Abstract
Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES) are central to the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020. Action 5 of the Strategy’s second target asks all EU member states to map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territories. Such comprehensive mapping and assessment builds on several individual tasks and their systematic integration. Therefore, an integrated and operational framework is needed, supporting and coordinating these activities. The presented framework builds on existing work done by the European Commission’s MAES Working Group and provides a clear nine-step approach including the identification of relevant questions or themes to be addressed, identification and mapping of ecosystem types, ecosystem condition and ecosystem services, their integration and dissemination of results. This framework can be used to set-up related research and development initiatives and to guide involved scientists, decision-makers and practitioners through the different steps and related tasks of the process.
Highlights
Ecosystem Services (ES) have a high potential for application in policy and decision making (Costanza et al, 2017)
The ecosystem typology for mapping proposed by EEA 2016) provides a framework that can be used as a basis or reference for the identification of ecosystem types for the needs of the European Union (EU) Biodiversity strategy
A classification at third level has, for example, been developed and applied for urban ecosystems in Bulgaria (Nedkov et al 2017). It is based on the National Concept for Spatial Development in Bulgaria and the classes are defined in correspondence with the EUNIS habitat classification*1.Blasi et al 2017) proposed an ecosystem map for the implementation of the EU Biodiversity strategy in Italy which contains 84 ecosystem types
Summary
Ecosystem Services (ES) have a high potential for application in policy and decision making (Costanza et al, 2017). Practical guidance has been provided through a common assessment framework (page 22 in Maes et al 2014) while a selection of indicators has been proposed to map and assess ecosystem condition and ES. This paper enhances the operational guidance of the MAES common assessment framework by providing nine steps which ensure the delivery of an integrated ecosystem assessment at EU and national levels.
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