Suchergebnisse

The EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 called on EU member states to map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territory (European Commission 2011). This knowledge-base should be designed to be a primary resource for developing Europe's green infrastructure, to identify areas for ecosystem restoration and to set a baseline against which the goal of 'no net loss" of biodiversity and ecosystem services can be evaluated. Thus, appropriate methods, information and data are needed to know where and how, for example, food, water, clean air, other materials and recreation are provided, and how climate, nutrients, natural disasters, pests and diseases are regulated. Information and data on actual ecosystem services (ES) demands, beneficiaries and potential mismatches with their supply location as well as ES quality and quantity are essential to make informed decisions for appropriate management of natural resources. ES are a very complex topic and their integrative assessment and implementation asks for truly transdisciplinary approaches ; The ESMERALDA project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme: grant agreement No 642007

A key task in the ESMERALDA project dealt with identifying appropriate case studies to test the 'flexible methodology' in its different stages of development. Case studies consist of working examples in which mapping and assessment of ecosystem services were applied to address specific decision-making problems. Testing is understood as an iterative process of co-learning that involves project partners and stakeholders, enabling the refinement of the 'flexible methodology' and the development of guidelines to support its application. Testing is conducted through a series of workshops in different European contexts, each addressing a different set of themes and regions. This paper illustrates the selection of case studies for testing the ESMERALDA 'flexible methodology' in its different stages of development. Particularly, case studies had to be selected in such a way that they are representative of: (i) the variety of existing conditions across the EU, in terms of data availability, spatial scale, levels of implementation of EU 2020 targets and expertise and experience in ES mapping and assessment; (ii) the geographical regions and biomes of the entire EU, including marine areas and the outermost regions; (iii) the variety of cross-EU themes relevant for ecosystem services, such as the Common Agricultural Policy, Green Infrastructure, Natura 2000 network, forestry strategy, water policy, energy, business and industry sectors and health; (iv) the variety of policy and planning processes that can be used to mainstream ecosystem services in real-life decisions, such as spatial and land use planning, water resource management, flooding under the EU climate adaptation action, energy policy, strategic environmental assessment, protected area planning.

A key task in the ESMERALDA project dealt with identifying appropriate case studies to test the 'flexible methodology' in its different stages of development. Case studies consist of working examples in which mapping and assessment of ecosystem services were applied to address specific decision-making problems. Testing is understood as an iterative process of co-learning that involves project partners and stakeholders, enabling the refinement of the 'flexible methodology' and the development of guidelines to support its application. Testing is conducted through a series of workshops in different European contexts, each addressing a different set of themes and regions. This paper illustrates the selection of case studies for testing the ESMERALDA 'flexible methodology' in its different stages of development. Particularly, case studies had to be selected in such a way that they are representative of: (i) the variety of existing conditions across the EU, in terms of data availability, spatial scale, levels of implementation of EU 2020 targets and expertise and experience in ES mapping and assessment; (ii) the geographical regions and biomes of the entire EU, including marine areas and the outermost regions; (iii) the variety of cross-EU themes relevant for ecosystem services, such as the Common Agricultural Policy, Green Infrastructure, Natura 2000 network, forestry strategy, water policy, energy, business and industry sectors and health; (iv) the variety of policy and planning processes that can be used to mainstream ecosystem services in real-life decisions, such as spatial and land use planning, water resource management, flooding under the EU climate adaptation action, energy policy, strategic environmental assessment, protected area planning.

Land use is one of the main drivers of ecosystem service provision. The forest transition theory has provided a productive framework for the analysis of land use dynamics worldwide, based on development trajectories leading from contraction to expansion of national or regional forest area. We propose that a similar generic framework can be developed to analyze and predict changes in the delivery of multiple ecosystem services, going beyond the simple consideration of changes in area of different land cover types to consider changes in their qualities in terms of ecosystem service supply. This framework depicts trajectories of provisioning, regulating and cultural services, and the resulting trade-offs when moving from agrarian societies focused on self-sufficiency to resource-extraction economies and amenity seeking societies. We illustrate the framework in the case of mountain socio-ecological systems, as key multifunctional systems which have undergone and are expected to undergo large changes in land use and ecosystem services as a result of global change. The analysis of case studies selected to picture the global diversity of mountain socio-ecological systems reveals how the interplay between ecological constraints and changes in demand as a result of societal change and specific policy instruments underpins past, current and expected ecosystem services. Finally we discuss expected impacts of drivers of global change such as climate or policy, and how the framework can be applied to understand transformations of mountain coupled human-environment systems.