Comparison of methods for a landscape-scale assessment of the cultural ecosystem services associated with different habitats

Abstract

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) are widely acknowledged as important but are often neglected by ecosystem service assessments, leading to a representational bias. This reflects the methodological challenges associated with producing robust and repeatable CES valuations. Here we provide a comparative analysis of three approaches for non-monetary valuation of CES, namely a structured survey, participatory GIS (PGIS) and GPS tracking methods. These were used to assess both recreation and aesthetic value of habitats within the New Forest National Park, UK. The association of CES with habitats enabled results of all three methods to be visualised at the landscape scale using maps, strengthening their value to conservation management. Broadleaved woodland and heathland habitats were consistently valued highly for both CES, whereas agricultural land tended to be associated with low values. Results obtained by the different methods were positively correlated in 6 out of 10 comparisons, indicating a degree of consistency between them. The spatial distribution of CES values at the landscape scale was also generally consistent between the three methods. These results highlight the value of comparative analyses of CES for identifying robust results, providing a way forward for their inclusion in land management decision-making. ARTICLE HISTORY

Using social media, machine learning and natural language processing to map multiple recreational beneficiaries

“…Whereas the abovementioned studies demonstrate clear differences in 'stated preferences', few studies have looked at this topic from a 'revealed preference' perspective, namely quantifying the spatial patterns of actual recreational activities of different groups, possibly because of the difficulty to conduct such studies with traditional survey methods. It has been previously shown that despite similarities between results in assessing cultural services at a landscape; where resources are limited, a revealed methodology is recommended (Hernández-Morcillo et al, October 2013;Milcu et al, 2013;Gosal, Newton and Gillingham, 2018). Visitation data in Protected Areas (PAs) has been historically challenging to acquire, as its collection is time consuming, troubled by a variety of sampling issues and often competes with other research needs (WaldenSchreiner et al, 2018b).…”

Quantifying cultural ecosystem services: Disentangling the effects of management from landscape features

“…Similarly, much research has been based on hypothetical scenarios and uses stated preference methods (such as choice experiments) (Elsasser, Meyerhoff, & Weller, ; Irvine & Herrett, ). The potential limitations of stated preference methods are well documented, as people's behaviour and actions often differ from their statements (Gosal, Newton, & Gillingham, ). If forest managers are to more effectively incorporate planning for ecosystem services into forest design, they need the tools to understand how real forest management alternatives are valued in their local contexts.…”

“…Similarly, much research has been based on hypothetical scenarios and uses stated preference methods (such as choice experiments) (Elsasser, Meyerhoff, & Weller, 2016;Irvine & Herrett, 2018). The potential limitations of stated preference methods are well documented, as people's behaviour and actions often differ from their statements (Gosal, Newton, & Gillingham, 2018).…”

The Importance of Cultural Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity for Landscape Visitors in the Biosphere Reserve Swabian Alb (Germany)

“…Economic, monetary valuation tools appear to be problematic for many CES [12,25]. Alternatively, we integrated insights from different non-economic studies, including interviews on personal experiences or preferences [26][27][28], participatory mapping [29][30][31][32] and the assessment of proxies such as visible manifestations of CES in the landscape [33]. Using comparative analyses of CES provides additional validation for results [31], therefore our study combines the aforementioned approaches to achieve a broad, multi-disciplinary view, while explicitly involving landscape visitors and examining small-scale landscape features.…”

“…In contrast to many other surveys which focused on a few specific cultural services cf. [4, 30,31,34,35], we included a wide range of subgroups.…”