Assessing and quantifying offered cultural ecosystem services of German river landscapes

authored by: Julia Thiele, Christian Albert, Johannes Hermes, Christina von Haaren
Abstract: River landscapes offer diverse cultural ecosystem services. Providing more information on the quantity that river landscapes provide in terms of offered cultural ecosystem services could contribute to river landscape planning. Offered cultural ecosystem services are ecosystem contribution that may provide benefits to humans. The aim of this study is to apply an indicator framework for spatially assessing offered cultural ecosystem services in German river landscapes. Our indicator framework ‘CulturAl Ecosystem Services of River landscapes’ (CAESaR) quantifies offered cultural ecosystem services at national and local scale, with adapted sets of sub-indicators with regard to the required level of detail and available spatial data. The indicator framework considers opportunities for water-related and non water-related activities, landscape aesthetic quality, and heritage. Our results show that the highly rated river landscape areas have an above-average proportion of river courses and active floodplains. Historical floodplains provide lower offered cultural ecosystem services scores overall. The land cover classes pasture, broad-leaved forest and water courses receive high offered cultural ecosystem services scores, whereas non-irrigated arable land characterizes river landscapes with low indicator scores. We conclude that the proposed indicator framework proved applicable at various scales and can be transferred to cases with a similar context.
Organisation(s): Institute of Environmental Planning
External Organisation(s): Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Type: Article
Journal: Ecosystem Services
Volume: 42
ISSN: 2212-0416
Publication date: 04.2020
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Geography, Planning and Development, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous), Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Global and Planetary Change, Ecology
Research Area (based on ÖFOS 2012): Nature conservation
Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 15 - Life on Land, SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101080 (Access: Closed)