Ecosystem services, environmental stressors, and decision making: How far have we got?

Abstract

Key Points A joint workshop by the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry and the Ecological Society of America addressed the challenges of mainstreaming ecosystem service approaches into environmental decision making relating to stressor risk assessment and natural resource management. Ecosystem services approaches are compatible with existing environmental policies, regulatory processes and assessment frameworks, and provide a mechanism for integrating across stressor‐specific and environmental media‐specific policies. The lack of postdecision monitoring to evaluate the effectiveness of decision making and to enable adaptive management was highlighted as a particular concern, and the need for a robust test of the hypothesis that applying ecosystem services approaches improves decision making, was identified. Although many of the tools required to enable the application of an ecosystem services framework to risk assessment and natural resource management are available, the limited availability of robust ecological production functions is severely impeding progress and should be addressed.