This working group focuses on the advancement of scientific understanding of approaches and effects of ecosystem services science integration in planning and governance. It contributes to the development and improvement of specific tools for ecosystem based planning and management. It works closely with the ESP TWGs Indicators, Mapping and Modeling on approaches for spatially describing ecosystem services information in ways useful for decision making. And it will collaborate with the ESP Service Team Case studies and Showcases on the actual application in practice.
We are currently engaged in a number of exciting conferences and joint projects as listed below. We are always interested in new ideas and initiatives and kindly invite you to contact us with any suggestions.
Ongoing activities
“Special Issue Project on ‘Developing and Applying Ecosystem Services Indicators in Decision-Support'”
A TWG 9 co-sponsored special issue project has been started in October 2013 with the Journal Ecological Indicators. This special issue focusses on Developing and Applying Ecosystem Services Indicators in Decision-Support. The deadline for abstract proposals is closed. Please click on the link above for more details. In case you have any questions, feel free to contact Jennifer Hauck or Christian Albert.
Past activities and outputs
Report on the session “Cultural Ecosystem Services: Bridging Natural, Social and Planning Sciences”
The report was created in pursuance of the 20th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management (ISSRM), Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany, June 2014.
Special Issue published in Landscape Ecology on ‘Integrating Ecosystem Services in Landscape Planning””
Despite growing knowledge of ecosystem services (ES), and heightened awareness of their political and socio-economic relevance, mainstreaming and implementing ES in landscape planning and decision-making are still in their infancy. The objective of a new special issue in Landscape Ecology, edited by Christian Albert, James Aronson, Christine Fürst and Paul Opdam, was to explore requirements for, approaches to, and potential impacts of, integrating ES in landscape planning and management. The issue includes three key research themes: (i) Requirements and interests of planners and decision-makers for integrating ES in different application contexts, (ii) Approaches to applying ES in (participatory) planning, and (iii) Potential impacts of integrating ES in policy and decision-making.
For more information, please click on the link above.
Joint workshop on Indication, Integration and Application of Ecosystem Services in Decision Making
The Working Group “Ecosystem Services” of the International Association for Landscape Ecology, German section (IALE – D), the Thematic Working Groups “Ecosystem Service Indicators” and “Application of Ecosystem Services in Planning and Management” of the Ecosystem Service Partnership (ESP), and the Task Force Group “Ecosystem Service Cascade” (ESP) jointly organized a workshop on “Indication, Integration and Application of Ecosystem Services in Decision Making” at the University of Kiel (Germany) from May 6th to May 8th, 2013.
Information on the results of this workshop, as well as planned follow up activites, can be found on this webpage.
Also the Cascade Task Force of TWG 1 “ES Assessment Frameworks & Typologies” has shared the results of their part of the workshop on their webpage
ESP conference outputs
- 2019 ESP10 world Conference: Assessing effects of landscape structure on ecosystem services for landscape planning and management: Striking a balance between level of detail and feasibility Book of abstracts, Presentations
- 2019 ESP10 world Conference: Ecosystem services and drivers of change Book of abstracts, Presentations
- 2019 ESP10 world Conference: Biodiversity and ecosystem service offsets using spatial nature compensation measures Book of abstracts
- 2018 Middle East & N.Africa ESP Conference: Ecosystem services supply-demand gaps in MENA region Book of Abstracts, Presentations
- 2018 Latin America ESP Conference: Land Use Changes, Supporting and Regulating Ecosystem Services Book of Abstracts, Presentations
- 2018 Asia ESP Conference: Human-Wildlife conflicts & coexistence: Implementing Ecosystem (dis)Services for sustainable management Book of Abstracts, Presentations
- 2018 Asia ESP Conference: Endorsing Nature and Community based Solutions for healthy and resilient natural and modified ecosystems in S. Asia Book of Abstracts
- 2018 Europe ESP Conference: Bottlenecks and opportunities for applying ecosystem services in spatial planning Book of Abstracts, Presentations
- 2018 Europe ESP Conference: Ecosystem services and adaptation to global change Book of Abstracts
- 2018 Europe ESP Conference: Ways of embedding the concept of ecosystem services into decision making processes for better agricultural land management Book of Abstracts, Presentations
- 2017 ESP9 world Conference China: Ecosystem Services assessments and trade-offs. Methods and indicators for spatial planning Book of Abstracts, Presentations
- 2016 African ESP conference: Enhancing ecosystem services by managing soil for water Book of abstracts, Presentations
- 2016 Latin America ESP conference: Scenarios: a tool for planning and governance of biodiversity and ecosystem services Book of abstracts, Presentations
- 2016 European ESP conference: Ecosystem services & Landscape planning Book of abstracts, Presentations
- 2015 ESP world conference: Ecosystem services to connect spatial planning and impact assessment approaches Book of abstracts, Presentations
- 6th ESP Conference “Making Ecosystem Services Count” August 26-30, Bali, Indonesia.
Session No. 12 addressed the theme of “Taking Stock: Learning from Successes and Failures in Applying Ecosystem Services in Planning and Management”. The session aimed at sharing practical experiences from applying ES in planning and management at the landscape scale. The objective was to further understanding of how ES information can be integrated in planning and decision-making, and how its impact can be enhanced. Several members of this working group were engaged in organizing and presenting this session. The results of this session shall be published as a joint paper in an international journal. If you are interested in this project, please contact Christian Albert.
Joint organization of the conference “REGIORESOURCES 21 – A cross-disciplinary dialogue on sustainable development of regional resources”, September 18-20, 2013, University of Catania, Italy. - The 2013 conference was organized jointly by Global Land Project and the European Land-use Institute as European Nodal Office of the GLP together with the Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP), working group 9, Application of Ecosystem Services in Planning, Management and Restoration. The conference addressed four key questions:How to improve the introduction of ecosystem services into planning? How to make use of the ecosystem services concept in planning practice at different scales (from urban to landscape)? How to bring these approaches together in an integrative land-use planning framework? How to foster ES concept for planning authorities and decision makers? A nice summary of the conference results can be found at the IUFRO webpage.