Abstract Urban ecosystem service (UES) is becoming an influential concept to guide the planning, design, and management of urban landscapes towards urban sustainability. However, its use is hindered by definitional ambiguity, and the conceptual bases underpinning its application remain weak. This is exemplified by two different but equally valid interpretations of UES: “urban ecosystem services”, referring to ecosystem services from analogs of natural and semi-natural ecosystems within urban boundaries, and “urban ecosystem services”, a much broader term that includes the former group as well as urban services in a city. While we recognize that a single definition of UES is not possible nor necessary as its application is context-dependent, it is nevertheless useful to clarify the relationships between these interpretations to promote consistent use, and importantly, explore how a broader interpretation of UES might advance its applications in areas that have been neglected. We developed a conceptual framework that links UES to natural and human-derived capital to explain the relationships between the dual meanings of UES and proposed three normative propositions to guide its application: (1) integrate holistically multiple components of natural capital to provide UES, (2) reduce dependence on non-renewable abiotic resources and human-derived capital, and (3) enhance UES through technology. The framework we developed helps to resolve the current ambiguity in the meanings of UES, highlights the need to recognise neglected aspects of natural capital important for UES, and can be used to clarify relationships with related concepts conveying dependence of human well-being on nature.

中文翻译：

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解开城市生态系统服务概念的概念框架

摘要 城市生态系统服务（UES）正在成为指导城市景观规划、设计和管理实现城市可持续性的一个有影响力的概念。然而，它的使用受到定义模糊的阻碍，支撑其应用的概念基础仍然薄弱。这体现在对 UES 的两种不同但同样有效的解释中：“城市生态系统服务”，指的是来自城市边界内自然和半自然生态系统类似物的生态系统服务，以及“城市生态系统服务”，一个更广泛的术语，包括一个城市的前群以及城市服务。虽然我们认识到 UES 的单一定义是不可能也不必要的，因为它的应用是依赖于上下文的，尽管如此，澄清这些解释之间的关系以促进一致使用是有用的，重要的是，探索对 UES 的更广泛解释如何推动其在被忽视的领域中的应用。我们开发了一个概念框架，将 UES 与自然和人类衍生资本联系起来，以解释 UES 双重含义之间的关系，并提出三个规范命题来指导其应用：（1）整体整合自然资本的多个组成部分以提供 UES，（ 2) 减少对不可再生非生物资源和人力资本的依赖，以及 (3) 通过技术增强 UES。我们开发的框架有助于解决当前 UES 含义的模糊性，强调需要认识到对 UES 很重要的自然资本被忽视的方面，