Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services
Topics: Economics, Social benefits,
Regions: Eastern Europe, Greater Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe, Published: 01-01-2010 , ISBN: 978-92-79-29369-6 , Authors: European Union
This discussion paper is a resource document that compiles background information and provides the basis for a common conceptual framework and a toolkit to ensure coherent mapping and assessment across Europe and across scales. This should be considered as a support tool for MS when mapping and assessing their national territory, to identify their national priorities and to make use of the proposed common typology of ecosystems and ecosystem services that allows for consistent aggregation across scales and comparison of results.
Contents:
Section 1 provides information on the policy context within which the MAES initiative is taking place, i.e. the EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy, targets and actions as well as on the governance of the MAES working group. This section is also providing information on related developments in the international context (e.g. Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services - IPBES).
Section 2 identifies the broad set of key policy questions that frames the EU assessment that aims to provide a critical evaluation of the best available information for guiding decisions on complex public issues.
Section 3 proposes a conceptual framework for ecosystem assessments under action 5: The conceptual framework links socio-economic systems with ecosystems via the flow of ecosystem services and through the drivers of change that affect ecosystems either as consequence of using the services or as indirect impacts due to human activities in general.
Section 4 proposes a coherent typology to be used for the different types of broad ecosystems to be considered in the assessment to ensure consistency across Member States. There is a need to agree on which ecosystems and services will be considered in priority by EU and its Member States.
Section 5 addresses the linkages between existing typologies for ecosystem services. The general framework developed by the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) is proposed for the integration of economic values of ecosystem services into accounting and reporting systems at EU and national level. The framework also provides cross-reference with ecosystem services categories used in assessments (e.g. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment - MA, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity – TEEB). This very general framework provides a flexible and hierarchical classification system that can be adapted to specific situation and needs of Member States.
Section 6 summarizes the tasks to be completed and potential sources of information, methods and tools to be used:
I. Biophysical baseline mapping and assessment of the status of major ecosystems;
II. Biophysical baseline mapping and assessment of defined ecosystem services;
III. Alignment of ecosystem service assessments with scenarios of future changes (future outlooks),
developed together with policy makers and stakeholders to ensure their salience and legitimacy and consequently the use of the results in decision making;
IV. Valuation of ecosystem services for baseline and contrasting scenarios and integration into environmental and economic accounting.
Section 7 identifies next steps.