Abstract
Mapping the spatial distribution of ecosystem goods and services represents a burgeoning field of research, although how different services covary with one another remains poorly understood. This is particularly true for the covariation of supporting, provisioning and regulating services with cultural services (the non-material benefits people gain from nature). This is largely because of challenges associated with the spatially specific quantification of cultural ecosystem services. We propose an innovative approach for evaluating a cultural service, the perceived aesthetic value of ecosystems, by quantifying geo-tagged digital photographs uploaded to social media resources. Our analysis proceeds from the premise that images will be captured by greater numbers of people in areas that are more highly valued for their aesthetic attributes. This approach was applied in Cornwall, UK, to carry out a spatial analysis of the covariation between ecosystem services: soil carbon stocks, agricultural production, and aesthetic value. Our findings suggest that online geo-tagged images provide an effective metric for mapping a key component of cultural ecosystem services. They also highlight the non-stationarity in the spatial relationships between patterns of ecosystem services.
Highlights
Key to the successful maintenance and management of environmental resources is an understanding of their spatial distribution
Hotspots of aesthetic value (35 of 3,843 grid cells; Figure 2) were all located in coastal areas: seven were in coastal towns, 17 close to sparsely populated settlements (,3000 inhabitants), and 11 in unpopulated areas
There was a negative correlation between population density and aesthetic value (CRH correlation = 20.56, n = 55, p-value,0,001)
Summary
Key to the successful maintenance and management of environmental resources is an understanding of their spatial distribution. Recognition of the significance of, and threats to, ecosystem services (the benefits that humans gain from ecosystems), has been associated with growth in attempts to map their patterns of variation and covariation [1,2,3,4]. Of the four main categories of services (supporting, provisioning, regulating and cultural [5]), this is true of cultural services: the nonmaterial benefits people gain from ecosystems (including aesthetic, recreational and spiritual benefits). Most studies have tended to focus on provisioning and regulating services, rather than cultural ones [6,7]. Whilst there has been substantial improvement in understanding of the fundamental importance of cultural services, their effective integration into the application of ecosystem service frameworks has been limited by the challenges of quantifying, valuing and mapping them [8]
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