Abstract
The seeming dichotomy between the protection of biodiversity and the supply of ecosystem services (ESs) represents an outstanding field of research that requires a structured and detailed analysis. The paper analyzes and discusses the role of ESs within spatial planning and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) procedures through the content analysis methodology and a logical framework (LF) implemented into the SEA of municipal masterplans (MMPs). We discuss the role of ESs as factors that improve the effectiveness of SEA-based processes related to management plans (MPs) of sites that belong to the Sardinian Natura 2000 Network with reference to their positive impacts on environmental quality. The empirical outcomes put in evidence the inconsistencies between MMPs and MPs in terms of sustainability-oriented objectives and potential losses of the ESs productive output due to measures adopted by the MPs in order to protect habitats and species. The scant attention paid to ESs in the operational context of MMPs, MPs and SEA reports, particularly as regards their regulative framework, entails that the issue of the protection of ESs has to be carefully taken into account within the process of the definition and establishment of MPs through an SEA report that integrates the MPs and MMPs LFs.
Highlights
Ecosystems and ecosystem services (ESs) are commonly-used terms in the international scientific and political debate [1]
Our study investigates the role of ESs within spatial planning and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) procedures by means of content analysis and an logical framework (LF)-related approach
We put in evidence that the consistency between management plans (MPs) and municipal masterplans (MMPs) should be based on the implementation of the SEA procedure into the MMPs/MPs process
Summary
Ecosystems and ecosystem services (ESs) are commonly-used terms in the international scientific and political debate [1]. Thereafter, the category of ES has become very important for ecologists and environmental economists, as source of the supply of common or public goods and services whose values need an analytical assessment in the context of the definition, application and evaluation of public policies. From this perspective, Daily [3] defines ESs as conditions and processes that support human life through the supply of goods, and Costanza et al [4] argue that ESs may be considered as the direct and indirect benefits that human populations derive from goods and services supplied by the natural environment. Afterwards, publications addressing the issue of ESs have largely increased [7], and in this context, the question of the potential inconsistency between environmental conservation and economic development can be identified as a central point within the international debate [2]
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