Search

This chapter is a synthesis of the analytical results presented in Chapter 6 . However, the investigation was conducted only on 29 ecosystem services (ES) indicators for which the ecosystem (detailed or Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services [MAES]–derived) was the spatial reference unit. To start with, synthetic assessment matrices were generated, which served as a basis for the majority of further analyses. Rank values obtained through expert and social assessment were compared, where possible. In the next step, the aggregated potential for each ecosystem type was calculated and ES hotspots were identified and then both mapped, separately for each ES section and in total. Next, the interactions among services and similarities among ecosystem types were investigated. Finally, spatial patterns of ES potentials, described in short for each indicator separately in the analytical chapter, were compared with each other and further analyzed using landscape metrics.

This chapter presents the basic assumptions of the most recent version of the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES V5.1), selected as the framework of our research. It has been designed to help measure, account for, and assess ecosystem services. In contrast to many other classification systems, it includes only three main sections (provisioning, regulation and maintenance, and cultural) and relates only to final ecosystem services, which are defined as the contributions that ecosystems make to human well-being. In principle, CICES covers contributions that arise from living processes. However, the latest version (V5.1) includes also the nonliving parts of ecosystems, for example, water, mineral substances, wind, and solar energy. Nevertheless, when framing our research scope, we decided to focus only on biotic ecosystem outputs and we restricted further ecosystem services to those that are provided by animals, plants, and fungi that were formed in the Holocene.

This chapter presents the spatial reference units applied in this study. Four different types of reference unit were distinguished: ecosystem in the narrow sense, Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES)-derived ecosystem, hunting unit, and landscape. When distinguishing ecosystems in the narrow sense account was taken not only of land cover, but also of habitat conditions (fertility and humidity) and forest succession stage. The extended typology of rural postglacial ecosystems, used in expert assessment, includes 35 terrestrial and 7 lake ecosystem types. If the type of data did not give a possibility to estimate the potential of nature for ecosystems, it was calculated for heterogeneous spatial units, covering a number of different ecosystems: 15 hunting units and 91 individual landscape units. In the questionnaire survey aimed at assessing ecosystem potentials from the beneficiary perspective, a simplified ecosystem division was introduced, based on the MAES level 2 typology. Only forests were further divided into the three subtypes.

Identifying the potential of ecosystems to provide ecosystem services (ES) is largely dependent on the detail and completeness of the base ecosystem map. The existing guidelines for the construction of this type of map include only a few basic types of ecosystems that work only at a national or international scale and are insufficient to identify the full potential of ecosystem services at local or regional scales. The aim of the study was to develop a comprehensive map of ecosystem types for mapping ecosystem services at a local and regional scale in three selected communes located within young glacial landscape (NE Poland). As a result, a detailed map of ecosystems has been constructed containing 42 ecosystem types including age and habitat categories. This original map is the first detailed cartographic work that can be successfully used to determine the potential for ecosystem services to be provided by areas analysed in large scales. The proposed approach has a universal character and can be also applied to any area analysed at similar spatial scales.