TY - JOUR
T1 - Sociocultural valuation of ecosystem services for operational ecosystem management
T2 - mapping applications by decision contexts in Europe
AU - Walz, Ariane
AU - Schmidt, Katja
AU - Ruiz-Frau, Ana
AU - Nicholas, Kimberly A.
AU - Bierry, Adéline
AU - de Vries Lentsch, Aster
AU - Dyankov, Apostol
AU - Joyce, Deirdre
AU - Liski, Anja H.
AU - Marbà, Nuria
AU - Rosário, Ines T.
AU - Scholte, Samantha S.K.
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - Sociocultural valuation (SCV) of ecosystem services (ES) discloses the principles, importance or preferences expressed by people towards nature. Although ES research has increasingly addressed sociocultural values in past years, little effort has been made to systematically review the components of sociocultural valuation applications for different decision contexts (i.e. awareness raising, accounting, priority setting, litigation and instrument design). In this analysis, we investigate the characteristics of 48 different sociocultural valuation applications—characterised by unique combinations of decision context, methods, data collection formats and participants—across ten European case studies. Our findings show that raising awareness for the sociocultural value of ES by capturing people’s perspective and establishing the status quo, was found the most frequent decision context in case studies, followed by priority setting and instrument development. Accounting and litigation issues were not addressed in any of the applications. We reveal that applications for particular decision contexts are methodologically similar, and that decision contexts determine the choice of methods, data collection formats and participants involved. Therefore, we conclude that understanding the decision context is a critical first step to designing and carrying out fit-for-purpose sociocultural valuation of ES in operational ecosystem management.
AB - Sociocultural valuation (SCV) of ecosystem services (ES) discloses the principles, importance or preferences expressed by people towards nature. Although ES research has increasingly addressed sociocultural values in past years, little effort has been made to systematically review the components of sociocultural valuation applications for different decision contexts (i.e. awareness raising, accounting, priority setting, litigation and instrument design). In this analysis, we investigate the characteristics of 48 different sociocultural valuation applications—characterised by unique combinations of decision context, methods, data collection formats and participants—across ten European case studies. Our findings show that raising awareness for the sociocultural value of ES by capturing people’s perspective and establishing the status quo, was found the most frequent decision context in case studies, followed by priority setting and instrument development. Accounting and litigation issues were not addressed in any of the applications. We reveal that applications for particular decision contexts are methodologically similar, and that decision contexts determine the choice of methods, data collection formats and participants involved. Therefore, we conclude that understanding the decision context is a critical first step to designing and carrying out fit-for-purpose sociocultural valuation of ES in operational ecosystem management.
KW - Ecosystem services
KW - Local-to-regional scale
KW - Operational use
KW - Sociocultural valuation
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U2 - 10.1007/s10113-019-01506-7
DO - 10.1007/s10113-019-01506-7
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85068177860
SN - 1436-3798
VL - 19
SP - 2245
EP - 2259
JO - Regional Environmental Change
JF - Regional Environmental Change
IS - 8
ER -