Environmental restoration, an ecological approach to enhance ecosystem services and biodiversity in urban areas, Magnuson Park, Seattle/Washington

People’s life has been always determined by the importance of their basic needs. From time to time, the world has made significant progress in terms of infrastructure and technology, pathways to good living conditions. Urban areas house high concentrations of people. They are also reservoirs of extremely important ecological niches for biodiversity. Nowadays, there has been a surge interest to study these ecological components within cities. Built‐up places have always been seen as concrete jungles for human settlement with very few units of green spaces where nonnative taxa are dominant and homogenous. In a near future, it is predicted that up to 85 percent of the population of the world will inhabit urban spaces, still seeking to meet primary needs and opportunities offered in cities. This settlement in urban areas creates rapid urbanization which in return has harmful impacts on the environment. Urban sprawl is the main cause of ecosystem degradation, destruction, and ecological discontinuity. This anthropic phenomenon raises awareness considering how significantly it contributes to biodiversity depletion. Increasing conurbations lead to drastic environmental changes. Urban areas can also be healthy natural environments when mixed with blue and green infrastructures, which functionalities are beneficial to the environment. Services provided by these ecological communities are known as ecosystem services. They include but are not limited to pollution reduction, soil protection, carbon sequestration, cooling effect, and air purification. Sustainable urban development can be driven from healthy ecosystems, which are substantial for human well‐being and important economic growth. To better understand the growing concerns and find key actions to be able to fight against them, this study uses different scenarios to evaluate the restoration effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services through a typology with two main categories. One part describes the structure of different ecosystems, which are the compound of blue and green infrastructures along with their respective biodiversity. On the other hand, it outlines the substantial function of these ecosystems that are beneficial to the environment. The dominant idea of ecological restoration is to make cities resilient and sustainable through a process divided into phases that lead to a holistic approach to reconstructing, rehabilitating, and enhancing the healing of damaged, degraded, and destroyed ecosystems. The research process of this study was more of a theoretical approach using qualitative data to assess ecosystem services provided by blue and green infrastructures in cities. The objectives were summed up in the anticipated answers that are the hypotheses that presumably expect that environmental restoration through the Best Ecosystem Management Practices (BEMP): a) Enhance internal and external ecosystem services and improve biodiversity, and b) Further ameliorate the states of urban ecosystems as to make cities livable and resilient.