A coupling framework for assessing spatial inequities in regional provisioning ecosystem services and designing rooftop greening interventions: A case study of South Holland Province, Netherlands

Urbanization often produces mismatches between where ecosystem services are supplied and where people demand them, leading to pronounced service deficits in dense urban cores. Yet planners still lack integrative tools that can both diagnose these spatial inequities and directly inform targeted interventions. This paper develops a cross-scale framework that couples regional ecosystem service assessment with microscale greening design to mitigate inequities in provisioning ecosystem services. Using South Holland Province (Netherlands) as a case, we construct a Per Capita Provisioning Services Index (PSI) that links ecosystem service supply to population distribution and define “ecosystem service poverty” as areas falling into the lowest PSI class. Local spatial statistics (Getis–Ord G*) are then applied to identify statistically significant “coldspots” of ecosystem service poverty, contrasted with peripheral service “hotspots.” A six-dimensional performance matrix (food, water, energy, soil support and nutrients, habitat support, and cooling) is used to characterize coldspot types, revealing, for example, zones dominated by habitat and climate regulation deficits versus areas facing multi-dimensional shortages. Three-dimensional building data and explicit physical thresholds are subsequently used to identify suitable rooftops for greening in each coldspot type, and to match rooftop typologies with differentiated intervention strategies. The results demonstrate how targeted green roof configurations can respond to distinct local needs. By bridging macro-scale diagnosis and micro-scale design, the framework offers a transferable technical pathway for addressing ecosystem service poverty and advancing spatially just urban sustainability planning.