Spatial Covariance between Aesthetic Value & Other Ecosystem Services

Abstract

Mapping the spatial distribution of ecosystem goods and services represents a burgeoning field of research, although how different services covary with one another remains poorly understood. This is particularly true for the covariation of supporting, provisioning and regulating services with cultural services (the non-material benefits people gain from nature). This is largely because of challenges associated with the spatially specific quantification of cultural ecosystem services. We propose an innovative approach for evaluating a cultural service, the perceived aesthetic value of ecosystems, by quantifying geo-tagged digital photographs uploaded to social media resources. Our analysis proceeds from the premise that images will be captured by greater numbers of people in areas that are more highly valued for their aesthetic attributes. This approach was applied in Cornwall, UK, to carry out a spatial analysis of the covariation between ecosystem services: soil carbon stocks, agricultural production, and aesthetic value. Our findings suggest that online geo-tagged images provide an effective metric for mapping a key component of cultural ecosystem services. They also highlight the non-stationarity in the spatial relationships between patterns of ecosystem services.

Using crowdsourced imagery to detect cultural ecosystem services: a case study in South Wales, UK

“…In contrast to Kisilevich et al's (2010) study, which focused on temporal patterns, we examined spatial patterns. After a preliminary analysis of data, we decided to focus on the number of users (as did Girardin et al 2008, Kisilevich et al 2010, Casalegno et al 2013, rather than the numbers of pictures (as did Antoniou et al 2010, Richards and Freiss 2015, and Tenerelli et al 2016. Some individuals share many pictures of an area in relation to a specific interest that is not related to the natural environment; therefore, an approach based on the density of pictures can be misleading in drawing conclusions.…”

“…Casalegno et al (2013) attempted the detection of CES at a landscape level through the density of contributors to a photo-sharing website. They analyzed the relevance of Panoramio (http://www.panoramio.com) pictures to evaluate the aesthetic value of landscapes in Cornwall, UK.…”

“…Urban centrality was the target of another qualitative evaluation based on the density of pictures shared online (Hollenstein and Purves 2010). http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol21/iss3/art6/ Casalegno et al (2013), Richards and Friess (2015), and Tenerelli et al (2016) made the only attempts at explicitly targeting the detection of CES through a photo-sharing application. We therefore conclude that there is a rising number of studies that use photo-sharing applications to detect spatial preferences.…”

Historical and contemporary cultural ecosystem service values in the rapidly urbanizing city state of Singapore

“…com) for the names of four mangrove sites in Singapore: ''Sungei Buloh,'' ''Chek Jawa,'' ''Berlayer Creek,'' and ''Pasir Ris mangrove.'' The volume of photographs as a proxy of visitation rates has previously been used as an indicator of cultural ecosystem service values generally (Wood et al 2013;Casalegno et al 2013), though recent studies have begun to use Flickr to determine types of cultural ecosystem services that are valued by the user (Richards and Friess 2015). In this study the cultural ecosystem services that were represented by each photograph were inferred, using the same method and seven categories used by the archival photographs above (''Analysis of past and presentday cultural ecosystem services'' section; Table 2; Fig.…”

Comparing digital traces of modern travellers to journeys of two 18th-19th century British poets

“…The connection between highly-photographed places (the number of unique users taking a picture at each location) and the attractiveness of places is used in several studies (e.g., Casalegno et al 2013;Girardin et al 2008). One way to explore the reasons for this attractiveness is to analyse the underlying semantics captured by tags.…”