Ecosystems support and enhance human life through providing ecosystem services. The use of ecosystem services changes over time, as environmental conditions and people’s lifestyles change. Urbanisation is an extreme form of environmental change that can be expected to drastically alter the use of ecosystem services. We analysed people’s childhood memories to quantify temporal changes in indicators of 11 ecosystem services in Singapore – a country which has rapidly urbanised over the past 70 years. We performed semi-structured interviews to elicit indicators of ecosystem service use from memories of childhood lifestyles and activities, comparing two groups of respondents; those born before 1960, and those born between 1989 and 1999. The two respondent groups recalled significantly different uses of ecosystem services, with a higher proportion of the pre-1960 respondents benefitting from locally-produced provisioning and regulating services, and a higher proportion of 1989–1999 respondents using most cultural services. This study thus demonstrates that urbanisation can decrease people’s reliance on local ecosystems to provide raw materials, while leading to greater appreciation of cultural benefits. Management of ecosystem services in the present must consider the possibility that supply and demand of future ecosystem services may change in potentially unpredictable ways.

生态系统通过提供生态系统服务来支持和改善人类生活。随着环境条件和人们生活方式的改变，生态系统服务的使用也会随着时间而改变。城市化是环境变化的一种极端形式，可以预期将大大改变生态系统服务的使用方式。我们分析了人们的童年记忆，以量化新加坡这11个生态系统服务指标的时间变化，新加坡在过去70年中已迅速实现城市化。我们进行了半结构化访谈，从对儿童生活方式和活动的记忆中得出了生态系统服务使用的指标，并对两组受访者进行了比较。1960年之前出生的人和1989年至1999年出生的人。这两个受访者群体回想起生态系统服务的不同用法，1960年前的受访者中，有更多比例受益于本地生产的提供和监管服务，而1989-1999年的受访者中，使用大多数文化服务的比例较高。因此，这项研究表明，城市化可以减少人们对当地生态系统提供原材料的依赖，同时可以使人们更加欣赏文化利益。当前对生态系统服务的管理必须考虑未来生态系统服务的供求可能以潜在不可预测的方式变化的可能性。同时导致人们更加欣赏文化利益。当前对生态系统服务的管理必须考虑未来生态系统服务的供求可能以潜在不可预测的方式变化的可能性。同时导致人们更加欣赏文化利益。当前对生态系统服务的管理必须考虑未来生态系统服务的供求可能以潜在不可预测的方式变化的可能性。