Capacity and flow of selected cultural ecosystem services: Case study of microregion Terchovská valley

Abstract

Cultural ecosystem services (ESs) are assessed less often than other ES; however, their importance for human well-being is crucial. In this article, we focused on an assessment of capacity and flow of three selected cultural ES – Recreation and tourism, Natural and cultural heritage and Aesthetics and landscape character. The capacity in terms of cultural ES focuses on the potential of landscape features to provide cultural ES, while flow provides us with data about areas where these cultural ES are consumed by people. We can assume that in areas with higher capacity to provide cultural ES, there is also a higher flow of these services. The areas with the highest capacity to provide selected cultural ES are natural areas, such as natural and semi-natural meadows, pastures, alpine areas and wetlands, and cultural-historical sites. Such areas in our study area are the Malá Fatra National Park and areas with dispersed settlement, which we rank as the most valuable parts of the microregion Terchovská Valley. There are also areas with the highest flow of cultural ES. To know the relationship between the capacity of the landscape to provide cultural ES and the flow of cultural ES in this study area could be useful in terms of landscape protection and management.