TY - JOUR

T1 - Assessing and quantifying offered cultural ecosystem services of German river landscapes

AU - Thiele, Julia

AU - Albert, Christian

AU - Hermes, Johannes

AU - von Haaren, Christina

N1 - Funding Information: The project "River Ecosystem Service Index" (RESI) was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the funding measure ReWaM in the BMBF funding priority NaWaM in the programme FONA 3 [Grant 033W024A-K]. Funding Information: We thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions and our coordinator Simone Podschun for the energetic organization of spatial data. We also thank Zo? Vercelli and Bartlett Warren-Kretzschmar for supporting us linguistically. The project ?River Ecosystem Service Index? (RESI) was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the funding measure ReWaM in the BMBF funding priority NaWaM in the programme FONA3 [Grant 033W024A-K].

PY - 2020/4

Y1 - 2020/4

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Cultural ecosystem services

KW - Indicator development

KW - River landscape planning

KW - River landscapes

KW - Spatial modeling

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85080957094&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101080

DO - 10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101080

M3 - Article

VL - 42

JO - Ecosystem Services

JF - Ecosystem Services

SN - 2212-0416

M1 - 101080

ER -