from the ecosystem), to large-scale climate phenomena, a relative lack of natural
supporting services (ecosystem services that support the pro-
duction of other ecosystem services), regulating services (ben- Table 1 Singapores increasing Park Provision Ratio (area of parks per
efits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes) and 1000 people) between 1955 and 2012
cultural services (non-material benefits people obtain from Year Park Provision Reference
ecosystems) (MEA 2005). Research in Singapore has contrib- Ratio (%)
uted to our understanding of a range of ecosystem services
deemed important in the urban context (sensu Bolund and 1955 0.14 Ooi 1992
Hunhammar 1999; Gmez-Baggethun et al. 2013), particular- 1967 0.36 Calculated from Yuen et al. 1999
ly cultural ecosystem services (CES), various regulating eco- 1982 0.65 Calculated from Yuen et al. 1999
system services, and to a lesser extent provisioning services. 1990 0.63 Calculated from Yuen et al. 1999
The following Sections describe and analyse the various 2010 0.75 Tan et al. 2013a, b
ecosystem services that have been researched, quantified or 2011 0.73 MND 2014
utilized in Singapore (SOI Table 1). Because of the long time 2012 0.74 MND 2014
period over which ecosystem services have been utilized in Govt target 0.80 Tan et al. 2013a, b
Singapore, they are discussed over 4 distinct time periods:
Urban Ecosyst (2017) 20:277291
water resources and a continually increasing demand, as
Singapores population and economy continue to grow into
the future (WRI 2015).
Modern Singapore was founded in 1819 due to its
strategic location for shipping during the British colonial
period (pre-Independence period), which in part relied on
freshwater resources close to the southern coast that
allowed the rapid resupply of fresh water supplies for
passing maritime traffic. However, Singapores limited
freshwater supplies were quickly over-exploited by ship-
ping and a rapidly increasing population, leading to the
impoundment of Singapores first reservoirs, such as the
Thomson (later renamed Macritchie) reservoir in the
1860s. Freshwater in contemporary Singapore is now pro-
vided by 17 reservoirs, with the majority developed in the
1970s during the post-Independence period (Ziegler et al.
2014). Reservoirs were most commonly created by dam-
ming small estuaries and converting them from brackish
to fresh water, leading to the substantial loss of intertidal
mangrove habitats across Singapore (Friess et al. 2012).
Reservoirs now cover 3700 ha of Singapores land area
(MND 2013).
Currently, Singapores local reservoirs are unable to pro-
vide enough freshwater to satisfy local demand, so contempo-
rary Singapore pursues a 4 national tap strategy, where local
reservoirs are supplemented by water imported from reser-
voirs in neighbouring Malaysia, as well as desalinisation and
water reclamation locally (Tortajada 2006). Water agreements
with Malaysia expire in 2061, so plans have been created to
secure freshwater provision in the future with the creation of
new reservoirs, such as the proposed Southern Reservoir close
to the Central Business District along the south coast of the
main island (URA 2014).
Fig. 4 Examples of provisioning
ecosystem services used in
Singapore. Logs from trees
harvested in Singapore outside a
sawmill, 1954 (a); a postcard
showing pineapples harvested in
Singapore, early 1900s (b);
preparing land for cultivation,
early 1960s (c); fishing off the
coast of Singapore, early 1960s
(d). Sources: Ministry of
Information and the Arts
Collection, courtesy of National
Archives of Singapore (a),
Courtesy of National Archives
of Singapore (b), Primary
Production Department
Collection, courtesy of National
Archives of Singapore (c, d)
281
Food and raw material provision
While initially surprising for what is considered a highly
urbanised and industrialised City State, Singapore was heavily
reliant on provisioning ecosystem services for food and raw
materials during the pre-Independence period, though the use
of these services declined substantially during the post-
Independence and contemporary periods.
Natural ecosystems were utililzed heavily in the pre-
Independence period for the extraction of provisioning ser-
vices (e.g., timber; poaching of plants and animals for food).
However, the extraction of these services on public lands by
the local population is prohibited in contemporary Singapore
by legislation such as the 2005 Parks and Trees Act.
Food provided by agriculture relies on a range of
supporting and regulating ecosystem services from natural
ecosystems, such as pollination, pest control and nutrient cy-
cling, though agricultural areas can also be considered ecosys-
tems in their own right (Power 2010) that produce provision-
ing services related to food. Agriculture covered more than
50 % of Singapores land areas by the late 1930s, though
agriculture during the pre-Independence period was primarily
cash crops for export, such as rubber, coconut, pineapple and
gambier (Dobby 1940; Fig. 4). Thus this may not be consid-
ered as a locally utilized provisioning ecosystem service.
Agriculture for local consumption covered a relatively small
area due to poor soil fertility for repeated cropping, though
increased post-Independence, so by the 1970s approximately
50 % of vegetables consumed in Singapore were grown local-
ly (Hill 1980). However, agriculture increasingly declined
throughout the post-Independence Period as land prices for
urban development outcompeted profits from agricultural pro-
duction (Hill 1980), though its contribution to the economy,
282
organized and directed by the governments Primary
Production Department, was still considered important
(Khan 1988). Now, only 661 ha (~0.9 % of contemporary
Singapores land area) is used for agricultural purposes, and
only 7 % of vegetables are now produced locally (AVA 2015).
Singapores coastal zone provides multiple fish and shell-
fish provisioning services, though their contribution to local
food security has been substantially smaller than agriculture.
Nearshore fishing for subsistence use was an important provi-
sioning service of coastal and marine ecosystems during the
pre-Independence period (Gibson-Hill 1950) and became in-
creasingly industrialized during the early post-Independence
period before declining in importance more recently. In the
1970s, fishing by Singapore trawlers (both inside and outside
Singapores territorial waters) provided approximately 50 %
of the countrys requirements (Hill 1980), though this is esti-
mated to be less than 6 % today (AVA 2015).
Singapores coastal and marine ecosystems also contribute
to aquaculture production. While wild fishing has declined
over time, aquacultural production has increased, especially
after encouragement by the government through national
planning and the establishment of research and training facil-
ities during the post-Independence period (FAO 1976).
Aquaculture continued to increase between the post-
Independence and contemporary periods from 84 facilities
covering 46.5 ha of land and sea space in 1995 (Chou and
Lee 1997), to 117 farms covering 103 ha in 2015 (AVA 2015).
These farms provided only 3 % of total local fish consumption
in 1995 (Chou and Lee 1997) and less than 6 % today (AVA
2015). Government policies require an increase in aquaculture
to satisfy 15 % of local demand in the future (AVA 2014).
However, Singapore has limited sea space to increase aqua-
cultural production further, due to extensive coastal reclama-
tion, space conflicts with shipping and specific hydrodynamic,
water depth, water turbidity and salinity requirements for
aquaculture facilities (Chou and Lee 1997).
Regulating ecosystem services
Watershed protection
Freshwater provisioning services in Singapore (described
above) are protected through the promotion of associated reg-
ulating ecosystem services relating to the protection of the
surrounding catchment area, or watershed. Most commonly,
watersheds have been protected by forest buffers around res-
ervoirs, recognizing the role of vegetated areas in controlling
runoff and reducing the passage of sediment and pollutants
into waterbodies (Brauman et al. 2007). Watershed protection
services have been utilized in land use planning in Singapore
since the pre-Independence period, with the designation of
forests around the Thomson Reservoir as a municipal
Urban Ecosyst (2017) 20:277291
catchment nature reserve in the 1860s. This was a new land
use designation at the time, showing that the colonial govern-
ment recognized the importance of tropical forests in provid-
ing watershed protection services (Webb 1998; ODempsey
2014). Links between reservoirs and surrounding forests
meant that the Thomson reservoir at that time was seen as an
environmental Bblessing and a curse^ (ODempsey 2014);
while the reservoir flooded an area of agricultural land, sec-
ondary forest and freshwater peat swamp, it also led to the
legal protection of surrounding secondary forests for their
ecosystem service value, and restricted their future degrada-
tion and loss. Importantly, this protected area (now known as
the Central Catchment Nature Reserve) remains to this day,
encompassing 2889 ha of predominantly secondary forest,
surrounded by urban development. This forest continues to
provide important watershed protection services in contempo-
rary Singapore, capturing runoff and buffering the (now four)
reservoirs in the Central Catchment Nature Reserve from the
urban impacts of water pollution and sedimentation.
While research on watershed ecosystem services generally
focus on vegetated ecosystems, as in this review, the urban
ecosystem itself provides watershed ecosystem services in
Singapore (sensu Wong and Brown 2009), by collecting wa-
ter. One of Singapores most recent reservoirs the Marina
reservoir constructed in 2009 is supplied by a 100 % urban
catchment, covering almost one-sixth of Singapores land ar-
ea. However, urban areas are less able to provide watershed
protection services such as the reduction of sedimentation and
associated pollutants into the Marina reservoir (Nguyen et al.
2012), so vegetation has been incorporated into the urban
fabric to enhance this regulating service. For example, tree
planting events in the 1960s to promote the Garden City vi-
sion were accompanied by educational posters describing the
important watershed protection services provided by urban
vegetation (Fig. 5). The role of urban vegetation in watershed
Fig. 5 Watershed protection was a justification for tree planting during
the formation of the Garden City vision. The sign in the background is
translated as BReplanting trees protects the water and brings the rain,
prevent droughts^. Source: Ministry of Information and the Arts
Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore
Urban Ecosyst (2017) 20:277291
protection is incorporated into national law today; the 2001
Sewerage and Drainage Act requires a minimum percentage
of permeable (vegetated) surface for new developments, as
well as measures by developers to reduce sediment erosion
and peak runoff from their sites (PUB 2014).
Climate regulation
Singapore exhibits a profound Urban Heat Island (UHI) ef-
fect, with urban temperatures substantially higher (>3.5 C)
than surrounding green spaces (Roth and Chow 2012) due to
changes in albedo and thermal bulk properties as surfaces
transition from rural to urban materials. There is a distinct
seasonal variation in Singapores UHI, with a greater urban-
rural temperature difference during the drier southwest mon-
soon period (Chow and Roth 2006).
Green spaces play an important role in regulating urban
temperatures and reducing UHI through albedo and evapo-
transpiration (e.g., Taha 1997); a role that was identified in
pre-Independence Singapore since at least 1848 (Webb 1998).
The engineer J.F.A. Nair noted in 1879 that Ba reserve is kept
round the principal hill [of Bukit Timah] for climatic
purposes^ (Corlett 1995). Singapore has since grown to be a
hub for urban climatology research; UHI studies have been
conducted in Singapore since at least 1964, when university
students measured ambient air temperature in several urban
and rural locations (Nieuwolt 1966), measuring a UHI mag-
nitude of 1.53 C. Importantly, this Singapore-based study
was the first to be published in English for a tropical city, and
formed the basis of further studies in tropical Southeast Asia,
such as Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) (Roth and Chow 2012).
Since this study, at least twelves others investigating
Singapores UHI have been published (summarized by Roth
and Chow 2012), greatly contributing to our understanding of
surface and canopy-level UHI in tropical cities. These studies
highlighted the importance of green space provision, showing
that temperatures recorded within green spaces were consis-
tently lower than urban temperatures. Some studies also
showed the differential contribution of climate regulation eco-
system services between different types of green space, with
thermal spectral satellite analysis showing a reduced cooling
function of golf courses and defence installations compared to
natural secondary rainforest (Nichols 1993).
Roth and Chow (2012) describe the rapid expansion of
research in Singapore investigating UHI mitigation and adap-
tation options. These include climate-sensitive planning, and
the creation of eco-towns and eco-precincts that incorporate
technologies and planning options to reduce UHI intensities.
Many of these options incorporate climate regulation ecosys-
tem services of vegetation into building and landscape design.
Studies in Singapore have shown that options such as green
roof provision can reduce micro-scale air temperatures and
reduce heat transfer through rooftops (Wong et al. 2002,
283
2003; Wong and Jusof 2010). The urban landscape itself pro-
vides challenges to maximising climate regulation ecosystem
service provision, and building design must be optimized in
order to create the optimal biophysical conditions for urban
green space options to survive and continue to provide eco-
system services at required levels (e.g., Tan and Ismail 2015).
Carbon sequestration and storage
Atmospheric carbon dioxide sequestration and storage in bio-
mass and soils are key ecosystem services provided by vege-
tated ecosystems (though biomass and soil can also be a
source of carbon over shorter timescales, as shown by
Velasco et al. (2013) in a study of urban street trees in
Singapore). The role of vegetation in mitigating carbon diox-
ide emissions is especially important in urban ecosystems
(Nowak and Crane 2002), which are responsible for the ma-
jority of climate change emissions globally (Grimm et al.
2008). Emissions are important in the Singapore context, with
annual per capita emissions more than double the average for
the rest of Asia due to Singapores level of development and
urbanized environment (Velasco and Roth 2012).
Due to the reporting requirements for the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), car-
bon services are high on the Singapore government agenda,
with a national-scale vegetation carbon accounting project cur-
rently implemented (Straits Times 2013). Nationwide, coarse
estimates suggest that Singapore has a vegetated carbon density
of approximately 60 Mg C ha1 (Friess et al. 2016), which is
substantially higher than the mean value of 100 cities across the
globe (both tropical and temperate) assessed by Dobbs et al.
(2014). This is due to three factors. Firstly, Singapores urban
development strategy and its awareness of urban ecosystem
services has encouraged large areas of vegetated habitat to be
conserved or integrated into urban construction. Secondly,
Singapores tropical location incorporates ecosystems that can
store higher carbon densities than their temperate equivalents.
Thirdly, affluent cities such as Singapore are associated with
greater demand for green space (sensu Dobbs et al. 2014), with
greater potential for vegetated carbon storage.
When estimated across different vegetation types, a large
proportion of Singapores carbon stock is held in secondary
rainforest, due to the large area they cover (Table 2).
Secondary rainforest in Singapore contains an average of
274 Mg C ha1, with 52 % of this carbon stock found in the
first 3 m of the soil column (Ngo et al. 2013). Relatively
undisturbed primary rainforest in Singapore contained a
higher carbon density (an average of 337 Mg C ha1) due to
larger trees (Ngo et al. 2013), though cover less than 0.003 %
of the area covered by secondary rainforest across the city.
Our knowledge of carbon storage in other ecosystems e.g.,
coastal mangrove forests is also increasing. Estimates for sin-
gle sites have been conducted similar to Ngo et al. (2013) in
284 Urban Ecosyst (2017) 20:277291

Table 2 Estimated distribution of vegetated carbon stocks in Singapore across vegetated habitats with available data

Habitat Carbon stock Area (ha) National carbon % of vegetated Reference

(Mg C ha1) stock (Mg C) carbon assessed

Secondary forest 274.2 15,283 4,190,560 87.2 Ngo et al. 2013; Yee et al. 2011
Mangrove forest 469.3 960 450,572 9.4 Friess et al. 2016
Roadside trees Unknown Unknown 83,540 1.7 Tan et al. 2009
Primary forest 336.7 118.3 39,832 0.8 Ngo et al. 2013; Yee et al. 2011
Seagrass 138 201 27,738 0.6 Yaakub et al. 2014; Phang et al. 2015
Parkland trees Unknown Unknown 13,850 0.3 Tan et al. 2009

See also Friess et al. 2016

mangrove forests, seagrass, and ephemerally vegetated mud- Board by marketing CES in a bid to attract more overseas
flats and sandbars. Mangroves were estimated to contain an visitors (Fig. 6). More recently, Singapores large parks have
average of 497 Mg C ha1 (Phang et al. 2015) to a soil depth of been linked by linear park connectors (that run alongside
1 m, which is 181 % greater than the average estimated for the drainage canals), which are used frequently by a large propor-
secondary forest site (to a soil depth of 3 m) in Singapore. tion of local (especially older) residents, allowing regular con-
Mangroves hold significantly higher carbon densities compared tact with nature (Yuen et al. 1999). Thus, Singapore has incor-
to terrestrial forests as their anoxic soils accumulate organic porated many of the landscape ecology features promoted by
peat deposits from leaf litter and detritus (Donato et al. 2011). Jim (2013) to optimize green space geometry and connectiv-
Uniquely in Singapore compared to other vegetation types, ity, such as making use of linear features to create park con-
mangrove carbon has also been mapped at the national scale nectors that link up other green spaces. However, some have
using remote sensing. Using this approach, it was estimated
that Singapores 960 ha of mangroves contain approximately
450 000 tonnes of carbon, equivalent to the annual emissions
of more than 620 000 residents (Friess et al. 2016). Upscaling
using remote sensing (as opposed to upscaling per hectare
averages by total area) is important for disturbed vegetated
habitats that predominate Singapore, because above-ground
mangrove biomass in this study showed substantial spatial
variation in carbon density.

Cultural ecosystem services

Green spaces provide important CES to urban populations,

ranging from tangible services such as education, recreation
and tourism, to intangible services such as spiritual and reli-
gious values, aesthetics and values relating to a sense of
place (Gomez-Baggethun et al. 2013). CES have arguably
had the strongest influence on Singapores urban development
relative to other urban ecosystem services. CES were implicit
in the urban planning of pre-Independence Singapore, with
parks and open spaces created in the early 1920s to act as
the Bbreathing lungs^ of an increasing urban Singapore and
to provide respite to the densely populated urban population
(Kong and Yeoh 1996). Similarly, the provision of CES was a
cornerstone of the national Garden City campaign after
Independence, in part driven by a desire to increase urban
liveability and the health and wellbeing of residents (Lim Fig. 6 A travel poster uses the Garden City concept for tourism branding,
1976; Henderson 2013). The Garden City concept has even 2004. Source: Singapore Tourism Board Collection, courtesy of National
been used for tourism branding by the Singapore Tourism Archives of Singapore
Urban Ecosyst (2017) 20:277291
questioned the link between green space access and perceived
wellbeing in Singapore, due to low thermal comfort in
Singapores parks due to high temperatures and humidity
(Saw et al. 2015; Chow et al. 2016b).
While the focus of urban planning in the post-
Independence period was on the incorporation of CES
into terrestrial planning (primarily through the provision
of terrestrial urban parks), coastal ecosystems also have
huge potential to provide CES to urban populations in
Singapore. Coastal habitats such as beaches provide im-
portant services such as recreation to local and interna-
tional visitors, while other habitats such as mangrove for-
ests hold important spiritual and religious value, especial-
ly for communities that used to live in villages
(kampongs) within the mangrove (Friess et al. 2012;
Thiagarajah et al. 2015). Analysis of social media photo-
graphs shows that these coastal parks are used for multi-
ple different CES, including recreation and landscape ap-
preciation within the same space (Richards and Friess
2015). Access to coastal ecosystems through waterfront
parks is planned to increase further by the year 2030, in
part because of the different CES they deliver compared
to terrestrial parks (MND 2013).
As with many rapidly urbanising locations, authors
have noted a change in the type of CES valued by the
local population over time as urbanization took place dur-
ing the Post-Independence Period (Thiagarajah et al.
2015). Older residents in Singapore have expressed con-
cern at the loss of their familiar cultural landscape and
childhood memories (summarized by Tan et al. 2016),
and younger populations perceive a different or reduced
value of CES provided by urban green spaces (Kong and
Yeoh 1996). As populations have become increasingly
disconnected from the surrounding natural environment,
a shift in perceived value has occurred. Through a survey
of newspaper archives, historical photographic sources
and present day interview and questionnaires,
Thiagarajah et al. (2015) showed that mangrove forests
are valued differently for their CES in the contemporary
period compared to the 1970s80s (post-Independence
period). Historically, mangroves were valued for their in-
tangible CES, such as sense of place, cultural heritage
and other intrinsic attributes of liveability, as a large
group of people either lived in villages in or near the
mangrove, or had greater access to mangrove areas.
However, contemporary Singaporeans have much more
restricted access to mangrove forests and now favour tan-
gible CES more strongly, especially those related to clear-
ly defined recreational, educational and tourism activities
that occur in clearly defined mangrove spaces
(Thiagarajah et al. 2015). Such shifts in perception have
implications for the types of CES that todays decision
makers may value over others.
285
The future for Singapores urban ecosystem services
Continued urban development in Singapore
Singapores rapid urban development is expected to continue
into the future, with the population expected to increase from
5.54 million today to a maximum potential of 6.9 million by
2030 (NPTD 2013). Several challenges exist to planning for a
rapidly increasing population in the future, relating to land
shortfalls and land use conflicts (Huang 2001). To address
these issues, future urban development is outlined through a
robust urban planning framework. Strategic Concept Plans are
created every 10 years and have a 4050 year planning time
horizon, and are implemented through statutory Master Plans
that have a 1015 year time horizon and are updated every
5 years (Meng et al. 2015). Such plans have been enacted
since 1958, originally to improve poor urban conditions in
the post-war period (Huang 2001), and currently zones poten-
tial land uses up to the year 2030. These plans may require
additional land reclamation of 5600 ha (MND 2013) an
increase of 7.9 % over Singapores current land area.
Reclamation plans bring important economic benefits, but
would be expected to have impacts on ecosystem service pro-
vision, especially in coastal ecosystems (Li et al. 2010; Lai
et al. 2015).
Incorporating urban ecosystem services into future
development planning
Singapore continues to explicitly and implicitly institutional-
ize urban ecosystem services into land use planning through
several policy and planning mechanisms (Table 3). Most plans
explicitly focus on balancing economic growth and a high
quality living environment, befitting a nation that is still ur-
banizing and expanding. The more recent plans explicitly de-
scribe the role of urban ecosystem services in Singapore, and
some outline specific targets to increase urban ecosystem ser-
vice provision. For example, the 2013 Land Use Plan calls for
more green roof technologies and green space provision to
reduce UHI (MND 2013). Similarly, the Singapore
Sustainable Blueprint 2015 outlines a (presumably non-
statutory) required increase in skyrise greenery from 61 ha
in 2013 to 200 ha by 2030 in order to specifically produce
watershed and climate regulation ecosystem services (MEWR
2015). The Singapore Sustainable Blueprint 2015 also pro-
motes cultural ecosystem services by requiring an increase
in park provision ratio to 0.8 ha per 1000 people by 2030,
and an increase in linear nature ways from 21 to 180 km
over the same time period (MEWR 2015).
Building upon the current incorporation of green spaces
into several planning frameworks across government, urban
ecosystem services can be an important communication tool
to highlight the role and value of ecosystems to other decision
 286

Table 3 Recent national level planning documents and legislation that implicitly or explicitly target the promotion of urban ecosystem services

Plan Year Description Lead Agency Target ecosystem Time horizon Reference
services

Concept Plan
Singapore Green Plan
Parks and Trees Act
National Climate Change Strategy 2012
Land Use Plan
Master Plan
Sustainable Singapore Blueprint
Our Water, Our Future
Parks and Waterbodies Plan
2001 Strategic land use and transport plan to ensure Urban Redevelopment Authority - Green space provision 20412051 URA 2001
sufficient land for economic growth and (implicit ecosystem services)
population increase while providing a good - Cultural
quality living environment
2002 Plan to respond to challenges of sustaining Ministry of Environment - Green space provision 2012 MEWR 2002
a quality environment while pursuing economic progress and Water Resources (implicit ecosystem services)
2005 Planting, maintenance and conservation of trees and National Parks Board - Green space provision unknown AGC 2016
plants within national parks, nature reserves, tree (implicit ecosystem services)
conservation areas, heritage road green buffers and - Cultural
other specified areas
Plan to create a climate for sustainable growth and securing National Climate Change Secretariat - Coastal protection unknown NCCS 2012
a liveable environment for the future - Microclimate regulation
2013 Plan to support a larger population while preserving a high Ministry of National Development - Green space provision 2030 MND 2013
quality living environment. (implicit ecosystem services)
- Cultural
- Microclimate regulation
2014 Comprehensive and integrated planning approach that ensures Urban Redevelopment Authority - Green space provision 20242029 URA 2014
social and economic needs are met, while maintaining (implicit ecosystem services)
a liveable and sustainable environment - Cultural
2015 Outlines national vision and plans for a more liveable and Ministry of Environment - Cultural 2030 MEWR 2015
sustainable Singapore, to support the diverse needs and and Water Resources - Hydrological
growing aspirations of Singaporeans - Microclimate regulation
2015 Water strategies and Plans to expand capacities in water Public Utilities Board - Cultural 2061 PUB 2015
supply, used water management and drainage against - Hydrological
the challenges of urbanisation, climate change and
rising cost of energy
ongoing Classifying types and spatial distribution of publicly accessible Urban Redevelopment Authority - Green space provision Unknown URA 2015
green spaces in Singapore (implicit ecosystem services)
- Cultural
Urban Ecosyst (2017) 20:277291
Urban Ecosyst (2017) 20:277291
makers. A vast literature exists on the relationships between
ecosystem services and decision making, though several is-
sues have been highlighted that impede the stronger incorpo-
ration of ecosystem services into decision making. These in-
clude a lack of detailed information of ecosystem services at
scales relevant to decision makers (Turner and Daily 2008); a
particular problem for Singapore due to its small size and
heterogeneous land cover.
Models of ecosystem service provision and tradeoffs with
development are useful communication and decision-making
tools, allowing decision makers to test development scenarios
and understand their impacts on ecosystem service provision
at multiple scales. Ecosystem service provision models do not
publicly exist for the whole of Singapore, though several po-
tential tools are available to produce such models. One of the
more commonly used tools is Integrated Valuation of
Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST); a scenario-
based ecosystem service assessment tool designed to identify
key management decisions and alternative strategies, and to
project ecosystem services in response to such decisions
(Daily et al. 2009). InVEST has been used by governmental
decision makers in the US (Hawaii, Massachusetts,
Minnesota), India, Barbados and others for uses as varied as
coastal zone management and forestry management (Natural
Capital Project n.d.), and could be applied to Singapore as this
review has highlighted that a wealth of nationally-specific
data on various ecosystem services already exists. Future stud-
ies need to be useful to active decision making, and their focus
and scale determined in collaboration with the users of such
information. In particular, future studies should be conducted
in such a way that spatial information can be easily incorpo-
rated into larger scale modelling frameworks for use by deci-
sion makers.
Exporting Singapores urban ecosystem services
knowledge to other cities
Exporting urban ecosystem service knowledge
Urban ecosystem services and urban ecology is increasingly
an important contributor to Singapores economy, both at
home and overseas. At small scales, companies are now de-
signing and exporting technologies that exploit ecosystem
services, such as rooftop and vertical greenery. The
Singapore government has established resource centres such
as the Centre for Urban Greenery and Ecology (a joint devel-
opment established in 2007 between the National Parks Board
and the Singapore Workforce Development Agency) to devel-
op and support this industry further. Singapore now hosts the
annual Green Urbanscape Asia international exhibition and
conference on landscape, leisure, construction and
287
technology, as a forum to exchange knowledge and technolo-
gies in the Asian region.
At larger scales, Singapores technologies and experiences
are exported through government-level urban planning collab-
orations with international partners. China is seeking to be-
come a world leader in ecologically-sound urbanization, and
has established over 100 Eco-Cities to promote growth in
different regions of the country, and to develop technologies
and planning methodologies that reduce pollution, though
these initiatives have been criticized for representing a tech-
nological fix to much larger societal problems (Caprotti 2014).
Launched in 2007, the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City was
seen as a platform for collaboration in environment protection,
resource management and energy conservation (NEA 2014).
In particular, the project was driven by Chinas desire to utilize
Singapores extensive experience in urban and resource plan-
ning that incorporated elements such as urban ecosystem ser-
vices to create more sustainable cities (World Bank 2009;
Peng and Zhang 2012; Chang et al. 2016). Tianjin was chosen
as a site in part because of its need for urban ecosystem ser-
vices, particularly the reduction of urban pollution and the
need to secure presently unstable water supplies (Chang
et al. 2016). The Tianjin Eco-City is an example of
Singapore exporting its knowledge and experiences in urban
ecosystems services in order to help other cities mitigate or
adapt to these highlighted urban challenges.
A Singapore framework for ranking urban ecosystem
services provision
Ecosystem services have had an implicit influence on urban
planning in Singapore for decades through the Garden City
philosophy. However, as a City State that continues to expe-
rience development pressures on its environment, Singapore
has begun leading the development of new objective frame-
works that explicitly incorporate ecosystem services into ur-
ban decision making. Under the auspices of the Convention
on Biological Diversity (CBD), the City Biodiversity Index
(CBI) is a new framework now being trialed that evaluates
urban biodiversity, ecosystem services and conservation ef-
forts through 23 quantitative and qualitative measures of bio-
diversity, green space and governance (CBD 2012). Four of
these indicators focus explicitly on ecosystem services
(Fig. 7). These indicators, relating to water quantity regulation
(estimated by proportion of permeable surfaces), carbon stor-
age and microclimate regulation (estimated by proportion of
tree canopy cover), and cultural ecosystem services (estimated
by proportion of parks and number of education visits), are
arguably the more important in the urban context, and are
broadly reflective of those discussed above.
To ecosystem services researchers, the broad metrics used
to quantify the CBI indicators may seem overly simplistic.
Vegetated carbon storage, for example is spatially
288
Fig. 7 Examples of ecosystem
service indicators that have been
incorporated into the Singapore
City Biodiversity Index
heterogeneous (Friess et al. 2016), so will not be adequately
encompassed by a simple metric such as percentage tree can-
opy cover averaged across an entire city. Similarly, the recre-
ational value of green spaces may not be adequately measured
through proxies such as proportion of parks per 1000 people,
because different types of parks provide different CES for
different members of the community. Similarly, problems
were encountered when applying ecological parameters to
ecosystem service indicators in the CBI, as ecosystem service
indicators require socio-economic data to better estimate their
benefits to human populations (Kohsaka et al. 2013).
However the simplicity of the CBI indicators and their ease
of data collection allows the CBI to be more readily applied by
planners and decision makers, and complexity or more rigor-
ous data can be added to each indicator if it is available for a
particular city. For example, Lisbon (Portugal) added data
on carbon sequestration to their calculation of urban car-
bon storage (Kohsaka et al. 2013). Emerging and novel
ecosystem service quantification techniques, such as the
use of social media photographs to quantify cultural eco-
system services (Richards and Friess 2015; Tenerelli et al.
2016) may also be useful tools to add city-specific indi-
cators to the CBI. The simplicity and flexibility of the
CBI has seen its use trialed globally. Most recently, the
CBI has been applied to 79 cities in Japan, allowing the
first national upscaling of the city-based CBI (Uchiyama
et al. 2015). The expanded use of the CBI in different
environments will allow it to be used for comparisons
between cities, as well as assessing single city urban bio-
diversity and ecosystem service potential.
Conclusions
With the rapid recent rise in contemporary paradigms such as
urban ecology and urban ecosystem services, it is important to
reflect upon and highlight their historical foundations.
Singapore gives us such an opportunity, where urban ecosys-
tem services such as watershed protection have implicitly
Urban Ecosyst (2017) 20:277291
guided national development for over 150 years. Singapore
gives us a long temporal scale with which to assess how de-
cision makers have valued and incorporated key urban eco-
system services, especially cultural, watershed, climate regu-
lation and carbon ecosystem services into urban development
and planning, and allows us to chart the understanding of such
ecosystem services over 4 distinct time periods (pre-
Independence, post-Independence, contemporary and future
Singapore) and the role of national policy interventions such
as the Garden City vision in shaping and promoting ecosystem
service use.
A long-term view allows us to see that Singapore has val-
ued a range of ecosystem services since at least 1819, starting
with the local extraction of provisioning services relating to
freshwater, timber and food, similar to many small settlements
in Southeast Asia at that time. However, it seems that ecosys-
tem services were implicitly incorporated into the urban plan-
ning of pre-Independence Singapore since at least the 1860s
(for example for watershed protection), even if the concept of
ecosystem services, and the physical and ecological processes
contributing to them, were relatively unknown by decision
makers. Ecosystem services relating to liveability (especially
microclimate regulation and cultural ecosystem services)
seem to have gained much more prominence in the post-
Independence period through the Garden City vision as
Singapore continued to urbanize rapidly, which have contrib-
uted to the BClean and Green^ image that Singapore is
portrayed for today. The further incorporation of ecosystem
services into urban planning and the mindsets of decision
makers will be increasingly important in the future as
Singapore continues to develop, and urban-green space con-
flicts continue.
The rapid development and environmental loss experi-
enced in Singapore is emblematic of developments in the
broader Southeast Asian region (Brook et al. 2003), with a
number of tropical Southeast Asian cities experiencing rapid
rates of land cover change (e.g., Estoque and Murayama 2013,
2015). Case study cities such as Singapore, where tropical
ecosystem services research has been concentrated, can act
Urban Ecosyst (2017) 20:277291
as living laboratories, with experience and technologies now
being disseminated to other cities across the tropics that are
facing similar tensions between the environment and urban
development. The experience gained over decades of research
in Singapore will help other tropical cities maximize their
ecosystem service potential for sustainable urban develop-
ment into the future.
Acknowledgments This study was supported by the Ministry of
Education (R-109-000-166-112). Thank you to the National Parks
Board for their continued support for urban ecosystem services research.
Thank you to the National Archives of Singapore, the Ministry of
Information and the Arts, Primary Production Department (now the
Agri-food & Veterinary Authority) and the Singapore Tourism Board
for permission to reproduce their photographs. Thank you to Winston
Chow (National University of Singapore) for assisting with the translation
of Fig. 5.
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