Valoración social de funciones ecosistémicas de las quebradas en Quito, Ecuador

Understanding how people perceive and value ecosystems is key to their conservation and sustainable management. In fact, several processes of loss and degradation of wild spaces in cities are partly determined by the positive or negative perception that their inhabitants have regarding these spaces. This, in turn, determines changes in the provision of ecosystem services or functions, which may mean greater vulnerability to natural disasters and / or loss of resilience of these urban ecosystems. In the city of Quito, Ecuador, we compare two territories to understand the sociocultural perception and assessment that its inhabitants carry out for different wild spaces (streams). Likewise, we compare this assessment between different social groups, according to age, type of relationship with space, and place of residence in the city. We classify the responses according to the domains of relational, intrinsic, and instrumental value. It is argued that the "invisibility" of ecosystem functions for the population generates little appreciation and care of the spaces that provide them. We consider that this is influenced by the type of use that occurs of the spaces, which in turn is conditioned by the spatial configuration and public policy actions incidents in the place.