Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES) are central to the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020. Action 5 of the Strategy’s second target asks all EU member states to map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territories. Such comprehensive mapping and assessment builds on several individual tasks and their systematic integration. Therefore, an integrated and operational framework is needed, supporting and coordinating these activities. The presented framework builds on existing work done by the European Commission’s MAES Working Group and provides a clear nine-step approach including the identification of relevant questions or themes to be addressed, identification and mapping of ecosystem types, ecosystem condition and ecosystem services, their integration and dissemination of results. This framework can be used to set-up related research and development initiatives and to guide involved scientists, decision-makers and practitioners through the different steps and related tasks of the process.
Identifying and applying the appropriate method for ecosystem services mapping and assessment is not trivial. To provide guidance in this task, this paper describes the creation of a database for existing studies on mapping and assessing ecosystems and their services, which records relevant information to the ecosystem studies (e.g. methods used, the scale, ecosystem type, ecosystem service categories) and other relevant attributes that need to be considered. This database, therefore, forms the basis for an online ecosystem service ‘methods finder’. Our results provide an overview of the database itself (883 entries until April 2018) and the consultation within the ESMERALDA consortium that shaped its development, as well as providing an overview of the final mapping and assessment methods describing their spatial distribution. This work helps identify the main gaps and opportunities for alignment and development of commonalities in analytical approach amongst the individual Member States. The results illustrate the different conditions, dimensions and geographical contexts in Europe, information that can be used as background to help the development of a flexible methodology for mapping and assessing ecosystem services in Europe. The paper concludes with a discussion on how the typology of methods can be used in initiatives that aim to integrate ecosystems and their services in decision-making and planning. This work highlights some challenges for future activities on mapping and assessment of ecosystem services in the EU.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.