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Document: A spatial assessment of ecosystem services in Europe: methods, case studies and policy analysis - phase 1. (Doc-289)

289
Authors
Maes, J., Braat, L., Jax, K., Hutchins, M., Furman, E., Termansen, M., Luque, S., Paracchini, M.L., Chauvin, C., Williams, R., Volk, M., Lautenbach, S., Kopperoinen, L., Schelhaas, M., Weinert, J., Goossen, M., Dumont, E., Strauch, M., Görg, C., Dormann, C., Katwinkel, M., Zulian, G., Varjopuro, R., Ratamäki, O., Hauck, J., Forsius, M., Hengeveld, G., Perez-Soba, M., Bouraoui, F., Scholz, M., Schulz-Zunkel, C., Lepistö, A., Polishchuk, Y., and Bidoglio, G.
Year
2011
Title
A spatial assessment of ecosystem services in Europe: methods, case studies and policy analysis - phase 1.
Document Type
Report
Report Number
PEER Report No. 3
Place Published
Italy
Publisher
Ispra: Partnership for European Environmental Research
Abstract
In order to make a comprehensive and compelling economic case for the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity it is essential that we are able to understand, quantify and map the benefits received from ecosystems and biodiversity, and assign values to those benefits. The PRESS (PEER Research on Ecosystem Services) initiative is a collaboration between PEER (Partnership for European Environmental Research) research institutes addressing some of the knowledge gaps which stand in the way of performing a spatially-explicit, biophysical, monetary and policy assessment of ecosystem services in Europe. The starting point for this report is the need to upgrade the knowledge basis of land-use information and mapping to reflect the existing knowledge about ecosystem services and their social and economic values to better inform policy design and decision making processes. Ecosystem service maps have been developed for water purification and recreation as examples of regulating and cultural services, respectively. In the water purification case, the contribution of rivers, streams and lakes to purifying water through the removal of nutrient pollutants from runoff water was estimated in ton per km river network. The analysis showed that at a European scale, 1.5 milion ton of nitrogen is removed from surface waters, an amount equalling the combined input of point sources. The recreation study case has developed an approach for mapping recreation services offered by agricultural, semi-natural and natural areas considering also the accessibility of nature to citizens. Results show that the majority of the European population has access to areas where accessibility is high and where nature is of medium quality. For forest services, the assessment of methodological needs for mapping was completed. The analysis at regional and EU level revealed that there is high potential for integrating ecosystem services into policies and for supporting this with mapping exercises. The appearance of synergies and trade-offs and their relevance for decision-making is strongly dependent on the scale of the discussion and on the specific ways in which ecosystems are managed. This means that policies have a great potential to harmonise trade-offs or conflicts between ecosystem services e.g. by supporting specific management practices. There is a need for the development of hierarchical sets of ecosystem service indicators, following the European SEBI (streamlining European biodiversity indicators) example, but geographically explicit and linked to the EU-2020 Biodiversity Strategy.
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