Cultural Ecosystem Services: A Literature Review and Prospects for Future Research

Andra Ioana Milcu,Joern Fischer,Jan Hanspach,David Abson

doi:10.5751/es-05790-180344

Abstract

Cultural ecosystem services constitute a growing field of research that is characterized by an increasing number of publications from various academic disciplines. We conducted a semiquantitative review of publications explicitly dealing with cultural ecosystem services. Our aims were: (1) to provide an overview of the current state of research, (2) to classify the diversity of research approaches by identifying clusters of publications that address cultural ecosystem services in similar ways, and (3) to highlight some important challenges for the future of cultural ecosystem services research. We reviewed 107 publications and extracted 20 attributes describing their type and content, including methods, scales, drivers of change, and trade-offs between services. Using a cluster analysis on a subset of attributes we identified five groups of publications: Group 1, conceptual focus, deals with theoretical issues; Group 2, descriptive reviews, consists mostly of desktop studies; Group 3, localized outcomes, deals with case studies coming from different disciplines; Group 4, social and participatory, deals mainly with assessing preferences and perceptions; and Group 5, economic assessments, provides economic valuations. Emerging themes in cultural ecosystem services research relate to improving methods for cultural ecosystem services valuation, studying cultural ecosystem services in the context of ecosystem service bundles, and more clearly articulating policy implications. Based on our findings, we conclude that: (1) cultural ecosystem services are well placed as a tool to bridge gaps between different academic disciplines and research communities, (2) capitalizing on the societal relevance of cultural ecosystem services could help address real-world problems, and (3) cultural ecosystem services have the potential to foster new conceptual links between alternative logics relating to a variety of social and ecological issues.

Highlights

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Sarukhán and Whyte 2005) defined cultural ecosystem services as “the nonmaterial benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experiences”
Overview and general patterns The publications included 84 peer-reviewed articles, two Millennium Ecosystem Assessment chapters, four full papers presented at conferences, three book chapters, five PhD and Master theses, three working publications and six reports (Table A1.1, Appendix 1)
Thirty-nine publications acknowledged the existence of cultural ecosystem services in less than 5% of the text, and 42 publications discussed cultural ecosystem services alongside other Millennium Ecosystem Assessment categories in 5 to 25% of the text

Summary

Introduction

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Sarukhán and Whyte 2005) defined cultural ecosystem services as “the nonmaterial benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experiences”. Cultural ecosystem services have been included in many other typologies of ecosystem services and referred to variously as cultural services (Constanza 1997), life-fulfilling functions (Daily 1999), information functions (de Groot et al 2002), amenities and fulfillment (Boyd and Banzhaf 2007), cultural and amenity services (de Groot et al 2010, Kumar 2010), or sociocultural fulfillment (Wallace 2007). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment definition of cultural ecosystem services has been criticized because it does not clearly separate, based on their connectedness to the welfare of human beneficiaries, between the above notions of services, benefits, and values (see Boyd and Banzhaf 2007, Wallace 2007, Chan et al 2012). Cultural ecosystem services are frequently dependent on intermediate ecosystem services (Fisher et al 2009, Johnston and Russell 2011), and cultural benefits derive from final cultural ecosystem services combined with other forms of capital (Chan et al 2011, Constanza et al 2011)

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Conclusion