Operationalising the ecosystem services approach in water planning: a case study of indigenous cultural values from the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia

Ecosystem services: building informed policies to orient landscape dynamics

“…Moreover, under this second approach, stakeholder engagement and participation are considered from the ES perspective, integrating the perspectives of beneficiaries and end users, ES managers, and decision-makers with their perceptions and preferences with respect to natural resources. Under this wider perspective, different decisionmaking contexts can be informed by the ES approach (well demonstrated in this Issue by Rosenthal et al 2015), from natural resources management (Badola et al 2015;Greenhalgh & Hart 2015), to water management (Bark et al 2015;Hohenthal et al 2015), agricultural policies (Logsdon et al 2015) and urban planning (Beichler 2015). The Special Issue addresses some common challenges, such as the operationalization of the ES approach at different levels.…”

“…As emerging from the Special Issue, the ES approach can integrate and enrich existing decision-making, unveiling opportunities for more equitable and transparent processes while involving underrepresented community groups (Bark et al 2015;Hohenthal et al 2015;Rosenthal et al 2015) and acquiring different types of knowledge.…”

“…This approach reflects on natural resource management considering not only environmental protection, conservation and restoration per se, but demonstrating benefits and values of nature/ecosystems to human well-being through ES (Badola et al 2015;Beichler 2015;Hohenthal et al 2015). On the other hand, the ES concept can be adopted to inform decision-making as an approach to reformulate the way decisions are formulated, elaborated and taken (Bark et al 2015;Beichler 2015;Greenhalgh & Hart 2015;Logsdon et al 2015;Rosenthal et al 2015). The ES approach is adopted to reshape the various phases of a decision-making process and to inform about new contents (such as relationships between ecosystem functions, ES capacity, flow, benefits and values) relevant for the formulation of decisions.…”

“…The Special Issue addresses some common challenges, such as the operationalization of the ES approach at different levels. Some authors focus on singular stages of the ES assessment experimental design (engagement of stakeholders -Logsdon et al 2015; integrating cultural ES in water planning - Bark et al 2015; mapping cultural ES for vulnerability assessment -Beichler 2015). Rosenthal et al (2015) propose a general reflection on the entire experimental design of ES assessments, while Greenhalgh and Hart (2015) and Badola et al (2015) discuss how policymaking responds in its evolution to the ES concept.…”

“…The contribution of Bark et al (2015) focuses on the operationalization of the ES approach in water planning through the integration of indigenous cultural values in the Murray-Darling basin in Australia. While analyzing and distinguishing between values and benefits, the authors put in evidence that a comprehensive and inclusive definition of cultural values is at stake for an effective integration of ES in decision-making processes.…”