Use of ecosystem information derived from forest thematic maps for spatial analysis of ecosystem services in northwestern Spain

Abstract

A clear link between ecosystem services (ES) and human well-being has been established in the recent decades. Thus, forests are recognised as extremely important ecosystems in relation to their capacity to provide goods and services to society. Nevertheless, this capacity greatly depends on the type of forest and on the management applied. Some types of data often used for this type of analysis, such as land use/land cover maps produced for general purposes, are not always appropriate for representing forest ecosystems and the services they offer. In this study, we used a forest map (Spanish National Forest Map: scale 1:25,000) and information describing composition and structure to assess six services closely associated with forest ecosystems in a forest-dominated zone of northwestern Spain on a regional scale. The following ES were considered: provision of food (basically fruits), provision of materials (timber and pulp), provision of biomass for energy (firewood), climate regulation (carbon storage by above-ground biomass), erosion regulation (protection against erosion), and cultural (recreational use and nature tourism). By combining information about tree species and cover with forest harvest data and other statistics, we established representative spatial models for the six ES representing different categories of the potential supply of each one. The six models were analysed by different methods (Spearman’s correlation, Moran’s I and Getis-Ord Gi*), enabling detection of hotspots and coldspots and the characteristic spatial scales for ES supply. The combined use of highly detailed map data, nonspatial databases and spatial analysis yielded accurate ES supply assessment.