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ESRP approach to using final ecosystem services
Citation:
RINGOLD, P. L., A. M. NAHLIK, M. WEBER, D. H. LANDERS, M. E. KENTULA, AND T. H. DEWITT. ESRP approach to using final ecosystem services. Presented at A Conference on Ecosystem Services II, Phoenix, AZ, December 06 - 09, 2010.
Impact/Purpose:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has developed the ecosystem Services Research Program (ESRP) as one of its major research efforts
Description:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has developed the ecosystem Services Research Program (ESRP) as one of its major research efforts. The goal of this program is to create “A comprehensive theory and practice for quantifying ecosystem services so that their value and their relationship to human well-being can be consistently incorporated into environmental decision making.” This goal requires that the ESRP program quantify ecosystem services in a manner that links ecosystems to human well-being. In pursuit of this quantification ESRP has supported a focused effort to identify practical indicators that can provide support for these linkages. In pursuit of this goal we have adopted the premises of Boyd and Banzhaf (2007) and the views embodied in the concepts of final ecosystem goods and services they developed. This focused effort has been built around workshops that identified metrics of final goods and services for streams, wetlands and for estuaries. The approach taken at these workshops was to identify a range of beneficiaries of each of these aquatic ecosystems. For each beneficiary we went through a series of thought experiments asking – How do these ecosystems directly affect the well-being of individuals in this group of beneficiaries, and what biophysical features, quantities and qualities require little further translation to make clear their relevance to human well being? Results from these workshops have been provided in workshop reports. Continuing efforts will focus on evaluating these metrics for practical use among ecologists working in ESRP and elsewhere and translating the metrics for each beneficiary into indicators of potential final ecosystem services. The success of our continuing effort will be manifest in the testing and eventual adoption of these metrics and indicators in national and regional monitoring, modeling, and mapping programs and improved linkages between natural and social scientists.