A European assessment of the provision of ecosystem services - Towards an atlas of ecosystem services

Until recently, biodiversity policies were essentially driven by conservation of rare and endangered habitats and species. Although substantial efforts have been undertaken to protect nature, the 2010 target of stopping the loss of biodiversity has not been met. New policies at global and European level have therefore complemented conservation based biodiversity targets using the argument of ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are the benefits people receive from nature. So far, data for mapping such services are strongly biased towards provisioning services such as food and timber production while spatial information of so called regulating and cultural ecosystem services is, largely lacking. This report summarizes the key data needed for mapping ecosystem services at a European scale and presented a first set of maps showing the capacity of ecosystems to provide services.JRC.DDG.H.5-Rural, water and ecosystem resource

Multimedia Assessment of Pollutant Pathways in the Environment, European Scale Model (MAPPE-EUROPE)

The report documents the structure, functions and algorithms used for the modeling of pollutant pathways in air, soil sediments and surface and sea water at the European continental scale. The algorithms are implemented in an extension for ESRI ArcGIS 9.2 a popular geographic information system (GIS) software widely used within the European Commission and in the research, environmental assessment, planning communities. The software is called MAPPE after Multimedia Assessment of Pollutant Pathways in Environment of Europe; the acronym is also the Italian word to denote maps. The purpose of the software is to provide a user-friendly way to convey the wealth of geographic data available to model the fluxes and concentrations of chemical pollutants emitted by industrial activities and other point emissions, and widespread use within households, urban environments or agriculture. The intended use is for organic contaminants such as pesticides, pharmaceuticals, VOCs, and other industrial chemicals. The output of the model, i.e. maps of concentration and chemical fluxes, can be used for the screening of hot spots at continental scale, the assessment of risk for human health and ecosystems, the evaluation of policies and scenarios with reference to the ¿big picture¿ of the continental scale. However this does not avoid the need to use more detailed, site specific assessment procedures for single problems, but provides a tool for decision support in contexts such as the management of priority substances of concern for soil, water and air quality, the control of effects of environmental pollution on human health and ecosystems, and the sustainable management of agro-chemicals, etc. by making available a geographic representation available of the consequences of emissions to air, soil and water compartments.JRC.DDG.H.5-Rural, water and ecosystem resource

Mapping and assessment of urban ecosystems and their services

Mapping and assessing ecosystems and their services is one of the key actions of the EU biodiversity strategy to 2020. In 2013 the MAES working group promoted six thematic pilots (focused on conservation status data, natural capital accounting and the main Europe’s ecosystems). In 2015 the MAES working group launched a new pilot on urban ecosystems. The thematic pilot on urban ecosystems has been structured in two phases, the first focuses on information collection and the second on the provision of systematic protocol for a spatially explicit assessment of ecosystems and their services in urban environment. This report presents the results the Pilot on Urban Ecosystems with an analysis of the outcomes of a survey and a literature review that were carried on between June and November of 2015. The survey was set up with the purpose of understanding the type of information that cities are currently applying in order to better incorporate Urban Green Infrastructure (UGI) and ecosystem services in decision making. The literature review was carried out to incorporate information on the research activity related to green infrastructure; conservation / biodiversity and ecosystem services in urban areas.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

Ecosystem services accounts: Valuing the actual flow of nature-based recreation from ecosystems to people

Natural capital accounting aims to measure changes in the stock of natural assets (i.e., soil, air, water and all living things) and to integrate the value of ecosystem services into accounting systems that will contribute to better ecosystems management. This study develops ecosystem services accounts at the European Union level, using nature-based recreation as a case study and following the current international accounting framework: System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EEA). We adapt and integrate different biophysical and socio-economic models, illustrating the workflow necessary for ecosystem services accounts: from a biophysical assessment of nature-based recreation to an economic valuation and compilation of the accounting tables. The biophysical assessment of nature-based recreation is based on spatially explicit models for assessing different components of ecosystem services: potential, demand and actual flow. Deriving maps of ecosystem service potential and demand is a key step in quantifying the actual flow of the service used, which is determined by the spatial relationship (i.e., proximity in the case of nature-based recreation) between service potential and demand. The nature-based recreation accounts for 2012 show an actual flow of 40 million potential visits to ‘high-quality areas for daily recreation’, with a total value of EUR 50 billion. This constitutes an important contribution of ecosystems to people's lives that has increased by 26% since 2000. Practical examples of ecosystem services accounts, as shown in this study, are required to derive recommendations and further develop the conceptual and methodological framework proposed by the SEEA EEA. This paper highlights the importance of using spatially explicit models for ecosystem services accounts. Mapping the different components of ecosystem services allows proper identification of the drivers of changes in the actual service flow derived from ecosystems, socio-economic systems and/or their spatial relationship. This will contribute to achieving one of the main goals of ecosystem accounts, namely measuring changes in natural capital, but it will also support decision-making that targets the enhancement of ecosystems, their services and the benefits they provide

Ecosystem services sustainability in the Mediterranean Sea: assessment of status and trends using multiple modelling approaches

14 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables, supplementary information https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep34162Mediterranean ecosystems support important processes and functions that bring direct benefits to human society. Yet, marine ecosystem services are usually overlooked due to the challenges in identifying and quantifying them. This paper proposes the application of several biophysical and ecosystem modelling approaches to assess spatially and temporally the sustainable use and supply of selected marine ecosystem services. Such services include food provision, water purification, coastal protection, lifecycle maintenance and recreation, focusing on the Mediterranean region. Overall, our study found a higher number of decreasing than increasing trends in the natural capacity of the ecosystems to provide marine and coastal services, while in contrast the opposite was observed to be true for the realised flow of services to humans. Such a study paves the way towards an effective support for Blue Growth and the European maritime policies, although little attention is paid to the quantification of marine ecosystem services in this context. We identify a key challenge of integrating biophysical and socio-economic models as a necessary step to further this researchPeer Reviewe

ESTIMAP: Ecosystem services mapping at European scale

Mapping, visualization and the access to suitable data as a means to facilitate the dialogue among scientists, policy makers and the general public are among the most challenging issues within current ecosystem service science and application. Recently the attention on spatially explicit ways to map ecosystem services, at local, regional and global scale is increasing. This report presents ESTIMAP: a suite of models for a spatially explicit assessment of three ecosystem services (recreation, pollination and coastal protection) at continental scale. The main objective of the models is to support EU policies with information on ecosystem services.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

Coupling spatial pollination supply models with local demand mapping to support collaborative management of ecosystem services

UID/AMB/04085/2019 UIDB/04085/2020Mapping of ecosystem services (ES) is a powerful tool for communication and knowledge sharing about the implications of ecosystem management practices for human wellbeing. This research aimed to show the usefulness of ES mapping for decision-making by combining modelling of ES supply with ES demand mapping in a participatory process with the engagement of relevant stakeholders. We used the ESTIMAP-pollination model to map wild bee abundance and pollination supply in the Sudoeste Alentejano and Costa Vicentina Natural Park (PNSACV) in Portugal. The model was modified by adding a behavioural component that distributes pollinator visits according to floral availability. Balancing pollination supply with crop dependency levels allowed visualising potential areas of satisfied and unsatisfied demand and testing the effectiveness of ecosystem management interventions. The discussion of these results in two participatory workshops triggered the first collective debate about pollination in the PNSACV. This engagement enabled the development of a shared understanding about this ES and highlighted the role of ES maps as tools to support collaborative natural resources management.publishersversionpublishe