Regional scale prioritisation for key ecosystem services, renewable energy production and urban development

Regional scale prioritisation for key ecosystem services, renewable energy production and urban development [1]

Although the importance of addressing ecosystem service benefits in regional land use planning and decision-making is evident, substantial practical challenges remain. In particular, methods to identify priority areas for the provision of key ecosystem services and other environmental services (benefits from the environment not directly linked to the function of ecosystems) need to be developed. Priority areas are locations which provide disproportionally high benefits from one or more service. Here we map a set of ecosystem and environmental services and delineate priority areas according to different scenarios. Each scenario is produced by a set of weightings allocated to different services and corresponds to different landscape management strategies which decision makers could undertake. Using the county of Cornwall, U.K., as a case study, we processed gridded maps of key ecosystem services and environmental services, including renewable energy production and urban development.

Publication Date:

24/09/2014

Author(s): Stefano Casalegno [2], Jonathan J. Bennie [3], Richard Inger & et al [4]

Source: PLoS ONE [5]

Tags: