Exploring the knowledge landscape of ecosystem services assessments in Mediterranean agroecosystems: Insights for future research

Abstract

Abstract Ecosystem service assessment has recently become one of the most important scientific frameworks to address the challenges inherent in environmental management, particularly those in agroecosystem management. Agroecosystems provide important ecosystem services to society including provisioning, regulating, and cultural services. However, the Mediterranean Basin agroecosystems have suffered the effects of two drivers of change, rural abandonment and intensification of agrarian practices, which threaten multifunctional landscapes and erode the capacity to deliver ecosystem services. In this study, we explored the knowledge landscape of ecosystem services research throughout the Mediterranean Basin's agroecosystems through a review of 165 publications. We (1) analyzed the current research state and trends; (2) examined the existing research gaps and biases; and (3) evaluated the associations between factors related to the methodologies employed, the ecosystem services analyzed, and the agroecosystem characteristics. Our results indicated that monetary approaches and provisioning ecosystem services are attracting most of the scientific attention, possibly jeopardizing the regulating and cultural services provided by these ecosystems. Moreover, results suggested that there is a lack of integrated approaches that consider the three dimensions of sustainability, i.e. biophysical, sociocultural and monetary. Most studies did not use primary data or involve stakeholders in the assessments and scarce evidence was available regarding ecosystem services provided under different management alternatives. Finally, specific relationships were detected between the methodologies applied, the ecosystem services assessed and the characteristics of the agroecosystem. We argue these gaps might have potential implications in current scientific and political debates, such as the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and the Common Agricultural Policy reform. We therefore provide recommendations for research and policy-making, agendas.