Cultural ecosystem services and public preferences: How to integrate them effectively into Smart City planning?

Green and blue infrastructure is implemented increasingly often in cities. The objective of this paper is to investigate specific elements of green and blue infrastructure and types of facilities that are the most preferred among city residents. This paper shows the results of a questionnaire survey and a discrete choice experiment from Prague. Among the 14 elements of green and blue infrastructure examined, public parks were the most preferred element followed by urban forests, rivers/streams and lakes/lagoons. The results of the discrete choice experiment also show that Prague residents prefer presence of benches, bins and toilets in the green and blue infrastructure areas. Small-scale mental mapping was also used to show how these survey and choice experiment results can be used in specific parts of the city. The mental mapping also further confirmed that Prague residents mostly prefer public parks and forests in summer. Streets, metro station surroundings and squares are the least preferred areas.